Collapse weave - finally!

I am sure you remember all my collapse weave experiments from the spring and the spinning of the singles during the Tour de Fleece. Well, I finally got around to warping and weaving the scarf and it turned out exactly as I had hoped. The challenge with collapse weave is that it is unpredictable so getting results that are sort of what you wanted is wonderful.

 This is the warp. 2 sets: one S-spun and one Z-spun. These were sized with xanthan gum.

This is the weft. I had 2 skeins of roughly the same size. I chose to use the larger skein but I should have gone with the smaller one. Oh well.

The warping process was very easy. The sized singles were a bit stiff and smooth. I ran out of the Z-spun singles so the warp was not as wide as I had planned. I still have a bunch of the S-spun ones. I warped the S-spun with 2 strands in a slot and hole for 1/2" and then the Z-spun for 1" with 1 strand in each slot and hole. So the S-spun was more tightly sett than the Z-spun. I used a 10 dent heddle which is pretty wide for this fine of a yarn. But one needs to leave a lot of room in between the strands to allow them room to collapse. This is similar to what we have to do with felting in knitting.

You can't see the difference in the sett in this photo that I took as I started weaving. 

The gradient goes from a magenta to a grey through blue and violet. I wanted to make sure I had the warmer end of the gradient so I started weaving from the magenta end. You can see the range on the right hand side of this photo.

I did 6 picks packed tightly and then 8 picks at a balanced weave. The 6 picks came out to be about 1/2" and the 8 picks came out to be about 1" to mimic the warp.

The weft was not sized so I was afraid to wind it into a center-pull ball. I wanted to keep the yarn under tension. So I wound it onto a tennis ball. Then I had to rewind it so that I was starting with the correct end. The singles had broken in one spot when I was winding them onto the niddy-noddy. So I wound off till I hit the knot, undid it, and then rewound it onto the shuttle so the undone knot was on the inside of the shuttle and the magenta was on the outside. Then it was time to start weaving.

The weaving went fast. Since there are no color changes, it was a matter of just paying attention to the denser and looser weaves. 

 Once it was off the loom, it looked like this. It is easy to see the thicker and thinner parts in this photo, both on the warp and the weft.

Before washing, I had to finish the fringe. I couldn't separate the S-spun and the Z-spun into separate fringe elements so I ended up braiding them to make sure they stayed OK. They got a bit distorted after washing but they still look nice.

 The magic happens in the water. I soaked the scarf in a few baths to get rid of the sizing. Each bath was about 10-20 mins long. Then I hung it up to dry.

 Here's the finished scarf after drying. I hadn't trimmed the fringe yet but otherwise it is complete.

This photo shows the texture. I was looking for that crinkly square-ish effect and that is what I got. It didn't curl up into a spiral which is what I was afraid of.

So I declare this project a success!