Sunday, January 24, 2010

Boucle Shawls - Done

I'm making progress working through my secret and not so secret stash. Using lots of different odds and ends of knitting yarns for the warps, I finished two shawls/laprugs this month. The wefts were handpainted Kid Mohair boucle yarns from Claudia Hand Painted Yarns. I wanted to get rid of the various small balls of knitting yarns and use the boucle as it was taking up a lot of space. Each shawl took exactly one skein of boucle for the weft (I wove until it was gone). After I did the first shawl (red), I just tied a new warp on the the old. I wet finished each of them by washing (in my front loader) on the pre wash cycle, warm/cold water, for the 12 minute then I dried them on "delicate" for about 15 minutes and hung them over a heat vent to finish drying. They are very soft and fuzzy. They are about 21 inches wide and 72 inches long.

I like the interplay of the colors especially in the teal/green/brown one but you can't see much of that in the photo. The fuzzy boucle makes the photo look slightly out of focus. Plus this very gray sky day isn't the best for a photo shoot. The red boucle had a lot of purples it in (kinda of "Red Hat-ish") so I used red, blacks and purples in the warp, including some red ribbon yarn. The other boucle was teals, browns, greens and grays so I used those colors in the warp.

This morning I put on a warp of Lisa Souza's Timaru -- a merino/bamboo blend -- and am using the last two skeins of (that I remember) boucle that are in my stash for the weft. The warp is in Lisa's Pacific colorway. I really liked how this knitting yarn is working as warp. It has enough bamboo (35%) to reduce the stretching problems I usually have when I use knitting yarns as warp on my Fireside loom. The plan is for two scarves as I have about 140 yards in each of the two Colinette boucle skeins. If I can resist beating hard, I should have enough for two scarves about 60-65 inches long.

Almost every time I warp my Fireside loom using knitting yarns I tell myself I'm going to put up a big sign by the loom that says "don't use knitting yarns on this loom or you'll be sorry" -- that's why it was such a relief today to find a knitting yarn that didn't stretch and stretch when tension was applied.

Tonight I plan to wind a warp for a baby crib blanket. Lisa Souza has a new colorway called Breath of Spring and I think it will make a lovely crib blanket. I'm using that colorway in her washable merino sock yarn as the weft and cotton as warp. I've got to get busy and get it on my other loom as I want to finish it before my friend's baby arrives. Here's a color swatch of Breath of Spring.
How's everyone else coming along on using their secret stash instead of saving it for the estate sale?

2 comments:

Diana said...

Your shawls are Weave-O-Riffic! really love them. Keep up the great work on reducing your stash. I'll be posting on my lonely blog soon.

Anonymous said...

I am not a weaver; However, I now own my wonderful grandmothers floor loom and remember helping her 'bang' when I was a little girl. I do not want this to end with me and so I plan on trying to learn this craft so I may pass it on. I was very excited to find your blog and hope to learn and be inspired by it.
Thank you
Sherri Ann
sherriannskeepingroom.blogspot.com