Twill Scarf Homespun
Very light weave, barely laying in each pick. Finished product is very light and soft.
Shrink-ruffled HalloWeave scarf
This project is likely to go in fits and starts as it bumps its way through my October calendar.... The goal is a ruffly scarf in silk and merino, with the ruffles coming completely from differential shrinkage. The silk is tussah handspun: 2-ply, fairly smooth, with some colour variegations just for fun. The wool is merino handspun: 2-ply, about the same diameter as the silk yarn, and unwashed (I usually wash my yarns after spinning but decided I'd get a better "felty" response if I didn't wash this one).
When I first started thinking about this, I mentally rummaged through my stash and discovered that though I had lots of silk yarns on hand, there were no sure-to-shrink wool ones. Quickly (before I could discourage myself), I realized that I did have lots and lots of merino roving in my stash box -- and hey, how long could it possibly take to spin enough yarn to weave a scarf anyway? (The answer: one full evening. How easy is that?!)
After spinning the yarn, I suddenly started wondering if perhaps the merino roving was actually a Superwash wool. It felt like regular merino in my hands, but you can't always tell by feel whether or not it's Superwash (that would be terrible for a differential shrinkage project, because it wouldn't shrink at all!). So, just to ease my mind... I pulled a bunch of wool out of the bag, got a bowl of hot, soapy water, and set about felting. Fifteen minutes later, the delightful conclusion proclaimed itself: it shrinks!! :-)
That was the first wave: draft, yarns, and felt sample. Next up: warping and a sample!
23 October 2011 -- Finally, some progress to report! My original plan was to weave a scarf in twill, but the loom I was unearthing for that purpose has been committed to another task (a sample exchange that had slipped my mind), so I decided to weave a first, smaller scarf in tabby. Because the floats won't be as long as in the originally-planned twill, I've set the merino section at 8 epi -- a set which would be close to sleazy in normal circumstances, but should help the shrinky-ruffly effect here by giving the merino lots of room to move. The silk stripes on either side of that central merino stripe are set at 16 epi.
Warping went quickly, and after an evening's weaving I'm nearly halfway through the warp! It feels just wonderful -- and I hope it shrinks as nicely as I've imagined. Weaving up at this rate, I'll be able to see how it comes through the wash before the week's over.
(This is exciting!)
26 October 2011 -- It's done, and it ruffled!! After I cut it off the loom, it measured 2m32 long (excluding fringe). I twisted the fringe (4 ends per twisty group) and knotted it, then set about fulling....
Having never used my washing machine for serious fulling (and being impatient to see the result!), I fulled the scarf in the bathroom sink, using the "gather it up and fling it down" method. To wit: get the scarf thoroughly wet in hot soapy water, squeeze just enough water out so you won't drench yourself, then fling it into the bottom of the sink. Gather it quickly up into a bunch, then fling it down again. Re-dip in the hot soapy water from time to time. When it starts looking pretty good, give it a cool rinse and examine the progress; then repeat the fulling actions until it's done.
I don't have a dryer, so the scarf dried on a sweater rack, then I lightly pressed the silk ruffle. It's pretty nice. :-)
Now I want to do another!
Holly Berry Ruana
Main Yarn: Hand spun single Holly Berry merino top, plyed with 2 ply
spider weight commerical spun pink angora. Made a 3 ply that is more or
less a DK weight.
Contrasting Strip Yarn: same 2 ply spider angora yarn Navajo plyed to make a 6 ply that is still lighter than my 3 ply.
used 32 in rigid heddle, maxed out entire warp on full heddle. used a
5 dpi reed. beating at 5 picks per inch with the 3 ply and about 6-7
picks per inch of the angora. for a loose lighter sweater sort of Ruana.
I hand spun and hand plyed about 4000 yds of yarn, hehe, I wanted to make sure I had enough!!
April 9, 2011 update: I have not been weaving a lot lately. haven’t
felt well, lots of family drama, all has drained me of energy full stop.
taking creative sabbatical and screening all calls so that I can create
again. have 9 inches left before my last 4 inch weft strip, then 10
more inches and done. hems stitch and off the loom, twist fringe. hope
to be done by my birthday so that I can wear it to a spin group on the
14th.
April 18, 2001 update:
Finished twisting all the fringe last night. trimmed the edges, fixed
some skips and today I am “fully” the fiber to tighten the weave. will
lay it out to dry in the sun and wind and will wear on the 14th. Hope to
have photos of me wearing it taken then to post up for you all to see.
ArtPrize Bits and Bobs Fiber Art Entry
Bits and Bobs is a fiber clothing creation that developed from all the bits and bobs from my hand spinner and weaver stash. I wanted to create something that was not only practical but also pleasing to the senses. This is very Tactile with texture and softness and very Visual with lots of color.I hand spun all sorts of bits and bobs of different types of fiber in various colors and thicknesses to achieve yarn that is truly unique. That was woven into a jacket, wrap skirt similiar to a kilt, and matching bag. My fiber was predominately Merino, Angora, with a few odd pieces of wool and some alpaca thrown in for fun. Some of the yarn has angelina in it for some bling!A Complete Hoof to Ward Robe Experience!
This entire ensemble will be for sale in Alba Ranch's Online Shop after the Art Prize Show and the 9th Annual Heart of Colorado Wearable Art Show. Look for in the shop around the end of October 2011.
Harvest Fall Scarf
* Merino* Mohair* Alpaca* Hand Dyed* Hand Woven* Hand spun and plying* 5.75 inches wide * 5 inch fringe on both ends * 67 inches long without the fringe * 77 inches overall length long including fringe (6ft 5in) The weft is 2 ply light fingering weight 100% merino that I hand dyed with an acid dye to be a Black Cherry. It did not come out the dark purple red of Black Cherry but instead came out a lovely Orangey Red that has gone most gloriously with the natural colors of the warp. In fact, when I saw the color that the dye turned out, I specially decided to make and use the yarn for the warp to complement it. The warp is a thick single ply of cream Mohair that I hand spun myself and was later plyed with 1x 2ply light fingering of alpaca mohair blend and a 1x 2 ply light fingering of merino mohair blend yarns. The alpaca used is a red or apricot color and the mohair was a faded red, these colors combined with the white merino gave it various shades of cream, taupe, fawn, and light brown. These colors went just awesome with the bold orange red of the hand dyed merino.This scarf has been sold.
Roly Poly
Percentage: 40
Percentage: 60
ROLY POLYBig Stitch Knitting
120 yards60% Alpaca, 40% Merino
