Crackle Yardage Progress

The crackle yardage has been sitting lumped in my sewing room over a chair. Out of sight, out of mind. I try to devote at least a part of my weekend to sewing and/or spinning. Of course, when I went to my sewing room to continue work on a pair of slacks I am making, there it sat. An ugly lump on the back of my chair. OK, I promised myself that once I had zigzagged all the edges and cut the pieces apart, I could then move on to my slacks. I did just that.

In the course of the zigzagging I discovered just how vulnerable the yardage was. As I was adjusting and sewing, it would catch on edges of my sewing table (rounded edges, mind you), and groups of yarn would pull out of place. Here was but more evidence that the sett for the polychrome was too wide. Sigh..........

When I cut up the pieces I had, in addition to the three deliberately woven pieces, a series of sample treadlings preceding the third piece. I saw something there I rather liked so decided to save that.

I am going to use that sample piece to experiment with the washing process. I will measure it, wash it in hot water and dry it in the dryer. Measure. Wash and dry again. Measure. I will probably also hard press it after the first washing and again after the second washing. What I am trying to do is to shrink the fabric to see if that helps the fragility of the weaving caused by the too-wide sett. I will report back.

Meanwhile, I now have no excuse not to start examining the three fabrics for errors to correct and loose ends to cut off.


At the very bottom of the stack, barely visible, is the original yardage. On top of that (blue dominant) is the yardage I wove for trim. On top of that (yellow dominant) is the bit I wove with the same treadling as the trim fabric, but using 10/2 pearl cotton instead of 20/2. The top piece is the little sample I will be doing my washing/drying experiment on.

I do have, by the way, a couple of wool jackets I have made with some long floats. These floats do tend to catch and occasionally break. When they do, I cut them off. With wool this is not such a horrible problem because the wool will kind of stick to itself. Mercerized cotton, on the other hand, is much too slippery to do that. Another sigh.