Joseph Shawl (In Progress)

A couple of weeks ago I was looking at the Knitter’s Mercantile‘s Blog and saw an entry about a knit-along where they made a “Bermuda Shawl/Scarf“.  Seeing the twisty-curvy bands of colour inspired me to see if I could do something like this woven as a tapestry.  I figured I could attempt to do a loom-shaped triangle where the triangle would advance across the loom as I wove.  Rather than try to deal with the vagaries of a straight diagonal selvage, I decided to go with a stepped selvage, advancing and decreasing the width of the weaving every inch (or so).  I wanted it to drape fairly well, so I didn’t try to make it a weft-facing weave.

I warped my rigid heddle loom, gathered a bunch of colorful yarns, made butterflies, and set to work.

I’m finding that I’m not ending up with quite as curvy/long lengths as I’d been inspired — I’m not sure how well that would work with weaving in this manner.

Here you can see it in progress; I’m over halfway finished.

This has been an interesting project; it’s not turned out quite like I’d envisioned, but I also have not been very strict — I’ve let myself play and that’s been pretty freeing — no pattern, just the interplay of texture, colour, and shape.