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On Weaving…and not

I did some weaving in the last two weeks, but not for this week. Why not? I have a brand new grandson!! My first grandchild, and very exciting. I don’t have any pix of him yet (he & his parents will be arriving home today), so I’ll show you some of what I wove before I came up to help out.

I started with three scarves of 20/2 undyed silk.
handwoven silk scarves, eggshell

I set them up for a complex diamond twill on my counterbalance loom at 24 ends per inch, and wove the first one (on the left). It was challenging to see the pattern while it was on the loom, so I used a much simpler treadling for the second scarf (middle). You can easily see the diamond twill.

Since I hadn’t worked with the silk before, and you can’t ever tell how soft a scarf while be while it’s still under all the tension of the loom, I was afraid that the scarves would be stiffer than what I wanted, so I cut those two scarves off and totally rethreaded both heddles and reed. I threaded the harnesses for huck lace blocks, and sett the reed at 18 ends per inch, which is the number of threads per inch I used when I wove the huck lace blocks in cotton, cashmere-silk, and tencel. I wove the third eggshell scarf (on the right), then cut them all off, twisted the fringe, and wet finished the scarves.

I was quite surprised. After the wet finishing and pressing, the twill scarves are much softer and have a better drape than the huck blocks. Despite the fact that the huck scarves are sett further (fewer threads per inch). It’s all that plain weave between the lace blocks.

I’m gonna go do some straightening up before the new parents & baby arrive home. More handwoven silk scarves tomorrow.

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