HANDSPUN TIED ON AND READY TO WEAVE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The blue waste yarn is leftover mohair.  When I return to the loom to begin weaving, I will throw a few more shots of the mohair to draw in the selvedges to where I want them to be.

Related Posts: 
Lashing on to the Front of the Loom: Part One
Ready to Weave

"Handspun Tied on and Ready to Weave” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 30, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

HANDSPUN SETT CHANGE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have not really been comfortable with a twill sett of 8 epi for this handspun warp.  And after I had beamed it on I saw why.  Here is a photo of the warp from the back after beaming, threading, sleying and removing of lease sticks.

The two warp ends visible on either side at the top of the shafts are the two floating selvedge warp ends.  Right now, they are sleyed and the ends that will hang over the back beam I have simply thrown up onto the top of the loom to keep them out of the way for now.

This next photo shows more clearly why I was uncomfortable with 8 epi for a twill sett for this yarn.

Here in the raddle, the warp is sett at 8 epi.  Looking at it, I see warp ends that are not close enough together. This would work for plain weave, but not for twill.  So I decided to sett the warp at 10 epi using a 5-dent reed set two ends per dent.

This means that the sides of the warp will not go straight from front to back but will angle a bit. But the angle is very slight. Once I start weaving, the angle will be a little greater because the woven fabric will pull in. 

The first photo, by the way, gives a good view of the LeClerc raddle.  It is attached to the back of the loom so that the tines point directly back.  I have removed the lease sticks but I am going to keep the raddle in while I weave the scarf.  The raddle should keep the ends sorted at the back as much as they need be for this particular warp.

Related Post:   Determining Sett for Handspun Scarf

"Handspun Sett Change” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 24, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

SOME GREEN WEFT YARNS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here are the first of the green 60/2 silk weft yarns I have dyed.  As I had hoped, the colors are just fine.  One surprise, however, is the relatively little difference between the two darker yarns.  The lighter (greener one) at the top of the photo used 1.4% red violet to tone the yellow green;  the darker one in the middle used 18% red violet.  My sampling shows that there should have been very little difference between the skein at the top and the skein at the bottom (which is pure yellow-green with no red-violet toner at all in it).

Was this a result of mistakes in the stock solutions?  I have to assume so.  Is it a problem for the green crackle project?  No.  I am simply revising the formulas for my next group of greens.

I think also that I will make another liter of this yellow-green.  This liter will have in it none of the SAB Sun Yellow stock solution that I suspect was 2% instead of 1% DOS.

Related Post:  Dye Stock Solutions

"Some Green Weft Yarns” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 23, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

I OUGHT NOT TO BE A DYER REVISITED

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

NOTE TO MYSELF:  write out dyeing instructions so that there is not a grain of ambiguity in them.

This morning I made preparations to dye three skeins of 60/2 silk for weft.  They are to be three variations of yellow-green dulled with red-violet.  I did not have enough mixed yellow-green leftover from the warp dyeing.  And I did not have enough stock solution of the SAB Sun Yellow to mix the yellow green.  So I made another liter of the Sun Yellow.

The new liter looked a lot lighter and brighter than the earlier Sun Yellow.  Ageing of the stock solution?

I went ahead and mixed the blue and yellow for the yellow-green.  Then I looked more carefully at my notes for the warp dyeing.

I saw some directions for using 2% stock solutions.  And I remember that I had wanted to make 2% stock solution because of the large amount of Sun Yellow I was going to need. I wrote out my instructions are for using 1% solutions.  But in parentheses I included the amount I would need for 2% solutions.

I find it difficult to believe that I used 2% stock solutions with directions for mixing from 1% stock solutions.  That would have yielded an 8% depth of shade instead of the 4% I  had planned on.  Dyeing at 8% DOS would be ridiculous because there is no way the yarn would absorb that much dye. That would have meant that there would have been tons of dye solution left in the dyepot after the dyeing was done.   There wasn’t.

Yet the deeper color of the SAB Sun Yellow haunts me.

I am sure the blue stock solution was 1% because I had not needed to make up any new.  And I usually always make up my stock solutions at 1%.

