Leigh's Fiber Journal

Friday, September 19, 2008

Plain Weave Shawl

By Leigh

Is finished!

The particulars:
Structure: plain weave
Yarn: Cotton flake of unknown size
On loom size: 24 by 85 inches
Finished size: 20 by 74 inches, not including 6 inch fringes
Wet finishing: Warm water soak about one hour followed by several minutes of machine agitation. Machine dry on medium for about 30 minutes. Laid flat to complete drying.

Here is a close up of the visual textural I got from the slubs in the yarn. The thick and thin of the yarn also gave me a slubby looking, uneven selvedge, which is in character with the shawl overall.

I pondered quite awhile over the fringe. I liked the appearance of the yarn, so I had hopes of a loose fringe. The problem with a loose fringe of course, is unraveling. In the photo below, you can see how I prepared to give loose fringe a try.

On the left, you can see my hemstitching. I used a 10/2 natural cotton, which gave a neater appearance than using the slub yarn. I left about 8 inches of warp unwoven before weaving in another inch of plain weave. After I took the shawl off the loom, I used my sewing machine to run a row of zig zag across that inch of plain weave. This let me wet finish the shawl without messing up the fringe.

After the shawl dried, I cut off that zig-zagged part and knotted the ends of the fringes. Usually knots don't look well on fringes, especially fine yarns. However the yarn was so slubby anyway, I didn't think the knots would be too noticeable, but would still help keep the yarn from unraveling. Here's how it turned out.

I don't know yet how well this will wear, but I think with gentle hand washing and lying flat to dry it should be okay. I also want to mention that it's thicker and heavier than I expected, but it is wonderfully warm and soft.

Related Posts:
Good Ol' Plain Weave
Undulating Shadow Weave 3 - Finishing - one way to cut fringe

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Good Ol' Plain Weave

By Leigh

There's been an interesting discussion on the Weaving list about plain weave. This most basic weave structure is the one almost every beginning weaver starts with it. It's simple over 1 - under 1 - over 1 - under 1 structure is the easiest to understand, and probably because of that, seems boring pretty quickly.

Actually however, the possibilities with plain weave are almost endless. Besides plain old plain weave, color effects are fascinating, such as checks and plaids. Log cabin is plain weave,

as is shadow weave

Then there are others that I haven't explored much, such as warp or weft faced weaves.

Another fun thing is plain weave with space dyed yarns.

Something similar, is plain weave with a textured yearn such as cotton flake. According to the Celanese Acetate Textile Glossary, flake yarn is by definition, "Yarn in which roving or short, soft staple fibers are inserted at intervals between long filament binder yarns." I can't say that this definition heralds the dawn of my understanding, but here's what it looks like -

While waiting for my tied weave study group, I decided to see what this yarn would look like in plain weave.

Close up.

Stepping back.

I can't say that it looks like much at the moment, but it is interesting to watch as it weaves up. It will be either a scarf or a shawl, depending on how much it shrinks after washing! At any rate, it's weaving quickly. Hopefully it will be off the loom by tomorrow.

Oh! And if you like kitty pictures, be sure to check out my "helper."

Related Posts:
Plain Weave Shawl
Space Dyed Yarns & Plain Weave
Weaving At Last - warp-faced plain weave

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Waffle Weave Dishtowels Done

By Leigh

These are the towels for the Towel Exchange.

Waffley close-up for Peg (see comments)

The particulars:
4 shaft waffle weave
yarn - 10/2 unmercerized cotton
sett - 30 epi
stripe pattern - upc barcode
shrinkage - about 24%
finished size - 18 by 24 inches

My sett is a little tighter than the 24 epi that many handweavers use for waffle weave in 10/2 cotton. My sample was done at 30 epi however, and when I asked my DH if he thought the fabric was too thick for dishtowels, he responded with a definite no. He liked their thick, thirsty feel, so I left the sett as it was.

I finished hemming them yesterday afternoon. After looking all the suggestions you all shared last March (see Hemming Handwoven Fabrics), I decided to serge the fabric and then hand hem. I like my serger for this, as it cuts and binds the edges at the same time. It was easy to fold under and hem.

My only concern about the hems is that they are a little thick. However, no one seems to have any luck using plain weave weave for the hems, as the plain weave doesn't draw in enough. My other option would have been to use a finer cotton or sewing thread as weft, in waffle weave. But I have neither; not in cotton anyway and I didn't want shrinkage (or non-shrinkage) issues! If these were for myself, I would have been willing to experiment, but not for a towel exchange.

I still have to make up 20 project sheets, but they aren't due until November, so I have time for that. We will exchange two towels each, and then receive project sheets (with fabric samples) from all participants. Hopefully I won't procrastinate on those either!

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Weaving: What's Next?

By Leigh

When I first started this blog, I had a couple of goals in mind: to keep a record of my fiber and textile activities, and to begin a serious exploration of weaving. This coincided with having my youngest child leave home to join his sister at university, giving me more free time than I had enjoyed before.

