I've woven
my sampler to the end of the warp and taken it off the loom. I zig-zag stitched its edges and washed it.
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| Hand washed in cold water and Dawn dish washing detergent. Cold water rinse. |
After rolling the excess moisture out in a towel, I laid it flat to take measurements. In looking it over, I can see that I improved with practice! My weft beating and selvedges became more consistent and I made fewer mistakes. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but I definitely made progress.
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| First 7 samples with mistakes and wonky selvedges! |
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| Last 6 samples; much more consistent and even. |
At first I was just going to line dry it. But I've been thinking about dish towels and thought, 'how many people line dry dishtowels?' I use my clothes line all the time when the weather's cooperative. But hand towels make good gifts, and how many people are able to line dry everything? I decided to dry the sampler in my clothes dryer to check for further shrinkage.
Sample particulars:
- Yarns:
- warp - 8/2 cotton
- tabby weft - 8/2 cotton
- pattern weft - 3/2 cotton
- reed: 10 dents per inch
- Sett: 20 EPI
- Sley: 2 ends per dent
- Total ends: 120
- Width in reed: 6 inches
- Threading: straight draw (plain twill)
- Woven width on loom: 5 - 5.25" (depending on sample)
- Woven length on loom (per sample): 3 - 3.25"
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Wet finishing - cold water hand wash (with Dawn) and hot machine dry
- Washed width (still damp): 4.75 - 5 inches
- Washed length, per sample (still damp): 3 - 3.25"
- Finished width after machine drying: 4.75 - 5 inches
- Finished length (per sample) after machine drying: 2.75 - 3"
Observations:
- I'm happy with the yarns and sett.
- I like the fabric's hand after washing and drying.
- I lost width with washing.
- I lost length with machine drying.
- The turquoise weft on the white warp was diluted both the color and the pattern.
- The turquoise weft on the blue warp offered good contrast to make the pattern stand out.
- The purplish pattern weft was the opposite; good contrast on the white but visually obscured on the blue.
- Even though I didn't especially care for the white and dark warp stripes, they were useful to show how color differences between warp and weft interact.
Samples after washing and drying:
And here are a few more. The links go to their original on-loom posts:
The next step is to plan my project. More on that soon.
