Home made warping

I popped into my nearest Spotlight store and bought some novelty yarns so that I can get some scarves woven quickly for Christmas - target audience is nieces and granddaughters. The first scarf will be based loosely on "Saturday Scarf" in Handwoven November/December 2005. The yarns I shall use are Moda Vera Crystata [50m/50gm] and Moda Vera Jazz [60m/50gm].

In an attempt to save time I set up some home made warping equipment using a multi-bar trouser hanger as my spool rack and a plastic mitre box and some old combs as my tension box. As my sett was to be 6epi I didn't bother with measuring; I wound six  50 metre balls straight onto the spools.

It worked quite nicely even if it all was a little bit industrial.

I am still playing with how I use the sticky warp beam for tying on the warp. I tied the warp into bouts of six ends and then weighted each one individually before placing it over the sticky beam. I then wove in a two stick heading and tied the apron rod directly on to that. This way is certainly quicker that tying knots or lacing on and I seem to be getting a nice even tension by virtue of having it provided by weights. At the moment the method is fairly wasteful of warp - 12" before the stick heading but I am sure that I can improve on that.

Three Shawls

Having resolved my selvedge problem I wove a further two shawls using novelty yarns as the weft. It all worked very nicely and they were a joy to weave.

I used Paton's Sorrento for the weft on a lacy shawl - it's OK [just] but there are too many completing elements with lace and a very nubbly yarn combined. I will use the yarn again but in a different combination - probably just a very open plain weave.

So, now I have to decide what to do next. Looking at my shelves I don't seem to have a shortage of yarns with a good selection that I bought in America a couple of years ago.

The trouble is that I got carried away with the colours and bought lots of little bits. For example I bought 2/18 wool in 8 colours but not more than 2oz of any particular one. I shall have to do few calculations to see what I can come up with. Whatever I weave next there must be movement, bumps and puckering!