I just won (?) almost 12 POUNDS of linen singles at my guild's silent auction.  By my calculations using my homemade McMorran balance, it's roughly 7,300 ypp.  I've attached 2 photos, 1 of the cones and 1 of the yarn.

Looking for suggestions of what I should do with it - your thoughts regarding projects and final fabric usage will be appreciated.  I do know that linen can be not fun to work with unless the humidity is high.

Also, will it bleach?  Will it dye well?  Or will everything I do with it be this color?

Thanks!

cone of linen singles yarn

 

linen strand

Comments

Fri, 03/18/2016 - 02:57

Sara von Tresckow

Looks like a fine, decent quality tow linen. The slight hairy nature of the detail indicates that it is not wetspun long fiber yarn - might be half dryspun long fiber.

Do check your yarn balance again. 7300 ypp would be about 25/1 in lea linen, and it doesn't look that fine in the photo.

20/1 = 6000 ypp

16/1 = 4800 ypp

8/1 = 2400 ypp

If it is 7300 ypp, and a bit hairy, it is not suitable as warp yarn - you'll use it as weft where it will make very nice fabric. If it is thicker, snap it until it breaks to determine strength and definitely size it if used as warp.

If it is finer than you care to use, you can double the thread in the weft or ply it first on a spinning wheel.

Fri, 03/18/2016 - 07:05

kerstinfroberg

It (the fabric) will become lighter already with the wet finishing. In fact, linen will become lighter just with time - but using and washing will lighten it faster. (This is why "dyed natural" is an available colour... dyed, so that it will *not* whiten by itself)

It can of course be bleached, but bleaching will weaken the yarn - trad it was done when woven: the fabric was put out on the ground, preferrably in late winter. It is said the spring sun (itself) and the reflections from the snow was the most efficient, and gentle, bleaching method.

Fri, 03/18/2016 - 13:54

Peg.Cherre (not verified)

Sarah - The person who brought it to the auction had it marked as #40.  Would that make the ypp close?  I don't spin so can't ply it myself, but can certainly use 2 threads as one. 

Kerstin - I love the thought of putting the fabric out on the snow.   The snow is all gone here for this year, but I can certainly try that next winter.

Anyone have thoughts on great uses for finished fabric?

Fri, 03/18/2016 - 14:31

Queezle

You are so lucky - so much linen!

I have always wanted a set of linen sheets.  If that were in my stash, I would consider pillowcases as a first project, perhaps by making a doubleweave tube (according to Sharon Alderman's book Mastering Weave Structure, this is how pillow cases were made back in the day). This is something you can do on four shafts.  Right now I am playing with weaving small tubes, and its almost magical to loosen the tension and stick my finger into the tube.  Oh yes, do I know how to have fun or what?

Fri, 03/18/2016 - 20:00

Sara von Tresckow

#40 in lea count would be 12,000 ypp - and 40Nm would be 20,000 ypp. Not sure where the marking is from as your yarn appears to be coarser than that.

My purse camera is at home - but your photo of the yarn shows that it is much hairier than the 20/1 linen that I carry (the finest that we offer). I'd definitely say that yours is NOT wetspun whatever the fiber length. It will be a challenge to use it for warp. Test how strong it is by breaking a few pieces. If it feels strong, you'll definitely need to size your warp to keep the hairy bits from making the warp sticky, it will pretty much demand a countershed loom, overhead beater and string or Texsolv heddles to avoid fraying and breakage.

There are many cones of older linen out there - generally it doesn't get weak with age, but one never knows how it was stored.

You might want to make a small warp with very fine cotton (find something like 20/2, 24/2 or 30/2) and your linen as weft to see how it weaves up before commimtting to a major endeavor.

Fri, 03/18/2016 - 22:15

Peg.Cherre (not verified)

All good information!  I will use my homemade balance again, and will definitely weave a sample with some fine cotton warp before I do anything else with it.  I have some fine cotton around in odd colors, but the color doesn't really matter for the sample. 

I appreciate all the time you took to respond!

Sat, 03/19/2016 - 11:21

ReedGuy

I really like a cotton warp and linen weft for something like a runner. Because it doesn't go wrinkly so easy as pure linen, or bunch up like pure cotton if something happened to slide across the surface. It's kind of in the middle of the road. Recently made some progressing twill lace this way. :)

Sat, 03/19/2016 - 15:52

Peg.Cherre (not verified)

I'm going to do some sampling first, but am looking forward to many hours of happy linen weaving.

Sat, 03/19/2016 - 16:37

Peg.Cherre (not verified)

I used my less-than-perfect homemade balance again, and clearly I was way off the first time.  Probably used samples that were too short to be accurate.  Anyway, this time I got about 5,600 ypp, so my guess is that it's really 6,000 ypp, or the 20/1 that Sarah mentions above.

Sat, 03/19/2016 - 19:03

Sara von Tresckow

Wetspun 20/1 linen

 

This is what the wetspun linen looks like - please excuse the reflections.

Sat, 03/19/2016 - 20:04

Peg.Cherre (not verified)

Very different from my very hairy yarn.

Mon, 03/21/2016 - 00:45

danteen (not verified)

I have woven with a singles linen like this.  Used it as warp and had all kinds of sticking until I used Sara's recipe for a size that I sponged on behind the heddles evry so often. (I have texsolv heddles)   2 T. flax seeds boiled in a cup or so of water until it is like unbeaten egg whites.  Strain, cool and use.  I kept it in the fridge to keep it from spoiling.   Worked just fine, and I had no problems after that.  Lovely, rustic fabric was the result.

 

Mon, 03/21/2016 - 04:34

laurafry

I used something similar as weft on a 2/16 cotton warp for tea towels.  Lots of colour choices in the cotton and cheaper than linen (usually) so no waste to the loom. :)

Thu, 03/24/2016 - 14:27

Peg.Cherre (not verified)

Thanks for the recipe, Danteen. And the info, Laura; I did know that you used lots of tow linen for towels, and planned to go back to your blog to see what your warp was - you saved me the time. ;-)