light blue silk/cotton sett at 12epi for warp
grey-green spun silk noil at 12ppi for weft
threading: 1234 2341 3412 4123
treadling: 1/3, 2/4
floating selvedge
This was a trial warp for my Dorothy after she had her new Texsolv heddles installed and after I had added a permanent raddle to her castle. I have a similar warp on my Mira that is giving me problems so I endeavoured to try a variety of wefts. I used:
- 2/16 white unmercerized cotton at 24ppi
- sock weight Arequipa wool at 20 and 12 ppi
- teal rayon chenille at 24 and 12 ppi
- grey-green fingering-weight noil silk at 15ppi
I liked the Arequipa at 20ppi best. It gave a weft-faced fabric that had a subtle rib from the threading. But I decided that using a silk warp for a weft-faced fabric was a waste. And the balanced weave with this yarn didn’t use either warp or weft to best effect.
The 2/16 cotton gave a rough feeling hand and an uninteresting look
The chenille was okay as a weft-faced fabric, but again that’s a waste of silk warp. And as a balanced weave I was concerned it would worm.
The silk noil gave a pleasantly nubbly feeling web with a nice subtle warp-wise rib. Though the colours aren’t exciting together to me, I thought I might dye the results since silk is supposed to take dye so well.
Dyeing
I zig-zagged some swatches to test out various dye combinations. My goal was to get a colour that would compliment the purple silk noil fabric in my stash.
I’m using acid dyes. I discovered that:
- neither yarn took the dye very well.
- red was taken up preferentially
- black (purple based) + a small amount of blue and a tiny amount of red got me a reasonable finished fabric
Finishing
I hard pressed the damp cloth until dry. The resulting fabric has a much smoother and more lustrous finish than the pre-dyeing