Wednesday, January 02, 2013

why sampling

Happy New Year to you all! May it be a creative, happy and healthy year for everyone. I'm very much looking forward to moving on.
A worry I have just now, is that my cats are getting old and beginning to show it.

Why sample?
I wanted to use some yarn in a project but did not know how it would react.
It's a bit of fun yarn that I bought on ebay last year. (solar active thread)
So, I needed to sample. So glad I did! It's just not working out what I had in mind.
I wanted to weave a white scarf and have the solar active thread in the end parts of the scarf. I thought it would be fun if you were walking in the sun and the scarf would "light up" in rainbow colours.
But, in combination with the Tencel yarn I'm using, it is just not working. The solar active thread is not shrinking and the Tencel is.
Above photos shows the top before wet finishing and the bottom photo after wet finish and pressing. When pressing I used a cloth in between so that there would not be direct heat on the solar active thread.
The wet finished sample, at the bottom part I wove just the solar active thread and you can see that it's more shiny and bulges out. The top of that sample I wove alternative Tencel and solar active thread. There the Tencel has shrunk and the solar active thread is jumping out, looking very untidy.
So, both options are not workable with the Tencel and I will have to abandon this idea for now. It will have to be combined with yarn that does not shrink.

Another sample I did was weaving all twill with the ondulé reed.
So far I wove alternate twill and plain weave or just plain weave. I was not sure how it would come out if I wove all twill. I'm pleased with the outcome and will now weave a scarf that way.
I wove sample, that I will keep as a before wet finish sample (no photo shown) and another sample I wove with a wool/silk weft yarn:
I will use this yarn in my next scarf, weaving all twill.

1 comment:

  1. What an exciting yarn! I hope you will find something that it can combine with successfully. Maybe a silk yarn? I foresee lots more sampling...

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