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!
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