Experimental Weaving

After not being too happy with my first weaving project using novelty yarns I decided to have another go. This one started out with quite a bit of excitement when I went to the local Spotlight store when they were having a decent sale on some of their yarns. I purchased a few balls of an angora and wool blend produced in Italy. It felt beautifully soft and I thought I was on a real winner at $2 a ball. Huge mistake!

First sign of trouble came when winding the warp – the angora fibres shed very easily and kept entering my nasal cavities which was discomforting to say the least.

Next sign was the breakages in the warp when wound on the loom. By the time I’d finished weaving I had had 24 warp breakages. By the 24th I was hating it and didn’t persist any further.

The following picture shows the woven cloth off the loom.

		1. warp and weft same coloured yarn 2. warp and weft different coloured yarn 3. alternating colours in weft 4. 2 picks of each colour alternating in weft. 5. twill structure

By the time I had finished weaving the cloth the area around the loom was afloat with angora hair – everywhere.

The next step was to cut it up and I did this with abandon as I secretly was quite comfortable with the thought of destroying it.

And then, full of resentment, I sewed the damn thing up into a whole cloth again.

Once again, fibre all over the place, including the mouth as well as the nostrils this time.

And finally I washed the thing and then spent ages cleaning out my washing machine.

Things improved after washing. It seemed to have done with the shedding and the cloth is incredibly soft. But now the question is – what should it become? And it doesn’t help that I really aren’t fond of the final product.

I was going to sew it into a scarf for a male but in the midst of the process decided against it because of the annoying shedding factor, thinking it would drive the wearer nuts. So I proceeded to sew it into a broader cloth. Oh well, live and learn.

Moral of the story – investigate yarn properties before purchasing, especially the cheap stuff.