Quirky Cashmere Scarf, by Meg Nakagawa

I am interested in creating and bringing to life weave structures and once I settle on a structure, I stick with it for years. I see colors as a weakness of mine. My mother, who started to weave when she was 60, is a far more adventurous, eclectic, and a faster weaver, trying her hands on anything from tapestry to heavy floor rugs to tiny scarves, in all kinds of natural fibers, in all colors on the color wheel.

I was home in Japan this January. In her studio, we showed-and-told of our latest pieces, and discussed our goals of the year. We realized, then, in all these years of being obsessed by weaving, sharing knowledge, and sending each other photos and books and yarns, we never collaborated.

So we put on a warp for two small scarves with "early spring" in mind. While gossiping about my siblings, we wound the warp together, changing colors randomly. In this, my, scarf, we added and subtracted extra colors of warp as accents as we progressed. It is in plain weave with a gray weft. My mother is currently weaving hers with a thicker, hand-dyed moss green weft in 2/2 twill. All yarns are 100% cashmere.

I had so much fun working with her that after I took the scarf off the loom I wanted to be more playful than I usually allow myself, so instead of hiding the ends of the supplementary warp smartly, I made them into design features.


by Meg Nakagawa