Blue

and red, and green, and...

I may be the laziest warper ever. And the most untidy stash-owner. (Actually no, but I never can be bothered to put a sticker with colour and lot number on an opened yarn package, when it goes back into the cupboard.)
However - this results in more interesting cloth... IMO, of course :-)

All pictures in this post can be clicked for bigger versions.



This is a picture of 4 message shawls. (In the picture, the warp goes vertically.)

If I use a warping mill, I rarely use less than 4 ends. If I warp sectionally, for the above quality, I have 30 ends per sedcion - and I collect all yarns that "look good" together, hoping to avoid having to make new spools.
I often also use yarns of different (but similar) grists.
I rarely use an end-per-end cross. This results in a random threading, colourwise.

As I then use different weft yarns for all items woven on the same warp, I can get a collection of truly different (but similar) products. And: I can never reproduce any of them exactly, as I don't know which yarns I used in the warp.

Some more examples:


Three neck warmers - same warp, different wefts. Differential shrinkage.



Four double-weave scarves (warp goes horizontally)


Often, but not always, I use only one weft colour per item. (I'm a lazy weaver, too.)


This scarf was a "plan B" rescue of the warp from h*ll. I had been given lots of black cotton, warped for shawl width: mostly black, with purple stripes. (At lest 3 nuances of purple...) When winding on, I found the black breaking too much. I cut off the the black, but continued winding on the purple - which took it down to scarf width.
Some of the scarves got different purple wefts, some got two or three colours.
My favourite method for "grading" colours is a "tried and true system", described here.

If I want a V-shawl to look (be?) "solid colour", but still have some sort of colour interest, one trick is to use one colour one in one of the warps, colour two in the other. If then woven with "opposite" colours (colour two in warp one, colour one in warp two), the whole shawl has the same look (IS the same) - except the fringes:




Sometimes, if I feel extra patient, I plan where the different colours will fall in the weave:



The waffle structure needs harder work, though: warp AND weft in different colours, with the weft order as meticulous as the warp order. (reverse side at right)