Warp #4 in review

Here it is, the long awaited warp 4 in review!¹ Long awaited by me anyway - for some reason I've had trouble getting this one done. I didn't love all the scarves on the warp and then I had a little uboo when wet finishing them - I think they're okay but it made me drag my feet a bit. Some of you might be thinking to yourselves, "hang on now, I don't remember warp 3 being reviewed," and you'd be right. Warp #3 was the black sad trombone shawl that's still waiting for its fringes to be twisted. When I get around to that, I'll post after-finishing pics of it, too. I'll warn you now, though, this might wind up waiting until my dear ol' Mum comes in May. ;)

So here is warp #4, which covers scarves 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13:



And finally, here are the vital statistics for the scarves that I've been promising:

Warp: 4/8 cotton set at 12 EPI, 90 ends = 7.5" in the reed.
Scarf #9: weft = 4/8 cotton, finished dimensions = 64" x 6"
Scarf #10: weft = 8/8 cotton, finished dimensions = 67" x 6"
Scarf #11: weft = 6/12 rayon slub, finished dimensions = 59" x 5.75"
Scarf #12: weft = cotton chenille mill ends ~1450 ypp, finished dimensions = 72" x 5.5"
Scarf #13: weft = cotton chenille mill ends ~1450 ypp, finished dimensions = 55" x 5.5"

The 4/8 cotton I used for warp 4 is finer than the 8/8 cotton I used in warp 1 but thicker than most of the threads in warp 2. Scarves 9 and 11-13 turned out well: 9 is super drapey and 11 is like water, whereas the chenilles are a bit thicker and very soft. Mmm, yummy!

Scarf #10 was an experiment that had mixed results. I used the 8/8 cotton on a 4/8 warp since I've been so happy with a 4/8 cotton on an 8/8 warp. Ha. What I didn't account for was the fact that in the 8/8 warps I'm beating in the 4/8 cotton at about 9 PPI, whereas this 4/8 warp was set at 12 EPI. As a result, Scarf #10 is Pretty Stiff. I've given it a good hard press and might try cold mangling it as well, except that I've only got the usual wooden rolling pin so I'm not sure how I'd get a hard enough press. If I make the experiment, I'll let you know what I used and how it turned out. If that doesn't soften the scarf up a bit I might wind up using it as yardage and sew some tiny little things out of it. Or I might just bung it in the shop this summer rather than list it online anywhere - that way if anyone buys it it'll be because they love it just the way it is.

So, the upshot is that, if I use an 8/8 on a 4/8 warp again, I'll have to beat it much lighter. I think I'll just avoid doing that, though, since the 4/8 weft and a similar weight of rayon made such nice, soft drapey scarves.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the finishing uboo, it's just that I left them in the dryer longer than I really should have, so the rayon weft got a little bit over cooked. It's okay to leave the cotton ones in until they're properly dry but I've learned that it's best to take the rayon ones out while still slightly damp. I did that with warp #5, which I wet finished today and which is now drying on a rack in the yarn room - really should have taken it straight to the ironing board and pressed it while it was damp but I was anxious to take my warp 4 pics while the light was still good.

By "pressed" I really mean ironed, though I did give Scarf #10 a good, hard press this time round. I still use the word "press" to mean anything I do with an iron but I know that, strictly speaking, it should be reserved for the really good, hard press - with lots of, yes, pressure - that you can do to really seat the fibres and flatten them out and help them to find their place in life. Laura, if you're reading, you'll be rather proud to learn that I promptly went out and bought a new extra wide ironing board with stronger legs after taking your Magic in the Water course (twice) -- because I bent all the legs on my old one trying to press things hard enough. ;) I'm afraid I've since fallen off the wagon a bit in this respect but I haven't forgotten what I learned, really I haven't! I'm just a lazy bugger at heart is all. :)

So there you have it: warp #4! Warp #5 is already wet finished, as I mentioned, so hopefully I can review that one pretty soon too. It's my peony warp that I'm still so enamoured of so I don't anticipate any foot dragging where it's concerned. :)

And now I'd best go weave scarf #19. Holy cow - only one scarf left this month after today!


1. I'm going to review warp by warp from now on rather than week by week since the warps and weeks aren't synched up anymore.

