{"id":1760,"date":"2010-11-27T22:15:59","date_gmt":"2010-11-28T03:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/?p=1760"},"modified":"2011-01-25T07:43:40","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T12:43:40","slug":"weaving-with-organic-cotton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/2010\/11\/weaving-with-organic-cotton\/","title":{"rendered":"Weaving with Organic Cotton"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve tried making handwoven scarves with organic cotton before, and wasn’t happy with the results. I know now that some of that was due to my (lack of) weaving skills, that I wasn’t using the colorgrown organic cotton to its best advantage. I also know that some of it was simply the materials, and the fact that they weren’t the most suitable fiber for my planned finished product.<\/p>\n

So when I got an email from a woman with multiple chemical sensitivities who wanted me to weave her an organic cotton scarf, I was a bit apprehensive. I didn’t think the colorgrown cotton would be soft & warm, no matter what weave structure I used. But then I had a brainstorm!
\n\"bulky<\/a>
\nHiding in a box (out of sight, out of mind) was a lovely bulky organic cotton I’d purchased at least 18 months ago. That would make a wonderfully warm scarf! You can see the different in yarn size in this picture — the colorgrown cotton looks like sewing thread in comparison to the bulky cotton. <\/p>\n

I had two colors of bulky organic cotton – pecan and a creamy white. I had no idea how the cotton had been dyed, I mailed samples to my potential customer to see if it would work next to her skin. We were both very happy that it was fine.<\/p>\n

Next up was determining weave structure. Since cold weather was coming, she wanted something as soon as possible. Because I was really busy, I wanted something that fit into my schedule. I met both criteria by deciding to use the organic cotton on my rigid heddle loom to demonstrate weaving at the next show. I didn’t want to do log cabin, stripes, or a plaid, so I suggested a simple houndstooth pattern, which was fine with the woman. I was really happy with the results — the scarf was thick, warm, and soft, providing a great balance between being flexible enough to make it easy to wear and being substantial enough to keep her neck warm. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the scarf before I mailed it out to her, but here’s the weave pattern.
\n\"organic<\/a>
\nIt’s a very simple plain weave, with great effect. In fact, I used the same weave pattern on my rigid heddle within a few weeks with the lovely alpaca<\/a>. So what is it? Two strand of white, alternated with two strands of pecan, in both warp and weft, woven in a simple plain weave. The end result looks much more complex, at least to my eye. I used a 6.5 DPI (dents per inch) heddle for the bulky organic cotton, and an 11.5 DPI heddle for the much<\/em> finer alpaca.<\/p>\n

The woman liked the scarf well enough that she wanted me to make her a hat. Well, I don’t have the skill to weave something that would easily make a hat, so I suggested knitting her one, instead. She agreed. I wasn’t particularly happy with the results of the hat – not very elegant, but it would keep her head warm.
\n\"organic<\/a><\/p>\n

Stay tuned to see what I’ve subsequently woven with that bulky organic cotton.<\/p>\n

Your turn: I have a bunch of yarn I’d love to use, so this Your Turn is completely self-serving. Have you ever used colorgrown organic cotton? What were your successful projects with it? <\/p>\n

Hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving, spending it just as you wished to.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve tried making handwoven scarves with organic cotton before, and wasn’t happy with the results. I know now that some of that was due to my (lack of) weaving skills, that I wasn’t using the colorgrown organic cotton to its best advantage. I also know that some of it was simply the materials, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[190,407],"class_list":["post-1760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weaving","tag-organic-cotton","tag-rigid-heddle","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2120,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions\/2120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondwindjewelry.com\/jewelry-weaving-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}