Ok, so my first project - the appetizer (I wouldn't even call it an experiment) was a dismal failure - bambu set too tight and the cotton tooooo heavy! AWFUL failure!  I boiled some swatches of various wools from my stash and found suitable stash candidates for the 2nd course.

18/2 merino - soft, light and very "shrinky & felty" for a fulled merino scarf with groups of long felty floats and a tight plain weave (like giant blocks of lace almost)

20/2 worsted - a little shrinkable to be mixed with zephyr in a deflected double weave (yummy)

So - whats cooking in your pot?

Dawn

Comments

Sun, 10/02/2011 - 12:49

ruthmacgregor (not verified)

My pot's not cooking yet, but I've planned my project!  First, I decided which fibres to use (silk and merino).  Then, after a rummage in my stash box I found there was plenty of a vibrantly-coloured 2-ply silk for the silk part of the warp; and I hauled my enormous bag of hot pink merino fibre into the living room and spent a few lovely hours spinning the merino part of the warp.

Today I drafted the project (nothing too complicated, just a 2/2 twill):

I hope that displays all right for you....  The pink sections are merino -- a narrow stripe at each selvedge, and two moderate-sized stripes in the body of the scarf.  The purple sections are silk.  I'll be using a solid-colour silk weft for the most part, but I think I'll add some merino weft stripes at each end of the scarf in hopes of getting a "bubbly" effect.

And just to keep things interesting -- my month is shrinking already!  I may get the warp wound in the next day or so, but then I'm out of town for a week, so I won't get to share any woven/shrunken progress until the middle of October.  Still... these are interesting paths we're travelling these days, with all their ruffles, deflections, and bumps!

Ruth