Bluebird Design Is Done

At last! I've been "procrastinating" this design for almost two weeks as I finished up the white cloth. Partly, I couldn't wrap my head around how to design with so many colors.

Finally, it's come down to the wire. It's going to take several days to ply the threads for the next warp, so I needed that design done today. I tried a new approach and it worked!

Since I'll be plying the threads like I did on the last beam, I decided to test out some plied gradients. I think a simple gradient from darkest to lightest will work well. Since I am plying and can add a single strand of random color here and there, I'll do that. This effect worked very well for the white, so I'm sure it'll work just as well for the blue.

I have a friend helping me with this beam. He's winding cones while I modify my equipment in preparation for winding this next beam. In order to do that, we've had to label all the shades of blue so we can talk about them and be clear what we're talking about.

Next to the plying station, I set up a shelf of sample cones, each labelled with its color name. Along with facilitating clear communication, this little sample shelf is nice to look at.