Weaverly

Lampas Pouches

Today I constructed three more pouches from lampas fabrics. I had woven these small lampas pieces with handspun pattern wefts, and there wasn't enough yardage to make anything large. I was finally secure enough with my construction routine to cut into these pieces. Here are the finished results.

The interesting thing about the red fabric is that I purchased the carded roving because it contained peacock feathers, but when the yarn was spun up the beautiful iridescent effect of the feathers was lost; moreover, the feathers made the yarn impossibly scratchy. No way was this yarn going to go into anything wearable. But the fabric is perfect for the bags. Click to enlarge.

Undo and Redo

The handspun warp was languishing from inattention, probably because the weft felt scratchy and I was unhappy with it, even though I didn't want to admit it. Yesterday I unwove the scratchy charcoal gray weft––there was only about 8 inches––and found a nice soft pinkish merino/silk blend in my stash. Much better.

A Very Scary Trunk

There are two wooden trunks in the spare room that are rarely opened; they serve as end tables and are normally piled high with books. Today I happened to open one of the trunks and found a huge stash of wool I'd forgotten about. This handspun yarn represents a small fraction of what was in there:

The rest is unspun wool in batts and roving. Just when I thought I'd finally gotten a handle on stash control… 

It's all in great condition, however, and smells pleasantly of cedar. I suppose you think this discovery will keep me from shopping at the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in Asheville in October. You will be wrong.

A Weft is Chosen

The second draft of the book was printed out today, and I will be spending the weekend red pencilling. It's starting to look more like a book, but there's still a long way to go. 

Meanwhile, for a break in the editing, I've found a weft for the most recent handspun warp. It's from a dark brown Romney fleece I bought over 20 years ago, and finished spinning up last year. It's not next-to-the-skin soft, but it's not scratchy either (I would describe it as "crisp")  so I think it will be OK for a shawl weft.

Another Warp for the Dummy

Back into the handspun stash. On Tuesday I wound four more chains, total 128 ends, to tie onto the dummy warp. This time I made them 3 yards long, as the previous shawl seemed a little skimpy to me. While we listened to Rossini's Tancredi, I tied the new chains to the dummy warp and wound the warp on the beam, and now it's ready to weave. Here's a view behind the heddles. Click to enlarge.

Woven on a Cricket

Last year I acquired a Cricket rigid heddle loom as a possible teaching loom for kids, but now I find that I don't want to give it up! It's a perfect size for scarves, and is very handspun-friendly. I warped it up with some odds and ends of a merino/Tencel combination, and for weft I used 2 strands of a cashmere/silk blend. The finished scarf was washed and steam-pressed, and here it is magnified about 50x (click to enlarge).

Final Observations on the Dummy Warp

The shawl is trimmed, the fringes twisted & tied, the whole thing washed and steam pressed, and it looks like this:

…or for a really exciting closeup of this plain weave fabric of 100% handspun yarns, a scan at 12x (click on it to zoom to full size):

And here is the sum total of loom waste, including the knots that were trimmed off:

And now on to more important news:

Knots Ahoy!

After only a couple of hours of weaving, the knots suddenly appeared above the horizon above the back beam.

I kept going until the knots were advanced to just behind the heddles. 

Now if this were a conventional warp, I wouldn't have been able to advance that far, because the rod at the end of the warp would have made a shed impossible. But since each individual warp was knotted to a single end of the dummy, I still got a good shed (this is the view behind the heddles):

In front of the loom, I was able to weave within two inches of the reed:

…and the total distance from the fell to the knots was an amazing four inches!

After the weaving is cut off, you can see how little waste there actually is. There's a bit more waste at the front end of the shawl, because when tying on to the cloth apron some of the ends were uneven; but I'll be able to rescue some of this when I untie the knots at this end. At the far end, I'll just snip off the knots. I'll have a comfortable four inches at each end for a twisted fringe.

To cut off, I advanced the warp so that the knots passed frontwards through the heddles (easy) and through the reed (not as easy); I cut off just behind the knots. Now the dummy warp is ready for the next handspun warp to be tied on.

I must confess: Last night I ordered an 8-dent reed so that the passing of the knots through the reed will be easier. I will have to resley the new reed with the dummy warp (which will take all of 10 minutes). 

The Dummy Warp Speaks

After the struggles getting the knots through the reed, getting them through the heddle eyes was a piece of cake. This loom has inserted eye heddles (nice big holes) and the knots passed through without a squeak. The handspun warp was wound on the warp beam with a few sheets of brown paper as separators, the ends fastened to the cloth beam, and a short header woven.

 

I wound some blue mystery yarn on a stick shuttle, and began weaving. I don't remember the pedigree of the fiber, but I think it was wool combined with a bit of mohair. It was loosely spun and very loosely plied, so I'm not going to risk using it for warp; but it is looking like a very nice weft. 

 

There will be very little loom waste in this project because of the dummy warp; the beginning and end of the handspun will become the fringe of the shawl.

The bad news: this hardly made a dent in the stash! I'm sure there are ten more potential shawls left in the basket of handspun. You know the old saying that it takes seven spinners to keep up with one weaver? Well, in my case I think it would take seven weavers to keep up with one spinner. Something's wrong here.

Tying On

Five of the handspun warp chains have been tied to the dummy warp; they are at rest on the right of the breast beam. The sixth and final chain is ready to be tied; it will match up with all the untied dummy ends, and if my math was right there will be no leftovers or untied dummy warps. The little block with four posts, which is temporarily attached to the breast beam, holds the cross temporarily as I select the ends in order. I don't know the name for this block––can anyone help me out?

All knots tied. No leftovers! Now I will unfasten the warp chains from the breast beam, cut the ends, comb them out loosely, and ease the knots through the reed.

I wanted a density of 8 epi, but the coarsest reed I have for this loom is 10 dents. I left a blank space after every four dents. The yarn will fluff out and fill up the spaces after washing, and there won't be any problem with abrasion at this setting. But what I hadn't anticipated is that the knots are large for the dents in a 10-dent reed. I had to fight with them a bit to get them through the reed (next purchase: an 8-dent reed!). But eventually they were coaxed through, and here they are behind the reed.

To be continued…