Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas and warp yarn that does not work

I wove a scarf with a sock yarn. It was a beautiful yarn with no color repeat in the skein, singles yarn and soft,...Too soft. The color stripe was beautiful but by time I was on the last 3 inches the yarn was shredding, no just on the edges! I ended up weaving the last part with a needle and weft yarn, because the warp could not stand to open a shed with the shafts.

Obviously a bad choice for a warp yarn, but I was so excited about the colors that I had wound another warp before I got to the problems with the first one. So now, I have a new problem warp to put on and I am not sure how to help it out. I did soak it in a gelatin bath to try to give it some strength, but I mostly noticed stiffening on the cotton ties and not on the wool yarn. Maybe I can get a flax seed gel made and use that to "paint" the warp on the loom.

I am also going to try denting the yarn different. Instead of a single dent in a 15 dent read, I am going to try a triple dent in a 5 dent reed. I think I have one that will fit this loom. (If not I can double dent in an 8 dent reed, but that would make the scarf narrower.) I will be checking the warp more often in the back of the shafts to keep an eye on the twist. (I guess if I really wanted to continue weaving with this yarn as a warp, I could re-twist it, but that seems a bit extreme even for a wonderful yarn.)

I had thought that this great variation and the color-line of the yarn would be really easy scarves for sales (a new goal of mine), but with all the additional work required that puts the price up too high. It is fun to see them though, I will probably knit me something with the yarn to enjoy the color changes as I go.

I will sley the reed today and hopefully have some pictures and good news for tomorrow.

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