Weaving update
May. 24th, 2007 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenThe striped diamond twill is done! Finished it yesterday afternoon. This morning I cut a piece off of one end, zigzagged the edges, then washed and dried two small pieces -- one hung dry, the other in the dryer.
The entire piece ended up being about 3 and 3/4 yards long. Even width was maintained throughout. I was hoping for a full 4 yards, but some breaks in the first part of the warp when I was learning how to deal with wool prevented that.
Here I have the two ends of the cloth next to each other, so you can see that the stripes are more compressed on above and wider on below. The wider part is the first yard, where I was concentrating more on getting the pattern right than on properly beating down the weft. Still perfectly good fabric, just doesn't match the rest of the yardage. So, perhaps a bag or vest out of one part, and hopefully still a jacket out of the rest. If not, I can always weave some more.
This piece was washed and hung to dry outside.
This piece was washed and thrown into a dryer on high heat. There was a little shrinkage (from 3" wide down to 2-3/4") -- pretty typical for wool woven goods.
The wool softened up quite a bit from washing. Both swatches are about equally fulled -- the dryer didn't make one piece any fuzzier than they both got from being washed. I'm thinking at this point that I'll wash and dry any wool scarves, etc. that I make for sale -- softens them nicely, and what's not to like about not having to take something to the dry cleaners? Lucky me, fulling (or felting as a lot of crafters are calling it) is popular right now.
The entire piece ended up being about 3 and 3/4 yards long. Even width was maintained throughout. I was hoping for a full 4 yards, but some breaks in the first part of the warp when I was learning how to deal with wool prevented that.
Here I have the two ends of the cloth next to each other, so you can see that the stripes are more compressed on above and wider on below. The wider part is the first yard, where I was concentrating more on getting the pattern right than on properly beating down the weft. Still perfectly good fabric, just doesn't match the rest of the yardage. So, perhaps a bag or vest out of one part, and hopefully still a jacket out of the rest. If not, I can always weave some more.
This piece was washed and hung to dry outside.
This piece was washed and thrown into a dryer on high heat. There was a little shrinkage (from 3" wide down to 2-3/4") -- pretty typical for wool woven goods.
The wool softened up quite a bit from washing. Both swatches are about equally fulled -- the dryer didn't make one piece any fuzzier than they both got from being washed. I'm thinking at this point that I'll wash and dry any wool scarves, etc. that I make for sale -- softens them nicely, and what's not to like about not having to take something to the dry cleaners? Lucky me, fulling (or felting as a lot of crafters are calling it) is popular right now.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-24 08:07 pm (UTC)Glad to hear of another application of the dryer method. :-) It has been a while since I wove wool, but my wool fabrics go through the washer and dryer (usually with some regular towels), and come out feeling wonderful as well.
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Date: 2007-05-24 08:40 pm (UTC)And now that I have the pattern down (more or less), I can play with other color combos as well. I made sure to get some colors that were the same type of wool, so I wouldn't have to do swatches every single time :D
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Date: 2007-05-24 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-25 01:31 am (UTC)