I could throw out the yellow-green I just mixed, make up a new batch of yellow and a new batch of blue (I don’t have enough of the blue left to make another liter of yellow-green).  Or I could just go with what I have.

I think I will go with what I have.  It is not imperative that the colors be identical to my original intent.  They frequently are not anyway because I don’t always get right the jump from small batch dyeing to large batch dyeing. And, if some of the yellow that has gone into this yellow-green is 2% instead of 1%, the effect will be a bit of greater brightness in the color. Weighing this together with the extreme weakness of yellow, I can live with that.  I might even like it better.

So I am continuing on.

FAST FORWARDING A BIT

The yarn is now “cooking” in the dye pots.  And frankly, the colors look just fine.  The yarns wet always look darker and richer than when dry.  But I think that these colors will be quite wonderful.

Related Post: 
Dyeing Calculations Run Amuck
I Really Ought Not to be a Dyer

"I Ought Not to be a Dyer Revisited” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 20, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

CONES OF BROWN SILK WARP

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

Three of them.

I decided to try winding from the other end.  Magic. 

Perhaps not.  This has happened before.  So this time, I tried to watch the silk as it came off the skein.  Hard to do as I have to keep my eyes glued to the cone to make sure the yarn doesn’t slip off the top or the bottom.  What I saw when I grabbed glances of the skein was that the yarn was unwinding back and forth across the top of the skein.  This explains the advice I once received to unwind from the top of the skein.

This advice had made no sense to me.  When I wind a skein of yarn myself, I wind, say, 100 rounds, then put three or four ties on.  I wind another 100 rounds, and twist the ties and encircle them to encompass the next group of yarns.  And so on.  The result is that when I make balls or cones from my skein, the yarn winds off the skein from one edge to the other……….gradually.   Not back and forth across the top.  And it makes no difference which end I start with.

Clearly the method of making these silk skeins is quite different.  The winder simply goes back and forth and back and forth and then the ties are put on.

With this kind of skein it truly does make a difference which end I start with.  If I start with the end that comes from underneath, I am in deep trouble.  If I start with the end that comes from the top, all is well.

At least, these are my thoughts right now!

So, why three skeins?  Because I plan on using a paddle and winding my warp three ends at a time.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE

Yes, the background color of the photo is a putrid gymnasium green.  That is because I had to do some serious color manipulating to turn what the camera intrpreted as red, on all 15 photos I took, to the brown it really is.  Here is the original image (and this is the least red of the images):

There is, of course, a lot of red in this yarn.  Well, the camera lens apparently fell in love with the red and didn’t pay any attention to the other colors in the yarn that turned the color into brown. No matter what settings are tried on the camera itself.  Sigh.

Related Post:   Coning the Warp Yarn

"Cones of Brown Silk Warp” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 19, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

CONING THE WARP YARN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Is there such a word as “coning?”  Spell checker seems to think it’s a word…….  Anyway, here is the brown skein being coned. Also visible are some of my other tools. 

On the bottom shelf, my electric cone winder and my hand cone winder. 

On the middle shelf, my ball winder (in a clear pastic bag) and gloves that I sometimes wear when winding yarn to protect my fingers.

On the top shelf, my tension box, now facing a different direction so that the yarn coming from the skein winder does not pop off the pegs. 

The winding is not going  without some difficulties.  This next photo shows more clearly just what the difficulties are.

Nevertheless, the difficulties here are not the horrendous ones I have experienced in the past. That means I am not tearing out my hair over it.  Just being persistent.

And I do now know it is definitely the dyeing process that is the cause of the problems. 

Related Post:   That Badly Snarled Skein of Yarn

"Coning the Warp Yarn” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 18, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

NOT DYEING THE WEFT YARNS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

I have three skeins of 60/2 silk ready for the dye pots.

“Life,” however, seems to be happening. 

For the next couple of weeks, it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to find any three-hour spaces that I need for even one dye session.  I won’t mention just yet how many dye sessions I think I am going to need.  That is a good way to head myself into a downward spiral!

Still I have enough tasks to do that can be done in smaller chunks of time.

