Handspun Cheviot Scarf
I am working on a scarf that I am weaving out of my very own handspun yarn from my very own Border Cheviot sheep.
After Albers
I wanted to create an art piece for our Landings Art Association’s Gift of Art Show at the Plantation. This piece was the end of a thick and thin cotton and linen warp. I used a variety of my handspun yarns as weft.
In order to create the line drawing, I stretched the cloth on 9x9 inch canvas stretchers and then stitched into it with black wool/mohair blend yarn. I outlined the small square with stitches and then created a warp of the yarns and needle wove into it to create the woven square.
I did not like the edges of the woven piece showing on the stretcher so I added some black ultra suede to cover them… Right side against the stretcher wood, a piece of cardboard the size of the wooden stretcher side stapled down on top of the cardboard. Then I folded the ultra suede over the cardboard and pulled it to the back of the stretcher and stapled it. it created a nice frame effect, but I wanted a mat-like look. I purchased some 1/4 inch plywood and had Home Depot cut it 13x13 and spray painted it black. I tacked it to the back of the stretchers with 1/2 inch brads. because I wanted the piece to stand out from the wall I covered 2 inch by inch foam core pieces with some ultra suede and hot glued it together and to the back of the piece.
Displaying handwoven art pieces is ALWAYS a challenge.
Playing With Fire Handspun
Percentage: 100
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!
Beet Juice! Crinkle Cloth Scarf
I dyed the scarf after I wove it. I wanted to see what the EZ Dye would do with a gorgeous color that would normally wash right out, but I washed it in the washing machine after I dyed it.I won't wear it in the sun...The treatment doesn't affect light-fastness, unfortunately.
I pulled a little of the weft out before I hemmed it so you can see the weft color away from the multi-colored warp.
The open sett with the singles gives the crinkle effect.
Zanshi Khadi
Using up leftovers--I'm inspired to post this by Kendrick's very nice Paper Warp Bobbin Clean Up project .
Catharine Ellis introduced me to the concept of zanshi, using up leftovers. I wove this in response, since I had poundage of handspun not belonging to a project that I had spun while demonstrating the charkha. Since I had so many colors in the basket, I pulled 8 colors from my shelf that they would all go with. This piece hung in the yardage exhibit at Convergence in Tampa in 2008. When they sent it back, there was a ribbon--no note--with the charm letters M and H hanging on the ribbon. I was clueless--what does that stand for, Most Humble? Well, it actually won Honorable Mention, and I got $50 for it.
Khadi means handspun, handwoven. Yes, I am using it loosely, as my warp is commercial yarn.
And yes, I have plenty left in the leftover basket, even after doing a second piece.
Differential Dyed cotton
I wanted to do something "liberal & conservative", so I chose a 4-block profile from the John Landes pattern book and substituted 1/3 vs 3/1 twill for a 16 shaft draft. I spun the cotton on the charkha and wove squares using the handspun singles as weft. After removing them, washing, and cutting them apart, I hemmed them and then tie dyed them in some pretty bright Procion colors. I used just dye powder and warm water, so the EZ Dye accepted the dye and the white warp did not. So you get the formality of the traditional pattern overlaid with the wild tie-dye.
handspun EZ Dye cotton singles
Percentage: 100
This cotton was treated industrially to accept dyes without the need for auxiliaries. I use it for weft; the photo shows it on my charkha spindle in the shuttle.
WIP: Pillow-delight
Next pillow in my pillow-making-experimental-series. And as well the first project of the first-Blogging-WAL-ever, I started on my blog http://faserig.wordpress.com. The job is to weave a pillow; material/color/technique is up to the weaver; every weaver blogs about progresses in her blog and informs the others about new articles.
15.07.2011
Starting date is 1st of August, so I have 14 days left. Which means, it's high time to prepare the yarn. The warp will be crochet cotton, but the weft will be handspun and dyed and so I finished today the spinning part. I used a combed top of german Merino and spun a thick yarn out of it (three singles twisted together)
24.07.2011
In order to get some information about the amount of every color, I made a small sampler. After designing the pattern, I could estimate the needed colors and began to dye - first time wih Ashford colors. Made a bright orange, blue and a darker blue. Unfortunately, I made not enough yarn, so I have to spin and dye the same amount of yarn again for the second side of the pillow while weaving the first one.
10.08.2011
I started weaving and knotting. :-)
The symbol that I chose as motif is a symbol of delight (I hope I found the correct translation for it; it stands for the lust for life, the pleasure on doing things that you like ,...) - therefore the name of the project
05.01.2012
This kind of weaving isn't my favorit one... will need some other months to get finished. :-/
