Zoom session from Sunday, January 12, 2025
A number of people were key in answering questions and providing suggestions: Debbie C, Heidi B, Cindy S, Mary P, Stephanie H, and Terry L
Question: I always buy skeins of wool – how can I weave with them successfully?
- Don’t beat wool yarn hard when weaving – it will be too stiff (just kiss each weft pick to the previous pick). You should be able to see daylight between the yarns in your web to give it space to bloom when wet finishing.
- Weaving a straight 3/1 twill may result in curled edges, so that your scarf resembles a sausage. Instead alternate 3/1 and 1/3, to avoid one side that is weft-faced.
- Introduce novelty wool yarn (like very loosely spun, very lofty single ply yarn) and avoid smashing it into the warp, but instead lift it gently above the surface of the cloth while weaving.
- Use various structures like point twill – find inspiration in Marguerite Davison’s book
- Commercial knitting wool yarn tends to have more spring than weaving yarns, so don’t pull very tightly when winding the warp.
- You can use handspun warp and weft. Handspun tends to be more tightly twisted than commercial knitting yarns so handspuns are often stronger than commercial knitting yarns. (Commercial spinning uses the least amount of twist they can get away with to reduce costs.)
- No need for a dummy warp – the yarn waste is just the “cost of doing business.” Some pointed out that using doups is a way to avoid some warp yarn waste. (Doups are separate loops of yarn that you attach to the warp rod. You then use a larks head knot to catch the ends of your warp. See this video for a 6-minute explanation of how to use doups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-scc5DBjiE)
- Heidi mentioned that when she spins, 4 ounces of roving will spin up into 40 yards, with 20 wraps per inch (so ~10 epi).
- If you have a knitting yarn that is very springy, very stretchy, you can wash it and then weight it while it dries. But still give it extra length when winding your warp and weaving because it will tend to spring back when wet finished.
- Add about 20% more warp length than you calculate you need to account for knitting wool’s springiness. This is 20% more than what you would normally account for in your loom waste.
- A little bit of silk mixed with Shetland or Merino wool can keep a knitting yarn from being too springy.
- When using a yarn with unknown behavior for weaving, be sure to sample. Heidi showed a wooden square, with 2-inch notches on all four sides. Wrap 20 ends in the notches (to get 10 epi). Needle weave into this sample warp. Remove from wooden square to test your sett. You can purchase the 2-inch sett sampler (photo below) from Woodchuck Products (email: evenstevens067@gmail.com).
- Short color repeats and long color repeats both work well in weaving.
- It’s important to note fiber characteristics, whether you’re dealing with a variety of wools or wool and other fibers. Striping is a good way to use multiple skeins. Since wools will shrink differently from each other and from other fibers, consider interspersing supplemental in narrow bands or stripes; broad stripes may reveal that one wool behaves very differently from the other wool/other fiber (in warp or weft).
Can you combine cotton and wool?
- Using one fiber in the warp and one in the weft will work.
- Intersperse ends of cotton and wool in the warp (not wide stripes) will also work.
- You also need to be careful of using two different wools that have different shrinkages. Again interspersed in warp and/or weft will work, but broad stripes may reveal that one wool behaves very differently from the other wool (in warp or weft).
- Mix a Tencel warp with a wool weft (like a fine Noro yarn) – shiny and matte combined.
What can you do when you have limited amounts of special yarns?
- Use different skeins in stripes for the warp
- When you have limited amounts of various yarns, use each to create stripes in your warp, but be sure they have similar characteristics to avoid differential shrinkage.
- Gradients work well – array the gradients as stripes in the warp
- A variegated yarn in the warp combined with a solid in the weft, warped and woven loosely makes for a beautiful scarf.
What about sock yarn?
- Use variegated sock yarns in the weft to get natural color pooling
- Sock yarn in complementary colors (one in warp and one in weft) will weave up beautifully. The warp can be sock yarn or a solid yarn.
I have Cotswold “lace” yarn, about 2000 yyp. What is the best weave structure?
- If it’s shiny, use a structure that has floats so that the floats highlight the shininess.
- Twills (but not highly patterned) and lace weaves will work. Plain weave, though it works, will obscure the shine.
- If sticky, be sure to allow more “space” in the warp.
I have a hand-dyed skein of singles wool in a brilliant color – what should I do with it?
- If you’re worried about the color running, wash the yarn gently with a couple of drops of Synthrapol. This will remove any extra dye and keep it from being reabsorbed by the yarn.
- Color catcher sheets will do the same thing.
- Use this yarn as a supplementary pattern weft for fun effects (works well on a rigid heddle loom).
What about krokbragd?
- Krokbragd works beautifully with wool.
- It’s advantageous to beat firmly as you want heavy and total coverage of the warp (carpet warp or seine twine).
- Because it requires three passes per pick, it requires a lot of yarn.
- It is not a structure that takes kindly to variation in yarn characteristics except, of course, color.”
For the next Hangout, we will continue to focus on wool but will start with spinning.