1. The three skeins of warp yarn having been dyed can now be wound onto cones in preparation for winding warps.

2. I can wind the warp

3. I can beam, thread, sley, and tie on the warp.

These three alone I will be unable to finish in the next two weeks, even with more time at my disposal!   But because I can do them in bits and pieces of available time, I can make steady progress.

I have already made a start on #1.  Just enough of a start that I can tell the first skein is probably going to unwind onto the cone without much trouble.

Then there is the handspun scarf warp.  I have made the warp, beamed it on  and am ready to thread.

And a 4-dent reed sits against the wall waiting to be put to use.

So, to be realistic, I think I am looking to early January to begin the actual weaving on the green silk crackle project. I mean, Christmas is almost here, my gosh!

Related Posts: 
Handspun Warp Question
Interlude

"Not Dyeing the Weft Yarns” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 17, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

 

DYEING THE WEFT YARNS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The warp yarns are now dyed—three full skeins of 60/2 silk.  Now I am working on the arithmetic for the 60/2 silk pattern weft yarns and the 120/2 silk binder weft yarns.

I have worked out the colors I want and their recipes. I have also calculated roughly the relative proportions of the colors.  And I am now in the process of winding off the yarns into skeins.

I am dyeing the wefts in many more color variations than I did the warp yarns.  For the 60/2 silk I am using 13 different variations.  For the 120/2 silk 14 different variations.  That means the individual skeins will be much much smaller.  And that means I will be able to dye at least 3 different skeins at a time.

Related Post:    Dyeing Books: Some Favorites

"Dyeing the Weft Yarns” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 16, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

OPPORTUNITY

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Yesterday I learned that a local art gallery is sponsoring a fiber arts show for South Carolina artists in February and March.  I have the information, the rules, and contact information.  I’m going to do this.   And I’m scared to death.

I’m scared because this is a small town and people I know will see something(s) of my stuff.  I’m scared because I have to hang my own items and I don’t have the foggiest idea of how to do it.  I’ll get over it.  Actually, I’m already beginning to get over it. 

I’m beginning to think of what I might show and how it might be displayed.  I’m beginning to think of how I might volunteer to help—this is a co-operative art gallery so the artists whose work is being shown are expected to help out. 

Still I am going to have to talk to the contact person.  And that scares me, too!.  Yes, even at the tender age of 71 I can still be extraordinarily shy.  Despite the fact that I absolutely know that the contact person will be very nice and very helpful.  Indeed, it turns out my husband knows and likes her;  she works at the university where he teaches.

All will be well…….

"Opportunity” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 12, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

HANDSPUN AND DUMMY WARPS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

In the past I have always used a dummy warp with my handspun.  My dummy warps consisted of about one-and-a-half yards of a similar sized cotton.  I warped and beamed this cotton onto the loom. Then I tied the handspun warp to it and continued beaming on.  But not this time.

Why not?

First, I had plenty of yarn, so I did not feel the urgent need to conserve it as carefully as I could. 

Second, when I have used a dummy warp, I found that I could weave on the handspun warp until the knots got to and even through the heddles.  Because I have an apron on the back beam (and on the front beam as well), I am thinking that maybe I can weave until the apron itself gets to the heddles.  In that case, there would be no real reason to use a dummy warp. 

Related Posts:   
Tying the Handspun to the Dummy Warp 
Handspun Shawl: The Dummy Warp

"Handspun and Dummy Warps” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 11, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

WINDING THE HANDSPUN WARP

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

To wind the handspun warp I converted two skeins of the handspun into balls. Not cones.  Balls.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Winding from balls is jerky at best.  Winding from cones is smooth and easy.  I knew this.  So why, why, why did I make balls?  With my cone winder it is just as easy to make cones as it is to make balls with my ball winder.

Well, there were not many ends, and I just wanted to see if I had been wrong about the balls.  If my experience had changed.  Nope.  So, to wind bobbins, I will convert the remaining skeins to cones.  I may even convert what is left on the second ball to a cone.

Cone/ball issue aside, there is really only one major issue to confront when I make a handspun warp.  The stretch factor.  Handspun has lovely resilience.  That means it stretches and bounces right back.  That means that when I removed the warp from the warping board, I immediately lost eight inches.  Sigh.   And I had tried to be so careful to wind the warp tautly but without stretching it.

