Down to Brass Tacks

I expected to have trouble weaving these scarves. I didn't expect to have so much trouble choosing a weft!

I'm going to drone on and on and on about my weft dilemma in this post. The good news is that I do reach a conclusion. (And it's also good that I'm warning you of droning right up front. That way you can just scroll through and still get away with commenting without sounding like you didn't read!!)

Washed and unwashed first samples

You may recall that I wasn't happy with the look or feel of my washed and unwashed samples for my First-Time-at-WEBS scarves.

Too stiff, and the wildness of the warp was being tamed too much.

I begged all of you for advice, and you gave me great advice!

Texture Sampler

A few ideas included using green in the weft, using a lighter color in the weft and using mohair in the weft.

In my texture sampler, with just 1 inch squares, I had tried several of these ideas. Mohair seemed the most promising of the ideas, since the resulting fabric was soft and flexible.

After raiding my stash, the first four yarns I wanted to try were my pink Earthguild yarn (rayon, cotton, flax blend), black cotton, purple Earthguild yarn, deep navy wool-silk.

I was also trying twill rather than plain weave for the first time on this warp.

In this picture, you can see the pink yarn in a twill weave, followed by the black, purple and navy and more.

One thing I realized right away is that with twill, the weft shows even more since it's skipping over more of the warp. I'm somewhat anti-twill in general. I know that twill provides drape and there are some really cool twill patterns. But I don't really like twill. I'm learning to like it, but I'm not totally there.

The other thing I realized is that I had much more draw-in in my first sample. So now, even though I hadn't changed the sett, the fabric was more open.

First sample sitting on current warp

You can see that in this warp which is less than 10 inches wide, the sample with the coral and turquoise is over an inch narrower than the samples I'm weaving this time around.

I think it's because when I started weaving last time, I used the technique of throwing 3 picks of plain weave before beating. With each set of 3 picks followed by 1 beat, the edges pulled in more and more.

In that first pink section of weft, I decided to abandon twill for now (even thoughworked hard getting the loom set up with 4 shafts and re-threading so I could weave twill.)

After that small section of pink, I reverted to plain weave for the rest of the samples.

Second set of wefts

My second set of wefts contained some long shots: navy and bright colored ladder yarn, burgundy mohair boucle, thin purple wool, variegated blue ladder yarn, purple luxury yarn (wool, alpaca, angora - who knows what), and pink earthguild again so I could see it with plain weave.

You can see the yarns in order here, starting with the ladder yarn with chartreuse streaks.

I was surprised to like the darker ladder yarn and surprised at how much the boucle overpowered the warp. I had been thinking of ordering a ball of a boucle that would blend with the weft, but I'm so glad I sampled more.

I was also surprised that my first reaction, and Jim's too, was that the first ladder yarn looks the best with the warp. It has a lot of sheen and irregularity, both of which might make a nice scarf. Even though this is a strange use for that yarn, and doesn't really make the most of the ladder yarn.

After sitting with these samples for a few days, to let my intuition have time to develop, the navy wool-silk has grown on me quite a bit.

My three yarn finalists are:

• purple Earthguild yarn (I just can't give up on having this scarf be in the pink/purple family)
• navy wool-silk
• streaky ladder yarn

They ended up in order from bottom to top in that photo of the sample.

Since I'm still fighting to get 3 scarves out of this warp, I cut out weft that I knew I wouldn't use. It's much easier to unweave if you're willing to cut and discard the weft.

Remember when adding a stick and cutting off the start of a warp was a big deal to me?

Now it's run of the mill!

I hemmed the sample and cut it in half down the middle. (I'm pretty sure I heard that idea from Theresa at some point).

One half has gone through the wash and is air-drying.

The hand feels good with all 3 of my yarn choices, so I'm finally ready to start weaving! Phew!!

I try to do 3 posts per project, a beginning, a middle and an end. This project already has a whole lot of middle and I haven't thrown the first picks of the actual scarves!

Here's hoping for smooth weaving ahead!!

Two side notes:

Wikipedia on the phrase "down to brass tacks"

The photo quality in this post suffered from all different lighting conditions - including a power failure. I didn't use a flash for most of the pictures. It's hard to see the color accurately.

After writing the post this morning, I'm wondering if the weft is too dark. I'm still pulled toward the pink and purple. I just hope that I actually have enough warp to make this into 3 scarves....then I can go with the navy, the ladder and the purple or pink. Time will tell! (And you know I'll show you what I come up with!)

If you made it this far, thanks for listening!

Related posts:
Asking for help designing in the reed
Project kickoff
Designing in the reed
Asking for help showing off the warp
Exhaustedly starting to weave samples