With this project I am exploring a honeycomb weave. (Pattern by Danna LaVallee, Brighton Honeycomb from "The Structure of Weaving" by Ann Sutton.) I have some baby alpaca that I have been wanted to turn into a scarf, but I do not want to make another piece that I am dissappointed in...so I am sampling this weave structure in an inexpensive (alright downright CHEAP!) acrylic yarn I bought at a craft store. Yeah, I said acrylic.
The yarn is actually pretty soft, but has an odd hand. I love the colors, and it also kind of "grabs" onto itself, kind of like wool, and I hope, alpaca. Acrylic is not my favorite fiber, to be sure, but it works for this purpose. I am experimenting with variegated yarns and trying to do something other than a simple tabby weave using handpainted yarns. I want to try something different, something with a little more texture, and see if I still get that random crosshatching that you get with a variegated yarn woven in tabby. This yarn has a lot going on in regard to color--so much so you are not going to see the honeycomb pattern, but you can feel it. It has a nice texture to be sure.
Here is my first attempt--already a problem!
Can you see it? Way off to the right...there are these really long float spanning 6 of the warp strings right on the edge. What I did was try something fancy (ya see I just can't help myself!!) and try to sort of frame the piece by adding a couple of warp strings just inside the 2 outside floating selvages. My intent was to do a tabby weave with these 2 warp strings up along either side of the scarf. So I threaded these two strings on shaft 1 and shaft 2 thinking that this would create a tabby weave. It worked on the left, but not on the right. The pattern is treadled with 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, and the treadling for 8&7 is a float, so combined with the floating selvage, my two warp additions, and the beginning of the pattern I have this 6 warp string horizontal float.
So I unweave and re-thread these two strings. It used to irritate me to unweave, and then I read this story somewhere. (I think it was on another weaving blog...I will give credit where credit is due just as soon as I can remember!) It goes like this: There was a woman in her studio weaving, and discovered that she had to unweave to fix a problem. She came out of her studio and complained to her husband and his friend a woodcarver, that she had to unweave. Her husband's friend said to her..."you don't know how lucky you are!!" Thinking that he must have fallen off his nut she asked him what he was talking about. He told her she was lucky to be able to go back and undo her mistakes. He said "you don't know how many times I wish that I could uncarve". I think of this story every time I have to unweave. Which is pretty often as I am a new weaver :-).
In looking at the pattern, I decided that threading on shafts 7 & 8 would give me the desired tabby effect on the right. I have no idea why, but it worked. :-)
So the scarf is completed now, and I don't mind the acrylic type of fiber. Still not my favorite fiber, tencel still wins that prize.
It weaves very much like wool, holds onto itself like wool, and washes a lot like wool. There was about a 6 inch recoil or shrinkage in length on the loom v.s. off the loom, but I saw that coming and wove an extra 8 inches to the length to allow for that. Makes for a nice scarf doesn't it??
(Robert took these pictures--didn't he do an excellent job? You wouldn't believe the pictures I took--blurry, blown out, and worst of all could not see anything in the weave structure. Thanks so much Robert!!)
I'll continue to explore this weave structure (honeycomb) for a couple more projects. I think it will make an excellent blanket...it has a lot of little pockets that gives it a nice thick feel, with very few floats, and I suspect it will hold in warmth nicely. Here is a closeup of the weave structure:
Next project is a baby blanket for baby Silas, a new addition to a friend's family. Then that alpaca scarf that got this whole thing started.
Wrapping the warp and spreading the baby blanket now. I am using yellow and white cotton and this same acrylic fiber. Will return with more posts on this project....
