Leaf Motif: Spring Yarn Color Choices

 Now that the sampling is done for Winter Leaves, the weaving itself is fairly monotonous. I did indulge in an inexpensive MP3 player, to listen to downloaded books from my county library and librevox.org. The treadling pattern is fairly simple, so by combining the two activities, I have a very pleasant evening pastime. 

With weaving underway, it's time to start thinking about the colors of the next season - spring. Both spring and summer leaves are green. So I have to ponder how to make the two weavings—Spring Leaves and Summer Leaves—distinctive. I want people to look at them and get which is which, rather than wonder which is which? 

So I've been collecting greens. I've taken quite a few photographs, and posted them as color studies on my photography journal:

• spring greens
• early summer greens

I plan to do another one on late summer greens as well. 

From these, I've observed that, in general, new leaves in spring are a fresher, lighter, brighter green. Early summer leaves are turning darker; still bright, but not as light in value and hue. There are exceptions to this, of course, but for my purposes, I need color ranges that will enable a viewer to easily distinguish which is spring and which is summer. 

For Spring Leaves, here are my color options

The darker green on the left is 6/2 cotton and would be my weft. The five lighter greens on the right are all 8/2s and would be for my random color order warp. My Winter Leaves warp has four warp colors; here I'm looking at five choices. My original thought was to choose four and tie them onto the winter warp, following the same color changes. Right now, I can't decide which four to choose. Maybe use all five? I can't make up my mind!

There's plenty of time to decide, however, as weaving Winter Leaves will likely take awhile. 

Leaf Motif: Spring Yarn Color Choices

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Winter Leaves: Sample #4 (The Winner?)

 This one is actually the backside of sample #2, which I discovered with a mirror when I was examining sample #3. 

Could be leaves. Could be feathers!

It required a little tweaking; I 

1. Retied my treadles the opposite of what they were before (very easy to do with my new lamm-top treadle tie-up system.) This put the back of the fabric on the top.
2. Reversed the treadling order to give the leaves a "right side up" appearance.

I'm quite happy with this sample. I like that the white weft outlines the leaves and ribs of the leaf, even though perhaps the white makes it harder to make out the leaves. 

I'm wondering if a darker color would outline the leaves better, although I like the white because it's the color of snow. The other option would be darker warp colors, but then muted is the color of winter as well. I do like that the random winter color palette for the warp is much more prominent than in the other samples. This is more the look I was wanting from the beginning.

I'm definitely happy with Sample #4. Onward!

Winter Leaves: Sample #4 (The Winner?)

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Winter Leaves: Sample #3

 Woven with a lighter weight weft.

Warp: 8/2 cottons in four colors

Weft: 8/2 cotton in white

Sett: 20 e.p.i.

PPI: 28

Initially, I thought the pattern might be less pronounced with the same weight weft as warp. But I think it works nicely.

Out of curiosity, I grabbed a hand mirror to take a peek at the underside. 

Sample #3 on top, sample #2 (heavier weft) on bottom.

And if I turn the photo upside down?

Flipped, sample #2 is on the top and #3 is on the bottom.

I think I may have found my leaves. 

Winter Leaves: Sample #3 © 2026

by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Winter Leaves: Sample #2

Sample #2

Yarns are cotton.

Warp is in 8/2s.

Weft is 6/2.

Sett is 20 e.p.i.

The difference between this sample and the first one is the beat. Sample #1 was beat with an open shed, sample #2 with a closed shed. I'm experimenting because with my table loom, the open shed beat makes for a better structure. On this loom, the opposite is true. Every loom is different. 

Picks per inch here is 28.

The warp colors blend nicely to a wintry leaf brown. Closeup, the 4 warp colors can be picked out.

Combined with the white weft I think it works well for winter leaves.

I like the pattern but I still have the same question - does it look like leaves?

Winter Leaves: Sample #2 © 2026

by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Winter Leaves: Sample #1

Four inches of my first leaf motif color scheme (winter) woven. I'm experimenting with the beat and the rhythm of the treadling.  On my my table loom, I beat the weft shot with an open shed because it looks better. For this sample, beating with the shed open gave me 13 picks per inch 

I can kind of see leaves. Maybe they are upside down? I'll try a firmer beat next.

