Yesterday I got this on the loom and I'm ready to check that the threading is okay. I had a devil of a time getting this onto the loom (note the short ends of knots sticking up) because the fuzzy Merino glommed onto itself and caused tangles. Since the warp is crammed in some places (5/dent), I fear that trying to get a clear shed will be more of a trial than it's worth. In that case, you know what I'll do? That's right, I shall cut this off - all eight bucks worth of yarn - and chuck it. Then, I'll try some other yarn. I've already learned a lot about what this yarn will and will not do, about how this weave structure threading works (it's honeycomb), and about how nice symmetrical stripes Just Won't Do.
After this Secret Project, there are a number of possibilities I could follow. Here's one of them. Last year, I spun about three pounds of various fibers - four colorways of Abstract Fibers Polwarth, some Briar Rose BFL, and some Rovings Polwarth - into two-ply heavy laceweight (about 2o00-2400 ypp).
The photo above shows all the the yarns. The Abstract Fibers are balled-up, the Briar Rose is the lighter purple, and the Rovings is the darker purple. What I want to do with some subset of these yarns is weave about 8 yards of warp-faced plain-weave and make myself a jacket from this pattern:
Ignore the detritus around the pattern; that's just where the pattern happened to be. Now, I have no fear of sewing clothing (even a lined jacket like this one), but I want the thing to fit, so I'm going to sew up a "muslin" first. That is (in case either of you doesn't know what a muslin is), I'm going to take some random fabric of about the right weight and baste together at least the outer shell of the jacket. Then, I shall go visit my dear friend Brenda the seamstress and I'll ask her to help me adjust the fit. After all that, I'll have a pretty good idea of exactly how big I'll need the finished handwoven cloth to be and I can make some real calculations.
In the meantime, I want to make some yarn wrappings to see how these yarns will or will not work together. Because these are three different fibers (OK, the Rovings and the Abstract Fiber are both Polwarth, but they felt different), I don't think I can get away with wide stripes of a single yarn, because when the cloth is washed after weaving, the different yarns will shrink differently and I might end up with seersucker. I'm not hoping for seersucker, so I think I'll need to use thin stripes, or single yarns thoroughly intermixed.
Now, I love the hard acid green of the second ball of Abstract Fibers against the dark purples and blues, but I think it swears at the namby-pamby sweetness of the paler blues of the fourth ball of Abstract Fiber, so I'm inclined to drop out that paler blue, like so:
In the meantime, I want to make some yarn wrappings to see how these yarns will or will not work together. Because these are three different fibers (OK, the Rovings and the Abstract Fiber are both Polwarth, but they felt different), I don't think I can get away with wide stripes of a single yarn, because when the cloth is washed after weaving, the different yarns will shrink differently and I might end up with seersucker. I'm not hoping for seersucker, so I think I'll need to use thin stripes, or single yarns thoroughly intermixed.
Now, I love the hard acid green of the second ball of Abstract Fibers against the dark purples and blues, but I think it swears at the namby-pamby sweetness of the paler blues of the fourth ball of Abstract Fiber, so I'm inclined to drop out that paler blue, like so:
Of course, then the paler purple of all those Briar Rose in the upper left looks washed out, so maybe I should over-dye that (and therefore WHY did I spend all that money on the Briar Rose??). Anyhow, I think choices among this motley crew become clearer to me once I've wound a few yarn wrappings. What do you think?
Honestly? I want to see the blue come back. Also? I think it might look really good as a mixed warp. Hold all the threads together while warping and then just thread randomly. Or, if you have enough, alternate grey/color/grey/color/grey/color. I wouldn't want to see lots of stripes, but a random color pattern might be really good. And I think the light blue really livens up the purple more than that yellow. But that's me.
ReplyDeleteWhat about weft? Thoughts on that and the color? I think a light blue, maybe an icy blue would be good. Similar in contrast to the yellow. Oh, and the jacket looks excellent. :-)
I'm definitely going to try a mixed warp, at least as a wrapping. I've got lots of yarn, so I'll make several wrappings, possibly this weekend.
DeleteAs for weft, this will be warp-faced, so the weft won't show worth mentioning. I may use a very dark brown BFL fleece that I spun quite badly early on in my spinning life; it's perfectly sound, it's just not pretty, so it would be perfect for an invisible weft. I'll make my final choice when I can calculate the weight of the final warp, so I can have that much weft. That will be overkill, but better than running out.
I'm with you. The pale blue is too weak in that arrangement. But if you wanted to use it (thinking stripes) I think you could use it as an inclusion (as it were) stripe inside one of the colours it does work with, such as the grey or massed purples at back. Seems to me that would isolate it sufficiently from the green.
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