I'll spare you the gore.
I'm not in the slightest sad/frustrated/guilty/whatever about that warp; my time is the resource in short supply around here, so trying another warp was the quickest way of straightening this all out.
Since I wanted to try another warp, I wanted yarns that were thicker than the 2/10 Merino/Tencel, so I'd have fewer ends for a scarf and winding/sleying/threading/tying-on would go quicker. Somehow, two yarns that have been in my knitting yarn stash for several years came to mind. They were thicker ... but rather definitely not sedate.
Yes, that really is mostly bright pink. The pink is Hand Maiden Ottawa in the Dragonfly colorway (gee, I can't imagine why I was attracted to this). It's a single, 92% wool, 8% rayon. Despite being a single, this yarn behaved like a champ in the warp - just one end broke, at a spot where it wasn't twisted enough. The darker yarn is Cherry Tree Hill Oceania in the Quarry Hill colorway, which is a wool boucle with a strand of Lurex running through it. This also behaved perfectly in the warp.
So, I wound off the 100 ends needed for a scarf last night, and this morning I dressed the loom. Both yarns were about 18 wpi, so I figured that an ordinary tabby sett of 10 epi would be convenient, since I have a 10-dent reed.
Once again, I was trying to weave a honeycomb variation from the March/April 2009 issue of Handwoven, an article by Rosalie Neilson using a draft from Peter Collingwood. The article gives two treadlings; I used the Ovals treadling. This honeycomb variant creates areas of plain weave (where the warp is crammed), alternating in a checkerboard fashion with areas where weft floats are enclosed by warp floats (where the warp is spaced).
Attempt #1:
The solid red yarn is just to space the warp. It's hard to see with all the yarn texture and colors going on, but there were long weft floats NOT enclosed by the warp. Poop.
Attempt #2, wherein I remembered that harness #3 as seen from the back of the loom as I was threading is harness #2 as seen from the front, and I retie up the treadles (the pattern calls for every other pick to be just harness #3):
Still with the unwanted floats. Grr.
I thought. I stared. I checked for errata (nope). I pulled up harnesses till I got the warp ends to do what I wanted - and lo!
See how there are spots where long warp floats go over the weft? That's what it's supposed to look like. Success!
I started making real progress:
A few hours (and a long walk and dinner) later, it's off the loom!
I am inordinately pleased with myself. In fact, the draft in Handwoven is wrong. Essentially, the treadling in the article says this: 1+3, 3, 1+3, repeat (that's not quite correct, but close enough for my point). What I had to treadle to weave cloth that looks like the photos and doesn't have long weft floats was this: 1+3, 2+3, 1+3. Apparently, a 2 was missing in the tie-up block of the draft.
I am also quite, quite pleased with the scarf. It's nicely wooly, with a complexity of color and texture that I really like. I might have to revamp my wardrobe entirely to accommodate this sparkly, bright pink scarf!
I've still got to twist the fringe and wash it, which should allow the floats to move around even more than they already are, and I'll post a photo of that as well.
Have I mentioned I love weaving?
Only once or twice!
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