Er....whoops? [Scarf 13]

Okay, true confession time: I was so excited about finishing this warp and getting to put on the next one AND so distracted by listening to Episode 1.5 of WeaveCast that I totally forgot to take pics of Scarf #13 when it was done. Ahem! So much for lucky 13, eh wot? Fortunately I took a picture just inches from the end. I tried to fake an on the loom close up, but it's not very good so I may as well admit my transgression and have done. :)

I got up ridiculously early this morning and was all fired up to work on today's scarfa - a nice feeling after yesterday's lazing about. I didn't sit down to weave right away, though: instead I wound the first new scarf warp I've wound since November. This using up old warps and pirns has been great, don't get me wrong, but I'm really itching to do something that hasn't got baggage attached. Good news is, I lurve this new warp!

Still, I needed to weave the current warp off first. I wanted to do two things with what turned out to be the last scarf on it: 1) I wanted to use chenille again, since I was so pleased with yesterday's scarf; and 2) I wanted to use a tan or beige or taupe weft - something to bring out the flax coloured warp threads that I felt were getting lost in the others. Happily, I have some tan chenille that was just the ticket.

I was a bit angsty about running out of warp too soon but I managed to get a little more than 62" woven, so I'm content with calling this today's scarfa. It's long enough for many women and most men and the colours ought to appeal to both. Having said that, I'm still tempted to deem this one too short and plow on ahead to the new warp Right Now - I'm really looking forward to it! Still, I'd better be a good girl and work on the blankets I'm putting on Mabes, at least for a while. If I make good progress there and have free time later, I might start dressing Joey with the new one.


My scarfa morning went like this:

6:15 am: Get up. Yeaargh! Who actually chooses to get up this early!? How can that person be me? Some days I just don't recognize myself...

8:20 am: Mull over various options for a new scarf warp. Decide to go with the colours I picked last Thursday, which are actually colours I ordered for another purpose last spring. More on this tomorrow.

8:45 am: Warp's wound! Isn't it purty? Doesn't it just scream spring? Who could use a bit of spring right now? I could!



I'm including this picture so you can see some of the stacks of yarn in the library that I alluded to in my stash post on HFD. The only reason I don't feel more guilty about the amount of yarn that lives in the library is the amount of books that live in the library - the bookshelves are overflowing every bit as much as the yarnshelves are in the yarn room. And, like the yarn, most of the books will never be read.

After winding Warp #5 I took a break for such basic and necessary things as breakfast and smoochin' my sweetie goodbye as he left for work. Then it was back to the loom and Warp #4!

This time I got clever and downloaded the next episode of WeaveCast (am slowly working my way through the archives) to listen to while I wove, which made the weaving go soooo much faster. It was just exactly like Judith MacKenzie McCuin said to Syne in the interview: you start weaving and time fades away. When you stop, it's a different time - and, in this case, my scarf was done! It was done and I was done and so SNIP went the scissors.... and then I realized I hadn't taken a picture.

Well, it was almost like that. In actual fact, I stopped at

11:06 am: [to] Get angsty and twittery and photo-opy about rapidly running out warp. Would there be enough to count this scarf as a Scarfaday Scarf(tm)? Or would I get to cut this warp off and put on my pretty new springy warp?



11:28 am: Relief! Or disppointment - I'm still not sure. In either case, all done with warp #4.



And here is your faux on-loom close-up, taken on the weaving bench if not technically the loom:




See you ....later? with warp #5! (Will it be later today? Tomorrow? Who can say?)

Down to the wire [Scarf 12]

Okay, so here I am bloggin' at the very end of the day again. Didn't I just say this morning that I wanted to avoid that this week? Turns today was a day for simply lazin' about, though, and I decided not to fight it. Instead, I kicked back, finished a hat I was working on for the knit-a-thon, started a new one, read some blogs, watched some daytime t.v. for the first time in yonks (and recalled why I don't watch it more often), etc. etc. Didn't even peek at the loom until after supper and some additional lame prime time tv... and you know what? I don't regret it a bit! I had a great, lazy day. Chalk it up as a reward for a job well done yesterday. :)

I did eventually wander down to the loom, though, and had a look at Mr. Warp. I'd meant to cut off the first three scarves and rethread today but, seeing as how it was already 9:00 pm, I didn't think I had the time. In fact, I shaved a couple more minutes off by deciding to use up yet another pirn that I'd wound ages ago and hadn't used - I've been wanting to get that pirn back into circulation and it just so happened that the colour looked like a good fit for today's warp.

