I Feel Another Summer & Winter Warp Coming

While thinking about colors, and having more trouble than I expected in telling you about the navy warp, I took a break and looked at Pinterest, and lo and behold, I saw one of my old, forgotten cotton pieces lower down the selection. This piece wasn't Summer & Winter, but still with a mishmash of colors. It got me thinking, I would really like to weave a Wagamama Summer & Winter piece on the  big loom.

 

I often thought it would be fun to weave a wide warp, 50cm, 55-ish if I'm brave, with random selection of colors for both warp and weft, random pattern threading, and a dozen or three files with different pattern treadling/lifting, anywhere from, say, 40 to 100 picks, and choose files as I weave.

 

Looking back at the colors I mixed in Wagamama warps, I had: 

The blue/purple/orange warp for my Pics to Picks challenge of 2010 where the colors were to reflect what I saw in a photograph. I wish I still had this piece, but it went to Santa Fe as soon as I finished it. 

This second warp I made as soon as I finished the first one in 2010, but didn't weave until ten years later. I wanted a predominantly purple warp, but knew that if I used only purples, blues and pinks, it would lack interest. Yellows and oranges stood out, and dark teal was as green was I went. I liked the purple-ness but late Win Currie didn't; she thought it looked stripey. I think it's how the light-valued yarns were distributed, on a comparatively regular interval in this, whereas in the first, I had areas of light values, (blue and yellow,) but only one skinny yellow ribbon on the right.  

Next was Sunflower last year, where of course I was aiming for the colors of sunflowers, those I knew and those painted by van Gogh, but woven in Wagamama style. After much experimenting, I finished one piece, but there is warp for another.

Then there was the unnamed project sample warp, again, last year, which never became a proper piece. It was about misinformation/disinformation and intensity of confusion and anger around politics, including Covid, so I used a lot of reds and oranges; a little facile in retrospect, I know, but I was more interested in the texture and shapes with this project, again, woven in Wagamama fashion. 

 

Unlike warps for the tiny sample loom, 50-55cm width will allow more play. I weave these at 42EPI, so 20 inches will allow me 840 ends,  924 if I can tolerate weaving 22 inch width. Which is not impossible if we devise a foot stool so I can weave standing up... 

 

I'm very excited, on the one hand, but am wracking my brain trying to recall what I was thinking or how I made that first warp. I love the proportion, combination of colors, their placements, just about everything, but I don't know if I can recreate something this sophisticated in looks and unintended, (as much as I can remember,) in... intent. For the next warp, I imagined something like purple to orange on the color wheel, and would have added yellows or yellow-greens, but never thought of pale blue if I didn't study these photos. I actually groaned last night, because I impressed myself, but honestly don't know if I can do it again.

 

"Wagamama" is "self-centered" or "willful" in Japanese. I do enjoy the freedom of this approach.