A colour gamp is a weaving project where you make a progression of colour stripes in the warp and match those stripes in the weft. It lets you see how various colours will interact with one another, in a woven design. They are often done just as an exercise for weavers to learn about colours in weaving, but they are so beautiful that I decided to use the idea for a scarf, instead.
The original scarf design was from Handwoven magazine, May/June 2009. It was done in a heavier yarn, made of alpaca, and used only two colours: ivory for the circles and brown for the borders. I wasn't very impressed with it, to be honest, and wondered if there was any way to make it more attractive. Colour is the obvious answer, and I thought that if I dressed it up in rainbow shades, it could be quite lovely. I decided to use Knit Picks Palette, since it comes in so many colours and is inexpensive and feltable. Of course, choosing a new yarn changed the sett and required me to do a lot of math to reconfigure the whole thing.
I showed you a close-up of the fabric on the loom, last time. I did finish weaving the scarf the next day, and twisted all the fringe the day after that. After some serious hand-washing and hand-fulling, I laid it flat to dry and ended up with a nice light warm wool scarf. I have been wearing it, which is why it looks somewhat wrinkly in the photos. I enjoyed weaving this scarf, and actually considered doing more of them in different colour themes: maybe shades of pink and orange or blues and greens...
It's the first time I have tried using all 8 shafts on my loom for a project. Fortunately it wasn't very complex, and I managed it without much difficulty. I think I might even try another 8-shaft project before going back to some simpler projects I have planned. Stay tuned.
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