Finally Underway

After lots of interruptions and other projects, the production fabric is finally on the loom and underway. I wanted to try weaving something nearly full-width on the Gilmore, mainly to get a feel for what it's like to throw a shuttle that far. I needed to do some rigging to get a wider raddle in to place, but here's the process:

I put all the sectional warp pegs back in and, again, used no packing material as I wound on. The warp is a mix of 10/2 and 20/2 cotton along with an end of 10/1 silk noil (as previous). I held all six strands together while winding the warp and threaded randomly. Oh, and Lynn? 864 ends is a lot of ends. A lot. The warp is 36" wide and 24 epi. This was slow going.

Weaving is underway; I've got about the first 9" done. It feels very open, but I remember that it was like this before and I simply can't fret about it. The cotton shrinks mightily and that'll make the Spot Bronson pop. I like the shots of somewhat darker stripes. I hope it translates well to the final garment, but we'll see.

Now, for those with a sharp eye, you might ask, "What's that dark stuff down there?" That, my friends, is the header row. Again with the tweedy wool single of which I have TONS. Here ... look again ...

I gotta say, I *really* like the look of that fabric. Depending on how much I'm able to weave off, I'll try and save some at the end to get a big enough chunk to truly evaluate it. I think that'll be back. It'd be trivial to warp up something narrow and just bang that off in plain weave. The contrast is just so striking. But that's for later.

Here's hoping I can make a big dent in this today as I don't know when I'll get back to it. Lots more rolling about in my brain. I'm hoping throwing a shuttle will help quiet things down.

It Rained

And therefore the scarf is done.  Well, it's off the loom, at least; fringe-twisting can wait till next week.

I like this.



I hope it softens up a little when I wash it, but it's got a great texture now.  As I was weaving it last night, I was thinking to myself, "Remember to press this after it's washed and before it's completely dry, as Sara said." but now that it's off the loom, the twill is very three-dimensional and I like that, so I think I won't press it.  The warp stands up in bold relief from the weft.  Interesting, as I thought the strong-minded Wensleydale weft would lord it over the BFL warp.  I was wrong.

A couple of close-ups:






I debated trying other wefts, but found myself dawdling over the choices and finally decided to just plunge ahead and weave this off. As always, I wish I were a better photographer, so I could show you the subtle differences in gleam between the BFL and the Wensleydale, and how the green-to-blue of the weft does interesting things to the green-violet-pink of the warp.

And I'm very pleased with how well the handspun yarns held up - not a broken end to be seen!

Another step forward

Still thinking about how to wind stripes for the wool warp, in between various other mostly work-related tasks.


To refresh your memory, the colour options:

I ruled out the blue ('teal') in favour of the burgundy. Yesterday a patch of lighter skies coincided with lunch; after I cut the grass, I wound my first-ever wraps to investigate how these stripes might work. Based on the premise that I'm not fond of wide stripes, I decided to work logically and think of the 15" warp as 10x1.5" repeats. So each wrap is 1.5". I worked out colour proportions based on how much yarn I have and how much I like the colours. Lots of dark purple, then :-) I know that everything will be knocked back about 50% by the dark silk weft, but I'm having a little trouble imagining that. I might go and troll the internet for pictures of handwoven stripes.

Totally unnerved by the wide yellow stripe, I tried Diane's suggestion and wound the purple, violet and yellow together randomly.

I have to say that this did so little for me that I didn't continue. I can sort of see it woven and it's interesting, but not something I would wear,

So I broke all the stripes into much narrower units. And got suiting, or something related to it. I liked this while I was wrapping it, but after I set it on the warp and watched it for a while, it became busy. So today I try wider stripes. I will try a 5" repeat, and I will try to devise a set of rules that creates semi-random wider stripes across the entire width of the warp. I might try the teal instead of the burgundy, too - I'm wondering whether I'd be happier with colder tones. 


I have a hunch my waffling is driving Lynn mad :-) But I've never worked with colour before in this way, and I've never even thought about stripes. I need to have some basic understanding before I start so I can avoid the easiest, most lethal mistakes, like choosing colours I don't like. I'll be making enough of the more difficult ones late.




In a similar vein, the next knitting project:

An Interruption

We interrupt your regularly scheduled weaving program to bring you...

SPRING!!

 

Weaving will resume when as soon as I'm exhausted.

Pink or Green or ?