Boy, am I happy I tried it! I really, really like this scarf. :) It's put a whole new face on this warp for me, which is most welcome as I haven't been loving it quite as much as the others I've done this month. Now I'm quite happy to keep weaving away - good news, since it looks like I'll probably get another scarf or two from the warp.


Today's scarfa day went like this:

9:30 am: Discover I was on the front page of the paper and experience total adrenaline rush. Call my partners in crime, blog a bit, send and receive a bunch of email and generally feel very pleased with myself indeed.

11:30 am: Realize I was going to post a Week 2/Warp 2 in review, so head outside in the rather nippy morning and take some scarfashots in the perfect overcast day bright light.

1:00 pm: Send my sweetie back to work after lunch and then settle in for a long, lazy afternoon of surfin', knittin' and watching the tube.

6:00 pm: Head to Tim Hortons with aforementioned sweetie for detox after his rough afternoon at work. Discover while sitting at Tim Horton's that I'm actually knitting a mobius strip rather than a hat. Darn you, twisted circular knitting! Darn you!

7:30 pm: Home again, then supper courtesy of Himself. Tres yummy leftovers from Valentine's dinner. Huzzah! Sit down to eat back in front of the tube and get sucked into silly crime drama on t.v.

You will note: no sign of any scarfing anywhere so far! Gack!

9:00 pm: Realize that the clock is ticking and today's scarfa is not going to weave itself. Head downstairs, find serendipitous old pirn looking for new scarf home.

9:55 pm: 30" or 40" done by this point as well as 15 minute chat with my dear ol' mum via gtalk. Ahhh, the wonders of the interwebs! Time for a photo op and to wind pirn #2.


10:30ish pm: On to third partial pirn, scarf's nearly done but for some wild reason I decide it's a good time to move Lulu and all her various attachments downstairs, dig out the old spare laptop speakers, and download Episode 0 of WeaveCast so I can listen to it while finishing the scarfa. This is no doubt related to the fact that I've recently started following Syne and WeaveZine on Twitter.

Of course, it takes longer to move the computer and download the podcast than it would have done to simply finish the scarf. In fact, I nearly finished it just while the podcast was downloading. The episode started playing when I had about two inches left to go. Still, I quite enjoyed listening to it while finishing up and hemstitching, though I had to put Syne on pause while blogging 'cause it was too distracting to listen and write at the same time. I'll finish listening to her fear of warping once I'm done.

10:58 pm: Scarfadone! I couldn't decide which of these pics I liked best so you get them all. :)





Isn't it pretty? I'm quite happy with this one, I must say. I'm also really happy to have gone back to my usual, lighter weight chenille. It takes a bit longer to weave, yes, but it produces such a nice, soft fabric. Will be really curious to see how this one washes up.

So that's scarf #12. See you tomorrow for lucky 13!

Ooooh, shiney! [Scarf 11]

Dang, I really wanted to do a Week 2 review today before posting the scarfa, but my Top Secret Knitathon Plans got rearranged and the photo light got away from me. Will recap Week 2 tomorrow!

I got 20" done on scarfa #11 early in the day but the aforementioned rearrangements meant that I didn't get back to finish until after supper this evening. Didn't take long to finish it up even though I got distracted by the pretty weft for a while. :)

I decided to use a white rayon flake for the weft. I'd used the same rayon for the last crackle sample I wove before starting Scarfaday and, although I wasn't fussy about the colour combo, I did really like the drape and sheen of the rayon against the matte of the cotton once the fabric was wet finished and hard pressed. I still had half a pirn of the rayon wound and there's white in this warp, so I decided to use up that pirn by using the rayon for today's scarfa. Of course, I had to wind a second pirn since the first was only half full, and then I hit a couple of knots and other flaws in the warp at the same point (around 65") so I wound up calling scarfa #11 done before using up the new pirn. Guess that means I'll have to use the rayon on another scarfa down the road!


Scarfa day #11 went something like this:

Noonish, maybe? Don't actually remember...: Use up the first half pirn by weaving the first 20" of the scarf.


8:00 pm: Head back downstairs to wind another pirn. Get totally distracted by pretty shiney weft yarn before finally settling down to weave the rest of the scarf.




8:53 pm: Scarfadone!



See you tomorrow with a recap of Week 2 and scarfa #12!

