Now that the towels are off the loom, I warped for shawls yesterday. I had 6 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in Shadow from years ago. Very vintage yarn. I figured out I could get 3 shawls out of the yarn. Lorna's Laces yarn makes great pooling warps where you can make the colors pool deliberately. This is because the yarn is dyed very regularly in repeats. The repeats on this shawl were 29" long.
I did the massive warping session yesterday. i was disappointed by the number of knots that I ran into both when winding the yarn into balls (one non-join so I had to tie the knot) and while warping (lots of tiny knots that were partially or completely across the width of the yarn). There were also some areas where the plies were worn through. I found one that I didn't catch as I was winding the warp and am hoping it will hold till I get there to weave. I can repair it once it is woven. if it breaks before that, well I know now how to fix a broken warp due to the knots on the towel project.
That is the long warp. You can see the stripes of black across the width, especially at the far end. The yarn is quite stretchy so I have to be careful when weaving. I can't tighten up the tension too much.
This is all the leftovers that I had to cut out as well as the ends from 4 balls. I should have had 4 little balls like this. The rest is all from knots. I have enough to fix broken warp threads!
Here it is all wound on and ready to weave.
I think this warp length is close to the maximum the loom will handle. There is not much room between the cross beam and the warp in the back. I am using an 8 dent heddle even though the wraps per inch indicated a 5 would work. The yarn seems to be between a worsted and Aran. it is listed as Aran in the Ravelry database but the name is Shepherd Worsted! Also, mine is pretty old and predates Beth Casey as the owner so they might have changed the base yarn since then. I want this to be more warp-faced due to the pooling so that is also why I went with a more dense warp.
As for the weft, I have many choices. One is some white handspun with sparkle in it. I have enough for 2 shawls but I may only use it for one. I haven't decided yet. This is a photo of the yarns I think I might use except for the handspun.
At the bottom right is some yarn I won as a raffle and some novelty yarn that goes with it. That is one option for one shawl. I'll have to see how it looks when I weave with it. Next to it is the leftover Lorna's Laces. I have to weigh the partial skein to see if there is enough to weave a shawl but I can combine it with the natural Cascade 220 that is on the top right. There is also some mohair that I can use to add texture. But I don't know if I like the natural with the white.
On the left there are two novelty ribbons that go with each other and might be nice as stripes in the white handspun warp. The red on the bottom left is out as it is a yellow-red that clashes with the other two. The black and yellow Cascade 220 in the middle might be nice as stripes on another of the white handspun shawls if I use it for 2 shawls. The yellow might be nice just at the ends of the shawl if I end up weaving one with the Shepherd Worsted. I'll make decisions based on how the fabric looks after I weave an inch or so.
I am done with spinning one half of the dark gray top. I started the other half last night. That fiber is so lovely as it looks different in various lights.
It is a breeze to spin and is spinning up beautifully. Those photos are of the bobbin with half the fiber on it.
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