Tags
2017, Madelinetosh, mistakes, open waters shawl, pashmina, towels, warp, warping board, weaving, yarn
I know that is has been a while, I’m still figuring out the new posting schedule for the blog. But there has been some crafting going on here and I did promise I would tell you about the woes of the weaving that I have been working on so here it goes. Once I got the warp board from a friend of mind, who was gracious enough to let me borrow it, I calculated the amount of yarn needed. I then wound the correct number onto the board and got to work. I made my little single color bundles and then it was time to do indirect warping on the loom. This was the first time that I had done this so I was a little nervous. It eded up being alright, a lot of petting and thwacking the yarn, but that worked out mostly. But When I was threading the first heddle I found that one of the bundles was one end short, so I quickly wound the needed yarn and attached it. That was no big deal, but the aligning of the threads and not being able to comb through them took a long time. So I am going along, aligning the threads, listening to music, when I notice something odd. One of the warp threads broke, starting at me. It looked at me and I looked at it. I started to mutter some bad words and put the loom away for that night.
A few days later I got the courage to fix the warp that was on the loom already, so I grabbed the extra yarn (and yes I know I’m using yarn and thread, bear with me it’s a 22/2 yarn) pulled enough off to get the warp fixed. Tied a weavers knot and started winding the rest of the warp on. Well what I was using as the guard for the warp was construction paper that I have. Well it was not wide enough and so I had to use two pieces next to each other and I guessed how much I would need. I was completely wrong and so I had to cut more of the paper to get it wind on all of the way. But then it was slanted and not winding properly so I had to fix that as well. Then it was time to tie up the warp to the front of the loom. I had to pit it down again because I wasn’t sure how long it would take and all of these weird bits made me a little unmotivated. But then I did tie it on one way, started the header and decided it was not good enough. The warp was not behaving right, so then I took it out and re-tied it, slimming down the number of threads that made up each tie up. Then I was finally able to weave, but the weird thing is that now the warp is tight except for a few spots when I switch to the down shed. Even though when everything is neutral it is all tensioned properly. So I don’t care enough to fix it and besides this is a test run for these towels, so I’m just going to work around it. I’ve done a little bit of the weaving after work, just to make some progress on it. So far it is all going fairly well, with some weird spots ,but I’m working around it. Hopefully these are worth the effort, which I have heard that they are.
Knitting wise is not going that much better. My Open Waters Shawl went through the first ball of yarn already, only 3 repeats into the main section which means I have about 29 more to go. I knew I was going to be a little close, but now I’m doubting the yarn and my decision to use a U.S. 3 needle. I checked to see if there is a place that sells the same yarn and color way and fortunately I did find some. It’s my backup just n case there is not enough yarn to make the size right, but we will just have to wait and see what happens. I’m really hoping that I do’t need to get more yarn to complete this project, especially since the dye lots will be completely off. But in the even that I do need to get another skein I can blend it in and make it look intentional. This is the back up plan I have had to do before and it has worked fairly well then. I’m just hoping I don’t need to do it again. Viajante is going well however, just about done with the first skein of Madelinetosh Prairie, which means I’m getting a lot closer to being done with the whole thing. I will not be making another one of these again, at least for a long, long time. I won’t say I’ll never make another one of these (that bit me in the butt before) so I will just say for a long time. I want to make so many other things and use up some of the stash, for sure the next thing will be a sweater and some socks. I think that will be good.