Yarns are cotton.

Warp is in 8/2s.

Weft is 6/2.

Sett is 20 e.p.i.

Winter Leaves: Sample #1 © 2026

by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

At Last

 Threaded, tensioned, and header woven! I'm finally ready to test weft yarns.

At Last © 2026 by Leigh

at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Leaf Motif: A Different Draft

 So, my original leaf motif draft didn't work. But before giving up on leaves altogether, I did some hunting around to see if there was anything out there that would work. Here's what I eventually found.

Eva Stossel's Networked Weaving Draft 2

I originally found it on Pinterest, but with no link or credit to the designer. The uploaded image was small anyway, so I kept hunting and eventually found the source. It has everything I'm looking for:

• leaf motif (so I can keep my idea of seasonally colored leaves)
• 8-shaft point twill threading (which I'm already threaded for)
• 8 treadles (I have 10, so that leaves 2 for tabby)
• treadles single shafts only (!)

My only concern (besides whether or not it would actually work) was the 5-end floats. But I figured I'll give it a try and see what I thought. 

Leaf Motif: A Different Draft  

© 2026  by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Leaf Motif Draft and Tim's Treadle Reducer

So, the treadling for my leaf motif draft looks a bit complicated.

Not one I'll be able to memorize! Is it possible to simplify this? That's where Tim's Treadle Reducer comes in handy. It takes the tie-up of complicated treadling patterns, analyzes it, and offers a simpler way to tie up the treadles which should simplify the treadling sequence.  

Here are my results:

They're exactly the same! LOL! That tells me that the original treadling sequence was way more complicated and that what the draft offers is a skeleton tie-up for the draft. Even so, I'll need a way to keep track of where I am in the sequence.

Onward. 

Leaf Motif Draft and Tim's Treadle Reducer 

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Leaf Motif Random Color Warp is on the Loom!

 Good grief, I never thought getting a warp on the loom would be noteworthy on a project, but I've had so much trouble with this warp that I'm celebrating that it's finally accomplished!

What took so long? Besides not having unlimited amounts of time for weaving anymore, I made so many threading mistakes! Threaded the heddles, checked the threading and found mistakes, corrected the mistakes, checked again, and then found new mistakes! What's annoying is that it's not a complicated threading pattern: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - repeat. I can't believe I had so many errors. And I wasn't even listening to a book while I did it. 

And then there were the tangles. What a mess. Changing the color for every warp end to create a random color warp was a disaster. I picked up a different color yarn for each new end which meant there was a lot of crossing over on the first and last pegs on my warping board. I think this was the major reason for the tangles. I've never had so many tangles! In fact, I'm a little surprised that I didn't give up and throw the whole thing away. Perhaps it was the unwelcome idea of having to start the warp again from scratch that was the deterrent. My random color idea didn't work the first time, so likely it wouldn't work a second time either. I just started thinking of it as a puzzle to solve.

Ironically, the very project I hoped would be a relaxing distraction from the several stressors in my life, became a stressor itself. Anyway, it's on the loom! Yay!

Next is tying up the treadles. I'm trying a new system here, and if it works as well as promised, I'll be ready to actually start weaving soon!

Leaf Motif Random Color Warp is on the Loom! 

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Random Stripe Project Idea: Season Themed Dishtowels

 After my successful experiment in random stripes, I started to think about how to apply random stripes. An 8-shaft leaf draft I found floating around the internet gave me an idea.

Even with its complicated treadling, the leaf motif is perfect for an "inspired by nature" project. My idea is to make four sets of season themed dishtowels, using different colors to represent the seasons. 

• The weft forms the shape of the leaf. I can use one representative color for each season. That will make for easier weaving, since I won't have to keep track of and change weft colors.
• The warp colors color the leaf. Here's where I'm thinking about the random stripes. If I choose a variety of yarns in seasonal leaf colors, I can give the leaves some personality, i.e. they won't all be exactly the same. At least not horizontally.

So that's the idea I'm working on at the moment. As soon as I finish painting the ceiling in our newly remodeled front room, I'll be able to get to work dressing the loom. 

Random Stripe Project Idea: Season Themed Dishtowels 

© 2026 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal