Scarf #2 and #3

I was given the opportunity to stay on the looms between the last hand in and before out next allocated time on the looms. This warp was created using quick decision making. Although I liked the fact that my previous scarf was very much female, I wanted to challenge myself into creating a warp that could be aimed towards both male and female targets by using a different colour and weave structures. I doubled up the ends per inch from 16 to 32, giving the scarves a much denser, heavy duty, winter feel. I could see myself wearing both of these scarves!

Dashing Tweeds

Through some research I came to the conclusion that blond, simple shapes and weave structures lend themselves to menswear. Although Dashing tweeds fabric swatches are mainly used for suiting, the menswear designs are a great way for me to delve deeper into the area. My warp was threaded over two blocks, I used a twill weave structure for the mens scarf, and reversed it on the opposite block giving me very large chevrons. This was something that I had devloped earlier on in the practice unit, many of the weave structures I had used were a variation of the twill.


INSPIRATION

As a starting point I was looking at the way that colours are changed over time in the sky. These were two of my favourite photographs from my collection, and I quite literally took the navy and the grey out of each photograph for the menswear design. The beetroot stripes through the warp were used as a grid like structure to break up the dark dull palette. I wanted to completely contrast this with a bright and bold colour for the womenswear scarf so recreated the beetroot colour from the stripes in the warp in the dye lap to dip dye the second half of the warp. To make the betroot coloured scarf more feminine I used four different weave structures over the two blocks, creating a patchwork like pattern across the scarf and repeated this all along.

(Koen Lybaert)

(Melissa Ryder)

I am very happy with the colours of the two scarves, they compliment each other, and although the two scarves are from the same warp they create different dramas due to the colours used. The simplicity of the scarves make them easy to wear, and although I designed one for men and the other for women, they could both move between the gender boarders into the other, depending on the client.