Monday, March 16, 2009

Warp #6 Review [MFM]

Well, here I am on my old Dell desktop 'cause Lulu, my laptop, has gone to the dark side. Literally - the whole right half of her LCD screen is so dark I can barely see what's on it. Makes it awfully tricky to edit my pics, not to mention read what I'm typing. What is it with me and LCD screens lately? It's like I'm putting out some kind of anti-LCD vibe that eats whatever I come into contact with. Happily, I have found a replacement screen for much less than I feared it would cost and a local place that will install it, so all will be right before long.

In the meantime, I'm not going to fiddle with the colours of these warp #6 review pics at all, 'cause the really expensive, uber sharp, super saturated screen that we got for this computer thinking that it would help with colours and photo editing is actually so super saturated that it kinda wigs them out - really must play with its contrast and brightness settings and see what we can do about that.1 Hopefully when I can see on Lulu again, I'll come back to this post and find that the colours are pretty accurate.

Here are the pics of the finished scarves from Warp #6. These include scarves 18, 19, 20 and 21:



And here are the specs on each:

Warp: My standard 8/8 cotton at 10 EPI. This warp was only 7" wide in the reed, so the scarves are narrower.

Scarf 18
: 4/8 unmerc cotton, 61" x 5.5" plus 5" fringe. Just about 9.5 PPI when finished
Scarf 19: 4/8 unmerc cotton, 51" x 5.5" plus 5" fringe. Just over 9 PPI when finished
Scarf 20: 4/8 unmerc cotton, 56.5" x 5.5" plus 5" fringe. Just under 9 PPI when finished
Scarf 21: 4/8 unmerc cotton, 61" x 5.5" plus 5" fringe. Just under 10 PPI when finished

As you can see, I've been trying to fine tune the PPI on these scarves. My favourite weight on this warp is Scarf #20 which, you may remember, I intentionally beat more loosely than I had done the scarves before. Since then, I've woven a few even looser yet; will be curious to see if I like the hand even better or if they turn out too loose.

The first couple scarves on this warp were beat at the same 9 PPI (UT) that I'd been doing for a while but they're less firm once finished than the last warp or two because this time I put half a dryer sheet and a couple of towels in the dryer with them as they dried - the last couple of warps I left out the dryer sheet and used a huge, heavy terry robe instead of the towels. Not sure how much of a difference the robe vs. towels make, but the dryer sheet does seem to be a key factor. I've also used a full used sheet (one that had already gone through the dryer once) in the past and that also works.

Another change I made this time was to press straight down on all these scarves and to not press along the length of them with the iron down. I think that's the reason for the additional shrinkage compared to their on-loom under tension (UT) length: these scarves all came in at right around 15% shorter once totally finished than they were measured under tension on the loom.

So there you are! Warp #6 all done. :D And, even better, I'm all caught up as far as warp reviews go now (with the exception of poor Warp #3, which is still waiting for its fringes to be twisted.) There's one more scarf to go on Warp #7, so I suppose I'd better get down to the yarn room and figure out what's going on the loom next. Maybe those blue/green/browns I had planned to do before this one, or maybe something else entirely!

Not right now, though - right now I'm head downstairs to finish up the wool blanket that's on Mabes. Poor ol' girl was feeling rather neglected, but now she's all dressed up and has somewhere to go. :)


1. Although the super-saturation is awfully pretty for World of Warcraft and other computer games, I have to say! Hmm, priorities, priorities...

6 comments:

Peg in South Carolina said...

The scarves are lovely (I'm a great lover of orange as well as of red....), but what I really want to know------how did you do that really need photo slide show? And the photos were really good, too, especially the one with the curve in it.

Janet said...

Glad you liked the pics! I've been really happy with this type of close up but I'm still trying to figure out a good way to show the entire length of a scarf. I tried to talk Ron into letting me take pics of him wearing the men's scarves but he's not having any of it. ;)

While I normally upload my blog pics right in Blogger while writing a post, when I'm going to insert a slideshow I upload them to Picasa instead. (The pics you upload to a Blogger blog are going into Picasa anyway.) Then I go to my online Picasa album, where there's an option to link directly to a picture or a slideshow of the album. I copy that link and paste it into my Blogger post.

I have Picasa installed on my computer and use it for a lot of my basic photo editing and to upload pics to my online Picasa albums.

Annie MacHale said...

You certainly have the knack with a camera as well as a very admirable drive to produce quality handwovens. I wish that my photos were as good. Mine are hit and miss. I've enjoyed reading about the ScarfADay and mentioned you on my blog. Thought you might like to have a look. ASpinnerWeaver.blogspot.com
--Annie

Janet said...

Thanks for the shout out on your blog! :) I've been by to read it a few times - really really love the inkle bands. I don't have nearly enough patience for inkle weaving and have tons of admiration for those who do.

As for my pics, there are four things that make all the difference: figuring out the macro setting on your camera, figuring out the white balance on your camera, using a tripod and setting the camera to a 2 second delay. The first will get you up close and personal (and in focus!), the second will make your colours accurate, and the last two will keep your pics from being blurry even in low light.

Now if I can just figure out how to get good shots that show the whole scarf, I'll be able to open that Artfire shop!

Peg in South Carolina said...

Hi Janet, thanks for answering my question. Simpler than I thought it would be. I have a little surprise for you. To see if you want to accept it, check out my latest blog post here:
http://talkingaboutweaving.blogspot.com/2009/03/another-pause.html

Janet said...

Yay! I love surprises! I shall go check it out Right Now!