Here is another project I finished this spring.  Two scarves woven on a hand painted warp in orange and yellow.  Where the two colours overlapped, a beautiful coral emerged.  The warp was painted in a workshop with the lovely Liz Moncrief.

This warp reminded me of a big bowl of oranges and lemons.

As I was weaving this the old nursery rhyme / skipping rope song rang through my head.  It refers to the bells of several churches ringing out:

Oranges and Lemons say the bells of St. Clements

You owe me five farthings said the bells of St. Martins

When will you pay me said the bells of Old Bailey

When I grow rich said the bells of Shoreditch

And so on . . .

As a child, I remember jumping rope to this song, the beat of the skipping rope keeping rhythm.  As children we played with little regard for the history we were learning with our games, and this song has a dark second verse, which if you are interested in, you can look up.

Nevertheless, weaving to me is music, and this is the rhythm of these pieces.

When I made the warp, I added some plain Coral Flame silk to the painted silk warp, and wove the first scarf with the same coral as weft.  Woven in an eight-shaft turned twill.  It shines like a summer day.

Like the song’s second verse, the second scarf is darker.  I used a dark red, Favourite Wine, and punctuated that with Black Magic.  I love how different this scarf looks from the first one.  All materials for warp and weft are 2/20 silk available from Jane Stafford Textiles.