Out with the new, in with the new [Scarf 10]

Zounds! Look at the time! Okay, real quickie update on Scarf #10:

I actually went downstairs very first thing and wove almost 60", using a nice light blue colour. There was a lot of contrast between the white and dark blue stripes in the last scarf so I wanted to try a shade somewhere in between the two. I also wanted to try an 8/8 weft on the 4/8 warp since I've been so happy with the reverse. I'll be really anxious to see how the fabric feels once it's wet finished. There's actually a bit more of a story there involving an 8/8 that turned into a 6/8 when one of its plies disappeared, but I don't have time for it right now. Remind me sometime if you're interested. ;)

So I got my 60" done and then did all kinds of things during the day, including but not limited to: climbing up ladders to the snow covered roof to see if there was anything I could do with the flashing that seems to be at the root of our frequent leaks in rainy weather, the Fiber Friday gig at the library, a stop at the far end of town to pick up some of the door prizes for the knitathon, and a mad dash out to the maul to exchange Stella for my second spanky new camera in less than two weeks.

Then, after various other errands, I got home mid evening, and finished up scarfa #10:


There it is, the first scarfa picture taken by Stella's twin sister Bella. I think she did a lovely job, don't you? Hopefully she'll continue to perform for more than 10 days! Not that Stella can really be blamed for her problems, as it turns out: I learned this morning that while she was working as a display model in the store, one of her batteries leaked inside her battery case. "Exploded" was the word used, in fact. So I guess it's no surprise that the poor thing had some Issues.¹

And that' s the end of week two! Can you believe Scarfaday is half over already? I sure can't... in fact, I'm pretty sure it's not...

See you Monday!


1. Incidentally, returning her to the store was a breeze - no questions asked (even when she turned on immediately and acted like nothing had ever been wrong, the little stinker), they just handed me a brand new camera body straight out of the box -- AND I got a $10 refund (plus tax!) 'cause there was a sign on the display case with a lower price than I'd paid and, in fact, lower than she was actually supposed to cost. No questions asked about that either. Excellent customer service, that. Me = happy customer.

Hello, Murphy, my old friend... (again) [Scarf 9]

Got a late start on the scarfa today 'cause I liked my tough coffee-love intervention so much yesterday I decided to spread the love and spring one on a friend today. Then there was a lunch date, errands in town, a bunch of time that needed wasting online, you know how it goes.

Finally got home and ready to work around 4:00ish and then had to decide whether to keep going with the old warps or wind something new. I wandered into the yarn room and picked out some new colours... and then decided to put on an old warp in the end anyway. :P It's a relatively long one (12 yards) so we'll be seeing lots of it over the next few days.

Although I was winding on without help this time (Ron is a maestro with rolls of paper and that crank!) it went on smoothly, with one short photo-op and back relief break but no hitches of any kind. Threading: easy. Sleying: easy: Winding bobbin, starting to weave, hemstitching at the front end: all easy. Taking a picture of scarf underway: not easy. Impossible, in fact, since Stella has evidently gone on strike.

Yes, that's right. My brand new camera, the one I got to replace Murphy, will not turn on. Not unless you press various buttons in some mysterious sequence that I haven't figured out and then hold down her On button for about 20 seconds. Ron has managed to turn her on a couple of times (hur hur hur) but even then she cannot see the camera card. Poor, poor Stella - I think she's going back to the store.

Still, as I said in the beginning, you don't need a camera to weave a scarf. Weaving continued apace, with only brief stops to sop up yet another flood (we really must get the chimney guys round to have a look) and confer with a friend regarding our Top Secret Plans for the upcoming knitathon.

Warp this time is all 4/8 cotton - half way between the fine stuff of warp 2 and the heavy stuff of warp 1. This is the first time I've used the regular stripes in the 4/8 weight; will be curious to see how it washes up. Weft is still 4/8 cotton and I went with yellow again, continuing the sunny theme from Tuesday and also the warp-colour-as-weft experimentation.


Scarfa day #9 went like this:

4:00ish: Waffle about warps, pick colours for a new one, decide to use an old one instead.

4:35 pm: New scarf going onto the loom. Note: this may be the last picture Stella ever takes. Oh, the irony!


8:00 pm: Hey presto! Finished scarf, shown here in good ol' Murphy's signature style of purple haze and blur. This one measures 71" under tension.


See you tomorrow!