Thursday, November 12, 2009

M's and O's Pattern With Too Few Puckers

The mailman arrived with the Tencel four days after the order going in, which was great. In the meantime I was able to do a sample. The pattern is M’s and O’s with one weft stripe done with the pink Merino Wool and the other weft stripe done with coral Tencel. The picture below is before washing and you can see that as the sample relaxed that some puckering already was showing up. The dimensions before washing were 12 ½ l x 8 ½ w. The sample was then gently hand washed and there was only a little puckering so into the washing machine it went. The sample was placed in the machine for 6 minutes on the Delicate cycle. While there is a bit more puckering there still isn’t enough difference to make the statement that I hope that it would. The dimensions after washing are 10 ¾ l x 6 ½ w.
Since changing the weft is time consuming and a little awkward as I was running the wool weft along the selvedge. The result just wasn’t worth pursuing so I have decided to just to do the entire scarf with wool. The Tencel stripes in the warp give a lovely soft sheen to the scarf. I also know that the Merino wool will help lighten the weight of the Tencel in the scarf. While this scarf isn’t what I thought it was going to be I am still excited by what it is; and I am looking forward to seeing off the loom. In a side note the studio is looking a little funny this week because all the scarves, shawls, throws and tea towels have gone off to the Ponderosa Guild Christmas Sale. It is amazing how empty and colourless the studio is feeling. But Mum’s azure blue canvas weave scarf went up today and soon my scarf will be joining it!

3 comments:

Susan said...

Such a lovely colour and it's too bad that it didn't pucker up as much as you hoped for. Nice when an experiement goes wrong and still looks fabulous huh? :)

So the sale is your first big debut as a weaver... and I know that you will do well! An apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

Susan

Life Looms Large said...

I have no doubt that between the two of you, the studio wall will be full and beautiful before too long!

The scarf looks great! It's always good for me to see what other people do when things go wrong with their weaving. I tend to pout, and I'm trying to get over that bad habit!

Sue

giny said...

perhaps you should try washing it together with a jeans in the washing machine the merino will felt than and puckering will appear?