Fast work

[norsegirl]

I was asked by Inga on Wednesday to make a gift for the current crown princess for when she comes to our area in November. I was asked specifically to make a woven belt incorporating blue, yellow, black and white (her colours). Thursday night I warped it and wove a few inches to make sure I didn't hate it. Tonight got it all finished and off the loom. I love quick projects. The loom was provided very kindly by rectangularcat and was made by her husband landsknecht_po and I love it.

Designing weaving with any more than three colours is tricky, in fact two is ideal. It's a bit busy but I think I am overall pleased with the result. The final belt is 1 1/2 inches wide by 2.5m long. Yes, I love mixing measuring units, and that was a little longer than I was aiming for, but she can cut off the excess. I am especially pleased with the blue, a brilliant shade that just came out recently and that I had never used before. Unfortunately it doesn't photograph well. The yellow was an end-of lot that someone kindly picked up for me back home and I had been saving for a special occasion (the yellow currently available is so pale as to be almost unrecognizable as yellow). It's just a mix of your standard crochet cottons anyway.

Comments

Re: very pretty

[eve-the-just.livejournal.com]

Regarding why it's busy, I'm thinking of it using heraldic logic. The old how busy are your arms question. How many colours (in this case 4) how many charges (or patterns, in this case the central chain, the ladder or horizontal lines on either side of that and the vertical stripes on the edge, making three) and that total (7) gives you the number of elements in your heraldry. Anything over 5 (I think it was) is considered "busy". I like to translate this idea across to other design projects. In this case, I could have gone with fewer elements (either all ladders or all vertical stripes or all chains) or I could have gone with fewer colours (though that was right out in the original request). So I think in wanting to use every trick in my inkle weaving book I may have over-complicated it. I'm happy with how it turned out, though I was a little worried when I first started working it up. It's just more busy than anything I would wear. I prefer not to have anything that takes too much attention away from my beads ;)