A nearby house has been abandoned since before I moved into our neighborhood but lately someone mowed its lawn. Curiosity won the day – I went to look inside and, oh my! It took me back to my childhood and those imaginings about the results of an atomic war. Would this be what things would look like? This poor house deserved better – in this case, weather and time worked to create a haunting picture with plants growing where people once sat and looked out at a beautiful Sound view. I have no idea what has caused this desolation and I am pretty sure the house is a tear-down since you can put your hand through the exterior walls. Still, the flowers on the floor were a pretty vivid picture of the decay that no doubt exists throughout and perhaps that old television is what sent me a funky atomic age vibe.

Pattern Inspiration

Tencel/Silk scarf

The pattern I started from appeared in an article found by a friend of mine. She wove it beautifully, brought it to our group, and I immediately fell in love. It reminded me of some great wallpaper I had found on line at one of my favorite design sites – Spoonflower.com. (You can search this site for any number of styles – I used “atomic age” to find this one.) The pattern itself is based on a summer-winter structure and I expanded it from 8 to 10 shafts. My first design took scarf form – tencel and silk set at 20 ends per inch. Although there is a pattern design, while you weave this pattern you can riff on the treadling and create different shapes within each block. Two extra shafts allowed me to have additional interior blocks. As I wove, I would look at the block and decide: two more throws of block 3? Four throws for block 4? Maybe retreat back to block 2? Improv on 10 shafts. When completed, the tencel/silk had a wonderful hand and felt great when I wore it. I threw some fun beading into the fringe – a much easier technique than weaving in the beads and a perfect amount of bling.

A big part of the original pattern was the play of the light and dark (black and dark teal in the scarf), but I wanted to play with color a little more. For my dishtowels, I used some bright colors from vintage tablecloths as my palette. My atomic age colors are true red, teals and aquas, and a clear yellow in 8/2 cotton and cotolin sett at 20 ends per inch. (This is a little looser than normal for the warp material, but I like a softer/looser weave for a dishtowel.) To go with the bold stripes, I played with all sorts of weft colors, digging through my stash for every color of 8/2 cotton I owned – what fun! The results were indeed colorful. The perfect thing for a summer picnic, don’t you agree?