weave4fun

Happy New Year Y'all! So I've been back at college for, oooooh, what, two weeks now, and things are going just fine. I have been doing lots of visual research and development and I have also in dribs and drabs been dressing the loom with an 1800 end warp of cotton, worsted and wool/lycra mix. The wool/lycra mix is the star of the show. This is a core spun lycra wrapped with 97%worsted wool. The brilliant thing about this stuff, in contrast to other elastic yarns I've used is that at the lycra is held at extension in the normal tension of the worsted yarn. This means it's reasonably easy to weave with, as it basically behaves like a normal worsted yarn when it's under tension, which is FANTASTIC. The really interesting thing as well of course, is that the lycra doesn't properly relax until it's been washed in a relaxed state, at which point it obeys it's true desires and pulls itself right in all scrunchy like. The idea is I'm making cloth ...

As you may be aware I am in the process of sampling for cashmere scarves. It has been suggested to me that I should attempt to move away from the tight-heavy-beat steady flat fabric I tend to weave, twills, plain weave and all that. This in order to create a more sort of soft fluffy fabric which would be a more pleasing kind of scarf for someone to wear. One possibility which was suggested to me was Honeycomb or, as our friends in the colonies call it, Waffle Weave. I'll be making a warp of this stuff later on today, after I get a lift over to the church (it's raining so I'm not walking and waiting around for a lift and using the time to do warp-planning and writing my blog and doing colour plans and arguing with people on facebook forums). Anyway, this should create a sort of texturey feel, and add some thickness as well. I still haven't figured out how to finish the selvedges or the fringes. I think I'm just going to have to be old fashioned and walk the fa...