Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Weaving, Take Two

Hideous sampler finished. Onto something a wee bit more substantial! Let's say...a scarf!

For some ridiculous reason, I decided that for my Week Two homework project in my weaving class, nothing but my handspun would do. Maybe it's because I didn't want to spend dinero on yarn at the shop when my apartment is insulated with pounds of fiber that pleads with me daily to be turned into yarn. So I picked out a couple of colors that I figured would NOT go together super well, just to experiment. In one hand, I had a chartreausey-peachy superwash merino. In another, a varigated intensely blue superwash merino. Perfect.

First step was the figuring. This is the part I despise. I made it easy on myself by deciding to spin according to stats I already understood, namely 12 epi, or ends-per-inch, which was similar to my first project. The whole e.p.i. concept is making more sense to me now...it finally dawned on me that you have to take into consideration the weft yarn and how much room it takes up when you calculate e.p.i. But I still took the easy road...lame, I know. Anyway, the yarn was spun slightly thick-thin because I was hurting for time. Each color was plied with itself, then I wound off and set the twist.

Next came the measuring of the warp threads. 72 ends total, and a warp length of 3 yards. 3 yards! That's our allowable limit for the class, unless we clear it first with Judy. I wanted a really nice, long scarf. Downside to this: twice I stopped to spin some more yarn, because my measurements were screwy and I kept running out.

Next I measured and cut the warp, then warped the loom, which took me...oh, I don't know...Tuesday. The weaving itself went really fast, though I ended up spinning another 200+ yards because I'd used all of my carefully calculated amount for the warp, and then some.

Finally the scarf was finished! I took a deep breath and cut the back warp threads, then unwound and untied the front warp. Tied a fringe, and ta da! A scarf! Parading proudly over to my neighbor, I pointed out all of its myriad features.

"Looks great, Nicole," Chad commented. "Kind of like the Swedish flag."

Uh, yeah! Exactly what I was going for...