The scarves on the cover of TIW are woven from Tencel.
I was an early adopter of Tencel. It appealed to me on a number of levels. As I put it into production, however, I found that it would sometimes behave beautifully - other times? Not so much.
Since I am a rather analytic type of person, I began trying to figure out what was happening and why.
The two big issues were that - at times - the yarn would seem to become almost brittle and a thread 2 or 3 or more in from the selvedge would suddenly, and without much warning, snap. It would also shed a huge amount of fluff.
As I worked with it I began to track the trend of it behaving in the summer (our humid months) and behaving badly in the winter (our arid months).
As more people began weaving with it there would be questions on the weaving groups about the sudden failure of the yarn not at the selvedge but several ends inside the cloth.
Typically all the usual culprits were blamed - excessive draw in, poor shuttle handling, poor bobbin winding, poor beaming, etc. People who had never had the issue blamed the one who was having difficulty for the problem concluding that they had done something 'wrong'. Because they had never had a problem like that.
I would, instead, ask if the person having the problem lived in a humid or an arid climate. Inevitably the answer would be "arid". Ah-ha, I thought, Tencel needs higher humidity to behave. I began advising those having the problem to run a humidifier.
My point is this. Your experience is your experience. There are factors that contribute to your experience that may be significantly different from someone else's.
When people tell me something must always or must never be done a certain way, I ask them what their experience was that led them to that conclusion. Their experience may be different from mine. They may live in a humid environment, have a different loom than mine, be using yarn different from what I am using. I want to know the specifics so that I can judge whether or not their experience shines a light on mine.
We can learn from other people's experiences, not just our own.
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3 comments:
Thanks for this insight. I, too, have problems with my tencel in the winter. Now I know - or at least think I know - why. I will try a humidifier and see if it helps.
Ahh, thank you. The light goes on. I live where it is dry all year. Didn't have trouble in the warp but in the weft tencel just wouldn't bend properly. It just kept looping out at the selvages. It never occurred to me that a rayon would be affected by the environment. The good thing is I have improved my throwing techniques. Also tried out/bought several shuttles. In the end I just had to slow down. Will also consider a humidifier. I prefer bamboo but it doesn't always give the effect I am looking for.
Thank you.
Stephanie Change
I would prep the Tencel bobbins in a humidifier, then. I do that with linen and it makes all the difference. Just wove off half a dozen towels with bobbins that had been steeping in the humidor for a month (the AVL was 'down' waiting for parts/repair) and the weft was *so* well behaved!
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