Wrap It Up

Reference

Well, here is the result of my first experiment with weaving with “energized” singles:

Here is the draft for it:

The bottom half of the treadling (what you see on the side) was only done on the ends of the scarf as an attempt at a border. Because of the “novelty” of the yarn (fuzzy, changes in color and thickness,) I think the edge pattern got lost. Larger, simpler motifs seem to work better.

I seem to have to learn that lesson over and over again with anything that I design: “Keep It Simple (Stupid.)” I could have saved myself a good bit of work by just simplifying the draft.

The selvedges seemed a little wonky to me, and it is the only place that I might attribute something in the finished product to the scarf being woven with unblocked singles. I can’t be sure of this though, and I will have to do more experiments to be sure. It could be just that I didn’t do well with the selvedges myself, but blaming it on the yarn is kind of comforting to me….

I am pretty happy with how the fringe turned out.

I actually like how the colors interact here. I makes me want to spin the rest of the roving as a plied yarn. Originally, for purposes of fulling the scarf (wet finishing after the scarf came off the loom so that the fibers relax,) I just let the warp ends ply on each other. As Denise said at meetup, they looked like dreadlocks then. The blanket twist (similar to doing a cabled yarn) gives a more polished look, I think.

The judges at the festival really liked, saying that they had no advice to give for improvement and wanting to see a blanket version of it next year. We will have to wait and see about that. For now, a scarf will do.

And I am happy to say that I think I have my weaving mojo back!