My record keeping has been fairly consistent though my projects are somewhat sporadic: weaving, spinning, knitting, dyeing, plus a few other fiber activities, as well as occasional miscellaneous content. The biggest problem I've had has been finding posts again, once they've become buried under the ever-increasing pile of more recent entries. Blogger's addition of labels has been helpful here, but if you've clicked on any of the links in the above list, you have discovered that I use Delicious.com to try to organize my posts. This is also what I used to create a blog index in my sidebar.

In regards to weaving, I had previously worked my way through some plain weave, twills, and overshot, and had taken a class on double weave. In starting this blog, my plan was to work my way through Deb Chandler's Learning to Weave, and experiment with structures and effects I hadn't yet tried. I had a lot of fun exploring Log Cabin, but after that I diverged from Chandler. Why? Because Log Cabin seemed to lead naturally to Shadow Weave.

Next I participated in several Online Guild weaving workshops, including lace weaves, Huck, and Summer & Winter.

When I got my Glimakra 8-shaft countermarche loom, I started my 8-shaft adventure by returning to something I understood, twill. With that I did a series of afghans, enjoying with wider width of my new loom. I finished these in time to take another Online Guild workshop, Advancing Twills.

I started experimenting with M's & O's thanks to the WNCF/HG's Winter Project. This led to a self study on Multiple Tabby Weaves. Most recently, I've revisited waffle weave for a towel exchange within the same group. All that's left with that is to cut and hem the towels.

So what's next? I could continue exploring weave structures I haven't tried yet, but at this point in time I feel a need to dig deeper. Being a member of Complex Weavers offers that, through one of it's many study groups. Since Summer & Winter interested me the most so far, I have recently signed up for the Tied Weaves Study Group. Summer & Winter is a 2-tie unit weave, so this study group will allow me the opportunity to continue exploring not only S&W, but related weaves as well.

So that's the plan. The study group officially starts in October. Not sure what I'll do on the loom in the meantime, but I doubt it will sit idle until then.

Monday, September 01, 2008

More on Spinning Cotton

By Leigh

There were some good questions and interesting comments on my Cotton Spinning Update post, so I thought I would expand a little on the subject.

Tina asked

Do you card it into rolags before you spin it?

Yes. Actually, I've been carding them into mini-rolags called punis (also spelled poonis). A "how to" along with a little more information about cotton lint can be found here.

Is it really soft?

It's wonderfully soft! Not silky, though it does have a little bit of luster (at least it seems to when I try to take a flash shot!) The yarn has a lovely next-to-the-skin wearable softness to it.

What are you going to make with it?

That's a good question. Since cotton is not in the least bit elastic, I am tending to not want to use it for a knitted project. I am, however, thinking about weaving a scarf. This is a bit daring for me as I rarely weave with my handspun. I will have a whole rainbow of colors when I finish spinning it all (pix of all those here). Now that the Olympics is over, I amuse myself as I spin by thinking of how to use the colors to advantage. More on that later.

Barbara asked

Along with Tina's questions I'd like to know how strong the yarn is.

The 2-ply is wonderfully strong. It will be good as both warp and weft. I did however, have some too thin spots in the singles of the first skein, which led to some breakage when I plyed it. I've pretty much corrected that, though this is one of the problems I seem to have spinning long draw.

Which leads to Patrick's question

How are you finding spinning long draw? For me, it was a pretty fast method...

I love spinning long draw for the exact reason that it is so much quicker than short draw (inch worm method). For me however, it does make a somewhat inconsistent yarn, as you can see in the close-up below.

This is partly due to preparation. The cotton lint tends to be clumpy, especially after being dyed. It also still has some bits of husk in it. Between that and the fact that my long draw spinning is somewhat slubby anyway, well, you can see the result. Many of the slubs can be individually pulled out during spinning, others I roll down. According to my Judith MacKenzie Mc Cuin video (Spinning Exotic Fibers & Novelty Yarns), these slubs even out during plying. I find though, that often they ply together which intensifies them. The same goes for the thin areas.

Even so I'm not unhappy with it. The singles average 42 WPI and the 2-ply, 22 WPI. I'm using my smallest spinning ratio (16:1), as cotton requires a lot of twist. For cotton, I keep the tension tight enough to draw in, but loose enough so that if I stop spinning, I can pull the single from bobbin without breaking it.

So to Dorothy and Jewel, I say jump on in, the water's fine. :) It takes a little practice to get it started, but cotton is lovely to spin.

And as to the last two comments.....

Kathy

I'm just speechless!

Sharon

I've never seen anything like your cotton yarns.

I'm going to take these as compliments! I'm pretty sure they are, but they are delightfully ambiguous enough to go either way. ;)

Related Posts:
Spinning Cotton Lint
Cotton Spinning Update

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