Of T-shirt Yarns & Twill: Weaving a New Sampler

I still have a bit of t-shirt yarn left, and wanted to test my observations while they are still fresh in my mind. True experiential knowledge is gained through trial-and-error, which makes experiments very useful. I want to see how the t-shirt yarn behaves with a different weave structure. 

My sample is 6-inches wide in the reed, set at 12 ends per inch with the same rug warp as the cushion fabric. Threading is straight twill.

I deliberately stuck with balanced 2/2 twills (over 2, under 2) with this weft yarn, because the 3-thread floats in my crackle samples were unsatisfactory. A 1/3 or 3/1 twill would likely be just as unsatisfactory. 

My first sample is plain weave.

Then I played around with some twill treadlings.

balanced twill

twill & reverse

vertical herringbone

vertical skip twill

crepe weave

Observations

• I discovered that quite a few of the twill treadlings gave me a warp float of three wefts, such as the twill & reverse above.
• These aren't a problem with finer yarns, but I didn't care for them with this bulky yarn.
• The vertical herringbone corrects this "problem" by skipping one of the treadles in the treadling order.
• This limits my choices for weaving with t-shirt yarn.
• I like the pebbly texture the yarn creates. 

The real test will come in the wet finishing! Both of my crackle experiments looked good on the loom, but weren't satisfactory after washing them. We'll see what happens with these.

Of T-shirt Yarns & Twill: Weaving a New Sampler

© October 2024 by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal

Related posts

Weaving Stool Cushion: Fabric Analysis

Twills - The Basics