Weaving project 41: Autumnal colours scarf
Having received my replacement warp stick from the lovely people at Hilltop spinning and weaving centre I could take the lessons learnt from my bookmarks as scarf samples projects and start working on a scarf. I was desperate to use this lovely merino/silk yarn, so started with a larger version of weaving project 40.
I used my 10dpi heddle, and warped 120 threads in total using the retro russet baby bamboo yarn. I allowed for 100 inches of warp (after putting my figures in to the weaving calculator).
I started off as usual with the first 3 picks of weft being used to hemstitch across groups of 4. The weaving went well, and I loved it from the start. The colour transitions worked really nicely and I even managed to weave the entire thing out of the single skein of yarn, so I didn’t have to do any joining.
The final section almost had disaster written all over it, as one of my warp threads had come undone and when tightening up I’d ended with a pull through quite a bit of the scarf - see the photo above.
Fortunately, the wet finishing (very gentle agitation in luke warm water with a small amount of shampoo in it) sorted it out, and after having pinned it out on towels and blocking boards for a couple of days to dry out, it all looked fine and dandy. Phew!
The finished sizes are:
* 10.25 inches wide
* 67.5 inches long (excluding fringe)
* 4 inch fringe (on each end)
My notes tell me that I was aiming for
* 10 inches wide
* 65 inches long
* 3 inch fringe
So, my draw-in/shrinkage calculations for this yarn combination were out by a little bit, but not enough that it actually matters in how the finished item looks and works. I haven’t yet worked out a way of marking distances on my work, so I basically weave until the warp threads run out. I need to look into being a bit more scientifc about this so that when I move on to projects were I need more exactness (like doing multiple longer things on one warp) I know how to do it.
Anyway, it’s fair to say that I’m absolutely delighted with how this has turned out. It looks lovely. It has a really nice drape. It has just the right amount of shimmer. Happy days!