Monday, 11 February 2008

The stripey rayon and silk scarf series

Colour. I wanted colour. I wanted something I could weave hand-dyed and hand-spun silk caps into. And even if I'm not going to get to weave it before going South, I wanted to have a fun project waiting for me when I got home, something I could stick my teeth into without too much fussing. And I wanted to use the new warping mill which I bought back in December.

So I came up with stripes of blue, green and yellow rayon in varying widths, with a touch of gold for an accent:

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I warped this up in less than an hour on Saturday night. It's amazing how much time the warping mill can save, over using a warping board. I've made a 9m warp, which ought to be enough for four scarves. The warp is rayon flake, and sett at 16 epi should give me scarves that are just over 9 inches wide.

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To make things even faster, I tied the warp on to the old one and had it all beamed in an hour or two...straight from the warping mill. I'm sure you're not supposed to do it that way, but it seems to me that if you don't have to pull the warp off and chain it, why risk the tangles?

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I plan to weave into this with mottles blues and greens, and experiment and play with a few things, like clasped weave. To that end, I've spun up a few of the silk caps I dyed, and a couple of them are already on bobbins, ready to go:

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...even if it will have to wait until I get back in April, I'll have the happy knowledge that there's a fun project awaiting my return!
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous21 October 2008 at 21:43

    I realize this is an older post, but I recently found your blog and am enjoying it very much, so I thought I'd say hi.

    Thanks for the good idea. I LOVE the idea of beaming from the warping mill! Mine is a wonky horizontal one without a brake, so maybe not the best for this method, but I am shopping for a new one. I'll be keeping the possibility of beaming from it in mind.

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  2. Geodyne22 October 2008 at 08:45

    Hi Trapunto - I'm so pleased you're enjoying my blog. I've read yours before and have enjoyed it as well.

    It's definitely easier to warp directly from a vertical mill than a horizontal one! I don't have a brake either, so in that case I used the frame of the loom as the brakes, as you can see.

    Last night, I was successfully beaming onto my new sectional beam straight from the warping mill as well: I'd wind each inch-wide warp individually, tie the cross, remove the lease cross end, run the warp up over the castle, and wind the warp on using my hand as tension, on the far side of the castle. I let the warping mill do its own thing. It seems to have worked.

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