Labour Intensive

I got home late afternoon on Tuesday (leaving Richmond at 5 am).  Yesterday was filled with appointments - including a change in the date of my dental surgery.  It will take place on Monday, not a week from now.  So things have to be changed around in order to leave me some time for recovery.

To that end I decided I needed to at least dress the small loom.  Of the two looms, this one is a little more 'gentle' on my body and the one that I will likely feel like weaving on soonest.

Having four warps already wound, waiting in the wings, so to speak, I simply chose the one on the top of the heap and started beaming it this morning.  

The next two days are similarly filled with appointments so working on it will be catch as catch can.

I rarely put less than 11 meters of warp onto this loom, although I will if I'm sampling.  11 meters of warp yields 10 towels.  Usually.

Dressing the loom is the biggest investment in time so I want to make as many items as I can on a warp.  Unless, as mentioned, I'm sampling.

Yes, after 40+ years of weaving I do still sample.  I have not worked with every single yarn, so when I get one that is new-to-me, I need to find out the hidden potential locked in the yarn.

Does it have sufficient twist to hold together as warp?  If not, do I want to go to the work of sizing it?  What sort of epi/ppi do I want to use with it?  What happens when the density changes?  The weave structure?  Most of all, what happens during wet finishing?  Because it isn't finished until it's wet finished.

I have some 'test' scarves I wove from hand spun singles that need to be wet finished.  I had hoped to do that while Mary was here, but somehow we ran out of time.  Mary is a master spinner (Olds College master spinner program graduate) and we have been working on this research project for nearly two years.  It has been a learning curve for both of us as we explored the effects of twists per inch on the singles, the twist direction, how the yarn behaved in the loom and during wet finishing.  The three scarves continue the exploration but until they are wet finished....well that is the last step and I'm hoping to do that today or tomorrow in between appointments.

Never too old to learn!