Sunday, June 07, 2009

Fringes and a twister.

I never saw the need to get a fringe twister until I read the thread at WeaveTech last December and I managed to buy one from Georgeann Curran.
It looks like this with cute little sheep.

Today I have used it for the first time on my finished scarves and wow it works like a treat, all fringes are the same now. Much faster and the choice of using 2 or 3 strands.




I've experimented on one of my samples to see how I wanted my fringes to look. I thought to make lots of little ones as the scarves are so airy but by seeing the result I choose a fringe double the size that I original thought of.


From left to right: first 4 are 8 threads divided in 3 strands. The next 2 are 16 threads divided over 3 strands. Next 1 is 16 threads divided in 2 strands. The last 6 on the right are 8 threads divided over 2 strands. I went for the 16 threads divided over 3 strands. The difference between 2 or 3 strands was a much tighter fringe with 3.
This is how I did it:
I spread out the scarf and put a heavy book over the width. The part where I'm working on a fringe I add a heavy object, I like to use this glass vase for weight. Now I can pull on the threads without the scarf moving. First I find the right amount of threads, in this case I go by the colour groups that I used in the warp. Next I clipped the 3 strands in the twister and twisted 25x which I found just right for this fine cotton.
Next I unclipped the twisted strands and twisted them together the other way around. Fringe finished. This I did to both scarves. With the twister this was a job done fast and without ending up with cramp in the fingers from twisting by hand what I had always done before I had this twister.
The scarves are washed and are drying now. I cannot wait to see how they will be when dry. The 2nd scarf is much shorter, I hope it has not shrunk to much wet finishing it. I will find out tomorrow!

7 comments:

  1. Hi Margreet,
    Nice post on twisting fringes!
    I did one as well some months ago and you can view it here. http://weeverwoman.blogspot.com/2009/01/good-twist-to-yarn.html

    Another post 'Gilding the Lily' is about adding beads to your weaving...

    All the best, Susan

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  2. Susan,
    Thanks for pointing your post out to me. I left my comment there.
    Margreet

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  3. I'm very interested in your fringewinder, the fringe looks beautiful. I remember the discussion, and think I might find one of these useful myself.

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  4. Dorothy,
    What I have learned by using the twister is that the grip needs to be good. My yarn was fine cotton and these gave no problem at all (no slipping of the yarn)
    So, if you look out for a twister, make sure there is a good grip. I never thought of making fringes with 3 strands but through this twister my fringe world has widened. With this fine yarn the 3 stranded fringe looks much better. By hand you would never be able to do that.

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  5. Hmmm, I think I may be tempted to follow your example! The scarves look great (and not just the fringes).

    By the way, I have just signed up for weavolution, so see you there!

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  6. Cally, I've spotted you there already :-)
    Nice picture used!

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  7. Margreet, where did you get the sheep twister, I want one now!!! I have a collection of twisters, but this sheep one is soooooooo cute,
    Rachel

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