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I’ve wound several strands of different colors on my warping mill for my next run of 3 scarves. Includes some handpainted (not by me) bamboo-cotton blend, cotton, and tencel. I really like the way they look on the mill.
And a different view, with them chained and bundled on the floor.
Wonder which one – if either – will turn out to look like the finished scarves?
I’m weaving with 20/2 mercerized cotton, doubled, in a sort of light sienna. Same tie up as scarf #2, simple point twill treadling. For the second scarf on this multi-colored warp, I made a few changes. Because I didn’t like the ‘sharpness’ of the color transition on the right side of the piece, I traded out 3 warp threads. Only 3 threads. Then I changed the tie up and treadling to an advancing twill. Then I changed the weft color to the soft green I mentioned in the last post.
Would you ever have imagined this was the same warp as the scarf shown in the last post? I wouldn’t! Although the weaving pattern doesn’t show up, I’m really fine with that. This scarf is far closer to what I had in mind when I thought about this piece. Now I’m happy to sit at the loom, instead of having to force myself. I haven’t kept track of how many times I’ve started this warp over and I didn’t take pictures, but I THINK I can remember them all. Here’s the history. At the Weavers’ Guild Holiday Sale – the 2018 one – I purchased several hand dyed cotton mini-skeins, ranging from 130 yards to 480 yards. The yarn was all a beautiful 10/2 cotton and the colors looked great together. I finally got to them a few weeks ago. Here are some bits of the skeins, with some duplication.
I set up the swift near my warping mill and started winding a warp for three scarves directly from my swift, one skein at a time. I got about 2/3 of the way through the colors when I realized that I didn’t like the way the warp would look – totally striped and not good. I walked away and slept on it. The next morning I felt the same, so I began unwinding the warp. Just as unweaving is much slower than weaving, unwinding is much slower than winding. Each color had to be wound into a ball as I went. Once that was accomplished, I started over with the winding, but this time I held 3 strands of yarn together, winding them at the same time. As one color ran out I replaced it with another. Now I was happy, so I beamed the warp.
I threaded the loom for a 6H point twill with tabby selvedges and sett the warp at 24 EPI (ends per inch). I had a lovely brown 10/2 cotton for the weft and wove only about an inch before realizing there was a problem. The plain weave selvedges had a much different take-up than the twill center and had to be sett wider. So I unwove, untied the edges, and sett the plain weave selvedges at 20 EPI. I wove about an inch again and saw that this still wasn’t working as planned. Again I unwove and untied those edges. This time I also re-threaded those selvedges to be the same 6H point twill. I wove that first inch for the third time, now realizing that I wasn’t getting the overall look I wanted. The color of the weft was a bit overpowering. I loved the subtlety of the warp colors. I wanted a more warp-dominant look. You can see the unweaving coming again, right? This time I re-sett the warp at 28 EPI, hoping that was close enough for the warp to shine. Wove an inch of straight treadling again. Wanted to see still more warp, so decided I’d do some leno to show it off. Tried 2-2 and took it out. Tried 3-3 and took it out. Tried 6-6 – yeah that was the right scale. But going from twill to leno and back to twill was problemmatic. So I tried some basket weave after. That seemed better, so I had to take out the basket weave and the leno, put in a few rows of basket weave, and re-do the leno. Did I want just one row of leno or two? Wove about 1/2″ of twill with point treadling, put in a few more picks of basket weave, and another row of leno. A few more picks of basket weave and another inch of twill with straight treadling. Then I had to walk away for the night and come back and look at it later. Not happy. Not happy at all. It all needed to come out. But instead of unweaving I decided I’d just cut it all out. Still time consuming, but not as bad as unweaving. As I was doing so I realized that I was having tension issues, with one side of the warp much tighter than the other. So instead of re-tying to fix this issue, I decided to switch to lashing on. Finally I’m moving forward. I have about 25″ woven. Here’s the top…
…and the bottom, which I prefer.
The overall look is still not exactly what I had in mind. I’ve auditioned a few other wefts, and will definitely try a soft green for scarf #2, but I don’t think I’ll be starting over (re-threading or re-setting) again. Then again, who knows? That silk warp that I dyed, shown in the last post, was definitely much more pink than I intended. No idea what happened to the purple. Although I was inspired by the Honey Pie photo I showed, the pink in mine had me change the name to Honey & Berries. Still I liked it well enough, so beamed it and started weaving. I used draft 22076 from Handweaving.net. After auditioning a few different weft colors, I set off with a tan-ish color that I’m calling cafe latte. It worked well with all the warp colors, creating a more subtle overall look.
Next, in keeping with my ‘must-use-stash’ mantra, I went to the shelf where I had a few small cones of very fine cashmere-silk blend – roughly 9,000 yards per pound. I knew from experience that I couldn’t use this as warp, so weft it would be. I used double strands of this yarn, and at 4,500 yards per pound it was still thinner than the 20/2 silk. First I used a natural weft. Definitely toned everything down, but in a way I liked.
Back to that shelf of cashmere & silk, I chose black for the third scarf. As it always does, the black both popped the colors and darkened the overall look.
I usually have a definite favorite when I weave 3 pieces with different wefts. This time it’s a toss up for me between the natural and the black. After I finished weaving with the black I had more warp left than I usually do, more than I wanted to just cut off and toss. So I used 2 strands of undyed 30/2 silk for the weft. This made the fabric a bit stiffer, and while I was weaving I could see this as a back yoke for a yet-to-be-planned garment. I’m not sure this will ever happen. Maybe it’ll turn into something else, maybe it will simply hang around and not get a ‘purpose.’
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