On the Loom Again

I finished the scarves and didn't enjoy weaving them one bit - just plain weave and not at all interesting. I'm very low on stock for the craft fair this weekend and know that I need inventory to attract people to my booth.  I'm getting ready to throw them in the washer but at this stage they look like medical gauze to me.

The scarves have done well for me in the past and they certainly are pretty when all finished.  I took advantage of the dye pots and dyed four of the cowls my daughter has ordered.  She would like each one to be a different color.  Three more to go!

I haven't put a warp on since early October.  I originally used a draft that's been floating around 4-Shaft Weaving, broken twill with basket-weave selvedges.  I hadn't woven very far when I realized that I hated the basket weave, tore it out and rethreaded the edge threads for more broken twill.  I use the blinds to help me check for errors and there were many.  I love lashing on with Texsolv because you simply pop off the pin, fix the error and put the pin right back in place.  The piece I used wasn't quite wide enough so instead of cutting more Texsolv, I just added another short piece by pinning them together.  Worked great!

I have finally been able to start a project using the information from my recent workshop.  I chose broken twill because I liked it best of my samples.  I know that dark yarns like this deep purple are processed within an nth of their lives.  Changing the warp at the beginning caused some fraying which shows up in this fabric.

In addition the heddle eyes are abrading the yarn and that's also showing up in the cloth.  I thought I had made a treadling error and when I tried to correct it, discovered the only thing wrong was the lint and frayed yarn had piled up, producing a stripe across the cloth - very visible but I doubt I would have become aware of this problem had I sampled.

I'm fascinated by the color play.  Is it teal or is it purple??  I'm going to weave these two again, but this time I'll use the teal as the warp and try the Walls of Troy draft.  Broken twill really isn't that interesting or fun to weave.  Meanwhile, I've tied up two more harnesses on my big loom, added heddles to the harnesses and am getting ready to start on 6-shaft Huck Lace.