I did make allowances for the stretch factor when I worked out the figures.  I’m not totally dumb!

Related Post:  Spinning for Weaving 

"Winding the Handspun Warp” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 11, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

DETERMINING SETT FOR HANDSPUN SCARF

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I checked Osterkamp’s extensive discussion of figuring out sett in her book, Winding a Warp and Using a Paddle. Usually I go the yards-per-pound route. This time, however, I decided I wasn’t going to fiddle with that. Instead I decided to work with the wraps per inch*.

My measurements of the wpi came in at 16.  I’m never sure of the accuracy of these measurements.  The finer the yarn gets, the more problematic it can be. But 16, accurate or inaccurate, is what is is going to be.

YARN WEIGHT PER POUND VERSUS WRAPS PER INCH

Yarn weight per-pound is much more accurate than working with wraps per inch. Working with 60/2 silk forces me into using yards-per-pound.  However, that figure is already provided by the manufacturer. For me to work that out on my own, I would have to use the McMorran Balance**. But I’m not so sure of my ability to be accurate with that either.

16 wraps per inch it is.

CALCULATING SETT: STEP ONE

The next step is to multiply 16 by 0.67 (or 2/3) to get the maximum sett for twill.  The answer to that calculation is 10.72.  That, however, would be the maximum sett for twill.  I want a softer fabric than that.

STEP TWO:  CORRECTING FOR KIND OF FABRIC

To get a sett for a softer fabric I multiplied 6.9 by 0.65, the number that Osterkamp suggests for woolen.  That calculation gave me a sett of  6.9.  So the sett I would then use should be 7 epi. 

STEP THREE: MAKE A CONSIDERED JUDGMENT

However, the last handspun I wove, with identical grist, was sett at 8 epi for twill.  And this was decided only after enormous amounts of time spent thinking and worrying. I still have the piece so I checked it. That sett was exactly right.  I will use 8 epi as my sett for this piece. 

There is another reason I prefer a sett of 8 epi over one of 7. At 8-epi I can sley an 8-dent reed with one end per dent, instead of using a 5- or 6-dent reed with varying numbers of 1 and 2 ends in each dent.  I worry about possible warp streaks when I have to mix the number of ends in a dent.

*To learn how to measure wraps per inch, go to this illustrated explanation:  http://www.heartstringsfiberarts.com/wpi.shtm

**To learn how to use a McMorran Yarn Balance, go to this illustrated explanation:   http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/aa00/aa022800.htm

Related Post:  Thoughts on Designing

"Determining Sett for Handspun Scarf” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 10, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

INTERLUDE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

This is a scarf.  Well, not quite yet.  Right now it is just a group of skeins of some of my recent handspun yarn.  But it’s going to be a scarf.  The white tags on each skein have yardage information.

So, what has happened to the silk crackle?

Well, I’ve dyed the second skein, which turned out nicely. And I’m ready to dye the third skein of warp yarn.

But I really long to weave. 

Actually weaving the silk crackle is going to be awhile because of all the preparation steps that need to happen.

So, while I am doing that, I am going to make a dent in some of my handspun and weave a scarf for a Christmas present.

The red and green are really a bit too………too “Christmasy” for my taste.  But the green is going to appear only as two very narrow stripes, one on each side of the scarf.

There are 16 wraps per inch.  Looking at comparable yarns in the Halcyon yarn catalog, I find the a sett between 10 and 12 epi would be appropriate for twill.  I am skeptical, however.  I think I need to check with Osterkamp.

Related Post: Handspun and Computing Sett: Part III

"Interlude” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 9, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

IRIDESCENCE?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have now dyed two of the three skeins.  One is dry.  One is dyed, rinsed, and hanging to dry.  And the third is for Tuesday.

The one that is dry is very interesting.  I dyed it using 65% yellow green and 35% red violet. In some lights the dyed yarn looks a deep khaki green.  In other lights it looks reddish brown. I have taken two photos showing the yarn’s appearance in different light, one is incandescent;  the other is florescent.   The yarn, by the way, is much more evenly dyed than the photos would suggest.