I dressed the loom today.  The warp yarn is about 30 wpi, so I sett a twill at 24 epi.  A bit over 9 inches in the reed, with floating selvedges.  I threaded the heddles in a straight twill, but I reversed direction occasionally, following my whims.

First sample weft is a rosy alpaca blend I spun from Gnomespun fiber.  This yarn is a bit heavier than the warp (no, I don't know the wpi, offhand).

I think the pink weft overwhelms the warp, so I tried a greenish weft, Wensleydale, again from Gnomespun.  This yarn shifts from the green shown here to a blue of about the same value and back again, once or twice.  It's about the same weight as the warp yarn.

I like the subtlety of this better (it's not quite as subtle in real life as it is in this photo).  I'm going to go find another weft to try, and I'm going to sleep on this, so I get daylight on it tomorrow.  In the meanwhile, what do you think?

She's Alive!

OK, I'm starting to weave again.  Not rugs (sorry, Diane), but a scarf.  Do you remember the Spunky Eclectic BFL gradient I spun during last year's Tour de Fleece?  I can't imagine why you'd remember, but anyhow, hless' recent blog post about a gradient scarf she spun and wove after finishing her book reminded me that I had always meant to weave a scarf from this yarn.

So, I wound a warp tonight - here's a close-up:

 

That's the warping board on the right. I have several handspun yarns that are possibilities for the weft, but I don't know which one - if any of them - will work well, so I'm going to have to sample (oh, the horror!  I never sample!).  This will be a twill weave, so the weft will matter a good bit.

I'll post again this weekend as I move along through this.  Talking, so to speak, to you three is helping me get moving.  Also, I'm realizing that moving somewhere, anywhere, is better than standing still and wondering where to go, at least to my mind.

I should have known

Well I did know, in a way. When I asked about sizing the cotton singles warp and someone said "size the chained warp", I did have reservations. Something in the back of my head was saying "Danger! Danger Will Robinson! it should be under tension when it dries, it really should" but I couldn't come up with a precise reason - the chained warp was twisting a little but not much, as the twist was semi-dormant - and anyway, I tend to believe apparent authority. If someone who seems to know what they're doing tells me to do something, I tend to do it.

So I made a batch of flour size from the recipe in the BBoH and soaked the warp in it. I stretched it over a radiator to dry: not under tension, but as straight as I could manage. Every hour or so I separated the threads, trying to stop them drying in clumps stuck together by, basically, wallpaper paste. When it was fully dry I stretched it a bit, tentatively, and took it to the loom.

It didn't look too bad in places. The raddle cross in particular was almost good, in fact. But when I looked closely, there were problems.

Patiently and carefully I started separating the strands that are stuck together. Regardless of the outcome I will say right now, loudly, that I am proud of my cotton spinning. Those threads are well and truly glued together, but in 90 minutes of tugging and pulling and generally messing them about, only three snapped. I think I can spin cotton warp. It's reassuring. Because I may have to spin more, as I can't find the other ends of two of those broken threads. At the moment it doesn't matter, as nothing is going to pull out/unwind, it's stuck together in too many places. 
But even if I unstick all of it - I can do that, it's not impossible - I don't think this will weave well.

See the little corkscrews? They're actually set with with size. If I pull hard enough to straighten them all, bad things will happen because too many threads are catching. I think worse things would happen if I threaded the warp and tried to tension it: the little voice says it will be difficult or impossible to get even tension on this as it is, and I am learning to listen to it. So I'm waiting for some dry weather. I'll put the warp to soak in cold water for a couple of days with a view to rinsing out a lot of the size, and then I will rig something to dry it under some kind of tension. And I'll see how that works. Sooner or later I WILL weave my handspun cotton singles, because I WANT TO. And I'm discovering that, while I've always thought A. is a stubborn so-and-so, I can be even worse.


But i confess I'd really like the next weaving project to go well, which is why I'm doing the math and thinking it through.

After all, even the semi-failures aren't all that bad. I'm sort of looking forward to an outright success! The tea towels in their native habitat. Slightly peculiar shapes, but perfectly functional. The 24epi is a little bit stiff, the 22.5 is about right, but I'm guessing the hand will change over time. I'd hoped some of the samples could be used to clean our eyeglasses, but they shed too much lint. I'm guessing that's a function of the cotton and how it's spun, another reason to spin and weave my own. Also dye it. That's on the list of things to do. Lynn, I could farm all sorts of projects out to you!