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...