When the yarn was in the dyepot, the water actually looked red. So red that I wondered if the yarn was going to turn out red. 

Even the camera lens seems to want to separate out these colors.  I wonder if the shine of the silk isn’t contributing to this iridescence.

My guess is that when this warp yarn is crossed by yellow-green weft, the warp will look brown.  But when it is crossed by red-violet weft, the warp will look green.

The evenness of the dyeing pleased me.  Normally when I dye yarn, especially such large skeins of yarn, I shift the yarn around on the loops holding the yarn from the rod.  But I had read doing that this is a no-no.  Only lift the yarn in and out of the water.  That is what I did with this skein. 

"Iridescence?” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 6, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

TENSION BOX: ANOTHER GOOD USE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I discovered that the tension box is useful not only for winding cones, but also for making skeins.  Making skeins for dyeing the weft yarns is what I have now started to do.

The yarn comes up from the rack in the lower right hand corner.  It is emerging through the metal eye there.  It then travels up to the tension box which I have set up on a snack table.  It goes through the metal eye and then around the pegs.  From there it goes to the yarn counter, which is sitting on the red book.   The black box is the counter.  The yarn is wound 3 times around the wheel of the counter so that there is enough grip for the counter to be accurate.  There is a metal eyelet it goes through first.  Then on the other side of the counter is another metal eye.  It goes through that and then over to the skein winder on the upper right.

What the tension box does here is to keep the yarn from looping and flapping around before it enters the yarn counter.  When the yarn loops around too badly, it will slip off the wheel of the counter and gets caught in the gear mechanism at the back.  When it happened this last time,  I had to cut the yarn and join a new end to it.  That is when I thought of the tension box………..

Related Posts: 
More on Winding Fine Silk Onto Cones
Skeining Photos

"Tension Box: Another Good Use” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 5, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

LET THE DYEING BEGIN!

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The yarn is in the dyepot on the gas range.  At the moment the temperature has reached 160 degrees  and I am giving it 20 minutes to reach 180 degrees.  I carry the thermometer around with me so that I remember to go back and check.  And raise and lower the skein from time to time as well.

The white cord is looped through the skein and tied to the wooden dowel.  I use the wooden dowel to lift the skein up and down in the water so that it will dye evenly.   The red nylon cord visible on the left handle is attached to a thermometer which is in the water.

On the left is my green heavy duty plastic gloves and my timer.  The white basin is where the yarn was soaking overnight and to which the yarn will return when it is dyed and ready to be rinsed and set to dry.

The red-and-white checked fabric is vinyl yardage used to make tablecloths, among other things. 

The pot is stainless steel, but Walmart stainless steel.  That means I cannot let the water get as high as the rivets on the inside of the pot or they will rust out (the rivets are not stainless steel).  Also, the walls and bottom of the pot are thin so I have to watch for scorching.  I think I have an idea that will help, but we shall see.  In any case, I have read about using marbles to keep the yarn off the bottom, so I think I will buy some.

The beams of light are LED beams from my professional range top hood.  The hood is on, getting rid of the heat, humidity, and and any airborne acid from the citric acid I use.

Related Post:  Dyeing the Skein

"Let the Dyeing Begin” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 3, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

MORE ON THE THREADING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have finally proofread the threading and discovered two errors.  Well, it was really four since the second half mirrors the first……  In one place Block D had one too few units;  in another it had one too many.

I had been thinking about doing something fancy with gradations in threading the warp.  But then deciding I was only getting a little frantic about not being able to dye yet and that, in reality, the focus is going to be on the weft.  The warp will be a secondary (but still important!) player. 

I wanted to check the threading so put in the tie-up and the basic treadling idea I planned to use, with the treadles alternating dark red and dark green on a black warp.

 There is more on both sides, but this shows pretty much what I was after.  The woven fabric will, in reality, be quite different, for the design will not be compressed as it is here, and the colors used will be more subtle and varied.  I see this as kind of a short-hand map.

I really can go no further than this.  I will have to get the warp on and do some test-driving first.

"More on the Threading” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on November 2, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.