Wordless Finished 6" x 72" Plaid Wool/Camel Scarf

More Ambitious Weaving

I ordered a 12.5 dent heddle for my loom, which handles 12.5 threads per inch, which will weave a much finer cloth (and in case you're wondering, the heddles for this loom will all work for a trade-up loom, whenever I get one, even though the trade-up loom will be wider). The holes in this heddle are really small, meaning that I can only warp the loom with fingering weight yarn. Luckily, I have a lot (a LOT) of fingering weight yarn on hand.

 Using a 12.5 dent heddle also means that I have to thread many many thin strands through many many little holes with a teeny tiny little crochet hook. That takes awhile. It would have taken a lot longer if I had not already learned the lesson about chaining the warp so it doesn't tangle. Still, it took me a couple of hours to get the loom warped. I now see why weavers use many many yards of warp, enough for multiple projects. I would do that myself, except this beginner loom won't hold more than about 3 yards' worth. My next loom will have a warp beam.

 I'm using some coned camel/wool yarn that I bought on eBay many years ago (at least a decade). This weaving stuff really is a stash-buster (not that this scarf will use very much yarn, but still).

Weaving plaid is tricky because not only do your selvedges have to be even, your stripes have to be even too. This job is complicated by the fact that I only have one shuttle (The Hub will make some for me this weekend, and I have a couple of plastic ones on the way, but right now? Just one), so I have to wind it with different yarn for every section. It's not hard, it just slows me down.

I'm making progress even so.

Second Verse, almost the same as the first...

I was thrilled with my first woven bit of plaid cloth- sure the edges weren't perfectly even, and there were obvious crookedy parts in the weft, but for a first time, I was pretty proud. Unfortunately, pride notwithstanding,  I still didn't have enough fabric for the bag I envisioned making. I had plenty of that handspun cotton yarn left, so I decided to warp the loom again, this time with much longer ... warps? Weaving words are complicated...

I still don't have a warping board, so I improvised. 18 times around the chairs for each color section (once apiece for blue, white, and dark brown, twice for the mottled brown).

 I underestimated the tangling capacity of long cotton strands. They were a mess by the time I got the heddle threaded. It took me over an hour to straighten them out and chain the sections. Won't let that happen again... nosiree...

 My friend Helen suggested using drinking straws or strips of paper to help the first rows stay neat and even. I love Helen.

 Look at how nice this is coming out! I'm thrilled with the even edges and fairly straight rows.

Oh no! Disaster! The warp was cut from handspun cotton yarn, which has thick and thin spots. One of the thick spots frayed with the repeated motion of the heddle, and it broke. Now I know that broken warp threads happen to everyone eventually, but I panicked a bit anyway. I tried several solutions to replace the thread and none worked. Since I now had enough plaid fabric for my project, and it wasn't necessary for this piece to be *all of one cloth*, I wove in a few spacer strips and advanced the warp past the break (I advanced enough past the broken spot for the warp tension to be restored,). Then I went to Facebook to whine, which is what I should have done in the first place because Helen and Connie both told me how to fix broken warp threads. I love Helen and Connie.

But, as I said, I already had enough plaid fabric, so I decided to weave some stripes, just for the hell of it. I Used up the last of the mottled brown yarn, and am now weaving up the rest of the blue in stripes.

Stripes are pretty too, no?

I should finish this piece today- I have *plans* for the next project.

Oh, and the correct heddle is on the way. Woohoo!