Chenille scarves

Do you like my new model? He's not quite a mannequin, but he makes a good prop for scarves.  Last summer, Gary and I were visiting friends and left their house by way of the alley and found a mountain of trash from neighbors cleaning out their garage.  The owners of the house owned a department store that had been a fixture in town for decades.  They sold the real estate and closed the business and had lots of leftovers from the business, including 6 styrofoam heads used to display cowboy hats.  Other scores included rodeo posters from the 80's, old Christmas decorations that were made in Japan (pre-Chinese), and a big roll of store gift wrapping paper.

So back to the scarves, this winter I bought a number of sweaters at the Red Lodge Senior Center Thrift Shop.  One of the sweaters was a red chenille women's sweater which had flecks of blue, yellow and purple.  I thought that the yarn from this would make a great weft in a winter scarf.  The warp yarn was frogged from a cotton sweater of Gary's.  It is a heavy 4 ply cotton with virtually no twist.  What's better than free yarn?  The scarves are woven in an undulating twill, draft #204 from A Weaver's Handbook of 8 Shaft Patterns.

Date Finished         February, 2014

Loom                     Baby Wolf

Weave Structure     Undulating Twill

Reed                       8 epi

Warp     Fiber         Cotton

              Count        Unknown

              Color         Red  

              Mfr           

              Source Frogged      

Warp     Width in Reed   8 in

              Ends                 64        
              Length             6 yd warp for 2 scarves

Weft      Fiber        Rayon chenille

              Count       unknown

              Color       red

              Mfr

              Source     frogged

Size  6: x  72

Notes

A Tower of Twill Towels

Weaving on 8 shafts has given me many more options for pattern and texture than what I had with just 4 shafts.  I have been in a bit of towel rut lately and wanted to see more interesting patterns than just the plain weave on a rigid heddle loom.  Handwoven's publication Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts, gave me lots of options, but how do you pick just one.  So instead I planned a 7 yard warp to get as much variation as possible from using different treadling and different colors of weft, while using the same structure for warp.  I warped the loom with a straight twill using a natural 4/2 cotton.  Each towel utilized a different tie-up, which meant a lot of floor time changing the tie-up.  But this was a small trade-off for warping once and getting 6 very different towels.

After weaving 6 towels, I had enough warp to complete a gamp with all of the tie-ups I used, plus one extra. So if I give them all away, I will still have a reference for future weaving.

The towels came up very thick, due to the 4/2 cotton used for the warp.  I warped it at 20 epi, which seemed about the right set for a twill using this warp.

Shaded Cord

From Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts

 Reflections

From Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts, also found in A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 10

 Interlocking Twill

A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 43

Basketry

From Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts

 Boulder Octogang Twill

A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 321

ZigZag

A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 314

Date Finished  July 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure Twills

Reed  10, doubled 20epi

Warp     Fiber  cotton, unmercerized

              Count  4/2

              Color  natural

              Mfr  

              Source  Earthguild

Warp     Width in Reed  20"

              Ends  402

              Length  7 yds

Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  several

              Mfr

              Source

Beat                       50/50                     

Size  20 x 30 on the loom, 17.5 X 27 after finishing