Jack Frost Bookmarks

Well, as it turned out I wasn’t all that satisfied with the huck lace snowflake bookmarks. The variegation in the color made it difficult to see the pattern distinctly, and the shade of blue didn’t help either. This was ironic because I had been extremely happy with the yarn when I dyed it. It’s a nice dark blue, which is not easy to get with woad on cellulose. But it’s a bit too dark for effective lace, it seems. Not enough reflectivity, perhaps.

Here are a couple images of a snowflake motif in woad blue 40/2 linen.

woad-dyed snowflake in huck lace

woad snowflake oblique angle I wove a few with the same 40/2 linen weft as I used for the warp, then wove a few with a 20/2 commercially dyed light blue cotton weft. The commercially dyed weft showed the snowflake motifs a little more distinctly, but it still wasn’t what I had envisioned.

So, I re-threaded the warp with a fancy twill snowflake motif, planning to use half-bleached undyed 40/2 linen in the weft. I thought dark blue with white would give a nice icy effect. Alas, these, too, are a bit too subtle to be successful. Sigh.

Jack Frost bookmark 1

Jack Frost close up

Jack Frost close up

If I think of them as “Jack Frost” instead of “Snowflake” I feel happier. Matthew pointed out that they would look better with a border to frame the motifs. As they are, it is hard to know where to focus your eye.

It’s almost a cliche in weaving that one ought to “sample, sample, sample,” meaning that you should test out your colors, yarns, sett, etc. on a small sample before you commit to a large project. At 79 ends, these bookmarks aren’t exactly large, so it doesn’t take a long time to re-thread. It seems silly to “sample” on something so small. But it is disappointing to feel unsuccessful with something I imagined would be beautiful. Twice!

I have enough warp left for probably 5 more bookmarks and am currently stumped as to how to proceed.