Monday, July 7, 2014

Expectations

I took my latest project off the loom yesterday and wet finished it today. This is a piece of overshot, 10/2 cotton warp, 20/2 cotton tabby and 24/2 wool for the pattern. I used Posey out of Bertha Gray Hayes' book. I intend to make the fabric into a sweater-type garment to wear in the house in the winter. Since I have tried knitting two sweaters and failed miserably each time, I thought I'd try weaving one.

I had sampled earlier on another threading, this one more of a blockish overshot pattern, so didn't sample this one. It's really not a problem except in my expectations. I was expecting this one to act entirely like the other, and it didn't.....quite.

What happens during the intense wet finishing - 2 runs through the washer on hot, then dried hot, is the wool shrinks at a greater rate than the cotton, so you get differential shrinkage. This makes the fabric, which would be fairly flat wet finished as you would normally do anything containing wool, become soft and pillowy. The wool parts shrink so much more that the cotton parts essentially puff up. Which is why I think this fabric will make a good sweater.

What I didn't anticipate was that because this pattern is so much, shall we say, busier, than the blockish pattern, without the larger areas of wool/cotton, is the wool had a chance to bloom more. So, the end fabric is pillowy and soft, yes, and you can definitely see the pattern, but there is a bloom of red wool across all of it.

Here's a shot of both sides of the fabric:





The bloom isn't that noticeable, but you can see the red cast to the whole cloth. It's really not a problem. It's just not what I expected.

Here's a close-up shot of the fabric, with a piece that has not been wet finished.




It really fulled quite a bit! and the pattern is still very discernable. The wool diagonals really make the diamond-shaped posey pattern puff up.

Here's a photo of the unfulled and fulled at full (that's a lotta fulls!) width:



And my toes. Never mind those.

At any rate, I think it will make a very warm sweater. I was thinking of lining it, but I'm not so sure now. I'll be wearing long sleeves under it, and it's pretty soft. The sewing will have to wait, though. It was 95 F today with a heat index of 99 F. Not going to be sewing on wool until it cools off.

End lesson for today, either go into a project without expectations, or sample. You'd think I would have learned that by now.

Next up: more overshot. I have 10/2 cotton through the reed for a couch throw. I am putting a wide piece in the middle and narrower pieces on the sides. First up is the wide piece, then I'll tie on the narrow warp. And I do have enough to sample ;-)

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