Crunch Time!

I stopped by Lou Ann's house yesterday for us to swap fittings.  She had my Chemise done and on the hanger, and I needed to try on the apron so that she could see how long the straps need to be.  I had taken my skirt with me so that we could get the full affect, I am glad I did!  It really is going to be fun to be in more period clothing this Homecoming at the Museum of Appalachia!

For my part in the costume making, I had 3 samples of the very top portion of the stockings for Lou Ann to try on.  Luckily, our knees are at the same height so I just needed to know what gauge to use to get the right fit for comfort.  More on that in another post at some time in the near future, like when I get enough knitted to have something to show!

On the home front, I am busily weaving up my handspun on the rigid heddle!  I have 5 finished scarves, including 3 that have not been fulled yet.  The lastest one has stripes, because I was short an ounce of the yarn I wanted to use.  I added in a few stripes of a darker color, and I am pleased with it!

I went thru the handspun stash yesterday, and picked out all the yarns that I thought would make good scarves.  The skeins have to be about 400 yards and soft as can be.  If I can get this all woven up before the shows, my stash is going to be decimated!  Shucks, I guess that means I will have to spin some more to replenish it!

Scarf possibilities

The yarn on top is from a fleece that I have posted about in the past, either here or on my blog.  It is a Romney fleece that I thought I had ruined in the wash, but I was able to use my hand combs and salvage quite a bit of lovely silvery yarn.   I started to think again about my costume and remembered that I did not have a suitable shawl in case the weather turns colder, which it can sometimes do.  This yarn would make, I thought, a lovely shawl!

I was in the middle of warping the shawl, taking up much of the living room, since I had to turn the table across the room to get the 4 yards measured out, when the phone rang.  My MIL wanted to go out to lunch!  I quickly agreed to pick her up, then I texted Dear One to warn him about the obstruction he would find in the livingroom should he happen to come home and  need to get to the computer!  Lunch was lovely, and something I really needed, I was hungrier than I thought I was.  It is easy for me to get  working on something, and before you know it is well past time to eat something.

Back home again, I finished getting the warp on the loom.  This time I warped the whole 24 inches across, and I put a good dent in that silvery yarn!  I should have enough left when I am done with the shawl to make a scarf or two.  I am finally beginning to estimate a little better just how much yarn I need.  It is better to add the different yarn in the warp, if you think you are going to run out, than in the weft.  That way it looks like you planned it!

Silver Romney Shawl

I wish you could see the shine!

 Only 2 weeks to go before the Homecomeing,  I am pleased that I have found something that I can do to bring a different unique product to the shelves at our shows, I just wish I had thought about it a little earlier in the year!  I have many scarves to weave, finish, inventory and tag before I am done!  Crunch time!

Until next time, Happy Spinning, Knitting and Weaving, Tina

Handspun Warp and Weft

I hinted last Friday that I was going to get back to the looms this week, and indeed I have, though not quite what anyone who knows me would have guessed.  Lou Ann let me borrow one of her Rigid Heddle looms to do some sampling of the miles of  Jacobs 2 ply fingering  yarn I finished last week.

I initially thought that I would weave a scarf as a sample, but I was concerned that the Jacobs might not be soft enough for around the neck use.  I also wanted to use as little yarn as possible.  I settled on warping a short 40 inch warp.  This loom, an Ashford, has two rigid heddles, one is 5 dents per inch, and the other is 7.5 dents per inch.  I intended to weave half of the warp using  the  5 dent and the other half using the 7.5 inch. ( I went over the half way mark on the first sample, despite my use of the tape measure!)

 I didn't have the warping peg that is commonly used when warping these looms, but I had seen somewhere on the internet, someone using a raddle, and I had one of those!  I took the smallest skein that I had, 114 yds, and got started.  I put in a strand or 2 of the "tweed" yarn, so that I could see how it looks in the fabric.  Warping was very fast, and winding on wasn't difficult at all.  Of course, I have been warping full sized looms since 2001, so I suppose that was in my favor.

I kept a generous angle on each throw of the shuttle.

 At the "half way" point I cut off the fabric and switched to the finer reed and continued weaving. I like the portability of this loom, I could weave in the warmth of the wood stove, and not freeze up in the studio!

Before you know it,  I had finished, and with very little loom waste.  Of the 114 yds, I had used a mere 60 yds, I was very pleased.

I took the fabric off of the loom, and laid the pieces side by side.  I thought then, that after finishing, I would probably like the looser weave.  I put the pieces to soak for a few minutes in hot soapy water, then I agitated them by hand for a bit, then I plunged them in icy water.  I went back and forth between the two temps several times.  Then I slammed them down on the counter to loosen things up a bit.  When I thought I had the fulling that I desired, I rolled them in a towel to absorb the excess moisture, and let them dry.

I am surprised by the softness of this fabric.  Both of the pieces are lighter weight than what I could have dreamed, but I like the hand of the tighter weave better than the looser weave.  Unfortunately, I switched the fabrics in the lower picture, but I think you can get an idea of what I have to work with.  I was not impressed with the tweed yarn however, it barely shows up in the finished fabric at all.  You may see it in the non fulled yarn in the picture above, but it almost disappears in the finished fabric.

Now comes the "fun" part,  I lost a lot more to shrinkage in the looser weave, than the tighter weave, which when I think about it makes sense.   I need to work out the percentage of shrinkage, so that I will know how long and wide I need to make my project warp.  Math, not being my strong suit, I must take my time so that I don't waste a yard of that yarn.  The project I have in mind is a poncho made from 2 rectangles of fabric.  Simple and straight forward, I can do this, I just need a wider loom.  I should be getting a loom that is wide enough in the near future, but until then I will brush off the calculator, and cross my fingers, and hold my mouth just so, and check it three times to make sure I have the math just right!

Until next time, Happy Spinning and Weaving, Tina