My weaving mojo is back after my return from Vävstuga. Last week I wound on a warp for some towels that I’ve wanted to do for a while now. I used math (if you only knew how hard that is for me….) to figure out what I had left from the Dorothy Towels and how to use up most of it on this new project. To play it safe I wound a 5.5 yard warp (short for me. I like to do at least ten yards).
I have “three” towels woven. This was to be a “cleaning out” project. I used some cottolin I had leftover from another project, but it wasn’t enough for a whole towel, so that one will end up yardage. I got smart and weighed the cone before and after on the next towel (blue cottolin), so I’d have a better idea of how much weft I’d need for each towel. I wove one more after that in a deep cranberry (you can see that one still on the loom under the warps in the picture below). I still had one, probably two, towels worth of warp on the beam, but wanted to use it as a dummy warp while it was still secured around the back beam. If I were to weave up to the end of the warp, because it’s looped over the back rod, it wouldn’t have been secure to tie each end without them slipping around. I know I can finish weaving the remaining warp after I tie on to it and weave another project. This way I get more bang for my threading/sleying buck and I know there are no errors.
Something I haven’t blogged about is a trip to Whidbey Island for a workshop with Kathrin Weber (Blazing Shuttles). She is a Yarn whisperer extraordinaire. If you ever have a chance to take her workshop, jump on it. If not, at least check out her dyed warps because they are SO much fun to weave. Every advance of the warp is like turning a page in a great novel that you don’t want to put down. At that workshop I learned to let go and play with color, not only in the actual weaving, but in dyeing as well. I’ve dyed plenty of wool in my time, but dyeing cellulose fibers and warps was new to me. I’ll write more about that later.
Back to the project at hand. I had some 8/2 rayon warps that I dyed several months ago. I took three of them and tied them on to the twill towel warp still on the loom since it’s the same epi. Ideally, I would rather have had a narrower warp, but now I’ll have wraps instead of scarves, so it works. Because of Kathrin’s workshop, I have no fear when I see a picture like this:
because I know that a miracle is about to happen with one little snap. Suddenly I start singing, “Oh, oh, oh … it’s magic…. doncha’ know….”
The above shot is after the first warp was tied on. I did the other two, attached my trusty trapeze and wound on all seven yards with very little effort in under a half an hour… alone. I’m about 2/3rds finished with the first wrap. I used an 8/2 deep teal rayon. Not sure what color I’ll use next, but I’ll keep you posted.
