Handpainted Skeins as Warp

I really like working with handpainted yarn... I really enjoying winding warps and painting them, but, with two kids and too much to do, I just haven't had the time (for about three years, lol!). So, the next best thing is all that lovely handpainted yarn that's already on the market.

When the color changes are relatively subtle, I just wind my warp as I normally would. When the skein is one of those really yummy, non-repeating, contrast-y ones, though, you run into the Cat Barf problem, as pointed out by Syne Mitchell in this Weavezine article. The handy-dandy Bonus Content to the article describes a nice way of working with non-symmetrical skeins. I had one of those - Why didn't I think of that?! Doh! - moments when I read the article...

Here's a picture of a painted skein being wound into a warp using Syne's method:



The skein I'm winding here is about 50" around, and I need about 100" for one of my scarves, so that worked out just right. I basically made a big 100" diameter circle with the yarn, making a cross on the left side. Any longer and I would need a lot bigger warping board!


Here's the cross. Looks weird, doesn't it? But since I generally warp front to back anyway, it's really the same thing. I'll just cut it a bit above or below the cross (haven't decided yet) and proceed as I normally do.

One thing I did notice is this:

The yarn tends to get a bit out of whack as I wind. But that's actually just fine. I wound the skein all onto the pegs and then I just sort of tugged/slid those upper, misaligned yarns back to where I wanted them:

Easy! They slid very nicely along their path, nothing tangled, and now the colors are placed more or less how I want them (I may have to mess about with a little more, but I like this so far.) (And pardon my messy dining room - it's basically a project room for Bella and me at this point...)

Just one more picture:


A bunch of scarves, hanging on the upstairs railing to finish drying. Right up above them (not in the picture) is bottom of the new sun tunnel that was put in when we got our roof replaced. I love it -the upstairs landing is now the brightest place in our little Cape!

Obviously I'm way behind on photographing/listing things on Etsy and 1000Markets. Ah well, it's summer, it's slow season for me. (And, yes, I do need to finish painting the stairwell... It never ends, lol!) Open Studios this Saturday, though, and I'm trying to weave like mad to have inventory for the Boston Ahts Festival in September as well as the big Lowell Open Studios, etc.

WeaveCast and an Unhappy Project...

So, I've been working on a really pretty 8-shaft shadow weave scarf on my big loom. It's made of 18/2 Jaggerspun wool, in teal and silvery grey - quite a nice combination, it has turned out, for a men's scarf. BUT. Sigh. Partway through, I snapped a warp thread. Phooey. Repairable, but I don't like to sell anything with an error like that in it. So, I thought, ok, I'll give it to Carlos for Christmas, he'll like it, he's already looked at it and said he likes it. And then, partway through, my pattern starts getting all out of whack. What on earth?? My treadling hasn't changed, I haven't got the shuttle order backwards (you use two shuttles and to weave shadow weave). Weirdness.

Turns out on of the cords that tie-up my one of my treadles (the 8th one, actually) had come undone, so whenever I opened the shed with that 8th treadle, the first shaft wasn't rising. Hmph. My big loom lives in the basement (poor thing) and the lighting isn't spectacular (poor me, lol), or I might have spotted it earlier, there's a definite weft float in the pattern for about half of the scarf. Argh!

So much for my powers of observation.

I'm going to blame it on Syne Mitchell.

Syne has a wonderful (free) podcast all about weaving - WeaveCast. It's great! Go check it out now!

At any rate, I've been listening to it while weaving this scarf (weaving with 18/2 wool is a slooooow process) and was having such fun listening - and laughing - that I wasn't paying enough attention to my project.

Does this mean I'll leave the iPod behind while weaving this evening?

Nope. :) I'm only through episode 2 of 18!