Instant Gratification

 Well, sort of...

I've been enjoying the (nearly) 'instant' gratification of weaving with thicker yarns AND using up more of my stash, especially that 'mystery' yarn.  I don't know how large/heavy the original cones were, but they were huge.  It looks like when I finish the current warp there will be enough of the mystery yarn to weave most of this next warp.  If there is anything left over, I have some cottonlin that I'll use to weave more towels.

One of the challenges has been knowing if I have enough yarn, so I took my scale, put an empty tube on it and turned the scale on, removed the empty tube then placed one of the tubes with yarn on the scale.

Doing this, the scale automagically subtracts the weight of the empty tube from the weight of the tube with yarn.  This gives a fairly accurate indication of how much yarn is left on the tube.  (Check to see if your scale does the same - it's a great and very useful tool.)

The larger tubes are fine - it was the smaller darker green I was concerned about.  I'll need approximately 560 yards to beam the warp and the smaller tube I weighed has something like 680 yards on it, so there will be plenty.  Whew.  Because I'm quite liking this colour combination.  It speaks of spring and early summer to me.  The colours will be put onto the loom randomly and no effort will be made to put them in any kind of order.  Except if two of the non-green colours are side-by-side, then I'll manipulate them so that they have a green thread between them.

Towels have been very much on my mind for the last, oh, 4 years(!) mainly because I had so much fine cotton yarns I needed to use up.  So, when Robyn Spady asked me to write an article for her Heddlecraft issue on towels, I was delighted.

That issue dropped today, so if you have a subscription, keep an eye out for it.  Looks like lots of great information on making towels.  :)

If you don't have a subscription but would like to purchase this issue, you can do that on the website.

Robyn always does a very thorough examination of each theme issue, so I can say it's well worth the price if you are interested in making towels.

Now I know what I'll be doing 'next', time to get back to the loom and weave a couple more towels on the current warp.