Rayon Chenille

 There is a yarn available to handweavers called 'chenille'.  It comes in different fibre contents - acrylic, cotton and rayon - even silk - and rayon chenille has become a staple for many handweavers.

Acrylic chenille is very...stiff...mostly, and can feel very prickly.  I have woven with it and it just doesn't compare to rayon chenille after wet finishing.

Cotton chenille is also stiffer than the rayon, but I have used it to good effect in certain circumstances.  For example:

The jacket was woven in a honeycomb with the cotton chenille used as the outline yarn to frame the cells.  I chose cotton over rayon for this garment because cotton is more resilient and I knew it would wear better.  In fact it worked so well I used this jacket as my go-to travel jacket for many years.  So many that I wore the nap off the chenille around the neck and the sleeves were showing a bit of wear as well.  :)

But there is nothing quite like rayon chenille for weaving a cloth with incredible drape and a luxurious nap, like velvet.

But what IS chenille?  The name tells you when you understand that chenille is based on the French word for caterpillar, and that is pretty much what it looks like - a furry 'worm'.

It used to be woven (long story) but now it is spun and if you were to magnify a strand of spun chenille it would look a whole lot like:

Yup.  That's a bottle brush.  

Some people describe chenille as a skinny thread masquerading as a fat thread.  Because if you did a ruler wrap to see what the epi should be and went by the thickness of the yarn based on the bristles, you would wind up with a very sleazy cloth.

The bristles do nothing to add stability to the cloth, so you have to concentrate on the core yarn that is holding the bristles in place.

In a 1450 yyp rayon chenille, the general consensus among handweavers who work with rayon chenille a lot is to use 16 epi and then beat it in firmly (about 14 ppi in my experience).  It's really hard to judge ppi, so I counted picks, then measured how much I'd woven to determine the 14 ppi.  Others may vary.  And of course the width of the cloth may also affect ppi.

Why so tight?  Because rayon chenille will 'worm' or migrate and can eventually inch its way out of the structure of a looser cloth forming loops that will twist back on themselves - hence the 'worms'.

Now when you cut the web from the loom it will be stiff like cardboard.  Never fear, the magic will occur in the wet finishing and the end result will be a lovely, plush, drape-y scarf (or shawl, or whatever).

My experience with cotton chenille is much less - all I can tell you is that the cotton chenille in the well worn jacket did not worm.  It did not feel plush, but then it wasn't next to my skin - the jacket is lined for ease of taking it off and on.  

I got 9 scarves off the warp I put into the loom.  I used 2/16 bamboo rayon warp at 32 epi and beat the rayon chenille in firmly although not particularly forcefully, and was pleased that it wasn't stiff as a board.  However, when I wet finished them, one of the yarns - a different brand from the rest, did something unexpected:

While the rest of the batch looked like:

So what happened?  

Dunno.

It was a different brand from the rest, so may have been spun differently.  If it had active twist in it and I added more when I wound my bobbins, it could have led the chenille to want to contract (tracking?) in an active way as the active twist in the rayon chenille overcame the much finer 2/16 bamboo rayon warp. 

I had used this colour previously, but only as small accent stripes in warps predominantly 1450 yyp (this yarn is 1300 yyp) and it behaved so this was a bit...unexpected.

Since the effect is consistent along the entire length of the scarf, I could sell it but I won't, because I can't predict how it will behave in future cleanings.  I may give it away if a friend likes the colour (and the texture). because there is nothing really 'wrong' with it.  Out of the multiple cones of 1300 yyp rayon chenille, this colour was the only one that behaved this way, even though they had been treated exactly the same.

But I'm not an expert on rayon chenille.  If you really want to dig into the topic, Su Butler wrote the book Understanding Rayon Chenille.  It is not available as a hard copy but you can purchase it directly from Su for $28.00 US.  The digital download includes 50 .wif files.  She can be contacted at:

subu at subudesigns dot com

Always something more to learn.  Always another surprise to experience.  

Sudden Pivot

 

"Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em" Kenny Rogers sang.

Well, yesterday I folded.

I'd put a rayon chenille warp on the Fanny intending to begin weaving down that portion of my stash but the warp was 1300 yards/pound, not my 'usual' 1450 and...change one thing...

It was awful.  Literally awful.

Oh, I could have nursed a scarf or even two out of it, but at the cost of an enormous amount of time and what little energy I have.

I fussed and fumed over a couple of days while I also dealt with the blue/grey warp and running out of reasonable options for weft on *that* warp.  Again, I could have dug and found something that would 'do', but there was mounting pressure to get some rayon chenille scarves done.  I'm very low on inventory and I have All That Yarn that needs to be used up, every bit as much as the fine linen.

What to do?  What to do?

I also dislike fringe twisting rayon chenille, so as I let my thoughts roil in the back of my mind, the pieces of the puzzle began to rotate, change places and suddenly it all became very clear, just as I was finishing the last of the cotton slub on the towel warp.

Instead of weaving the rayon chenille on the Fanny, I would beam a warp of 2/16 bamboo rayon on the Megado and use the rayon chenille as weft.  Instead of fringes, I would use the bamboo to weave hems.  I wouldn't be stressing my feet so much, nor my hands, and I could actually weave some scarves and maybe have them ready for the big craft fair the weekend of Nov. 5.

When I finished the last of the cotton slub, I cut that warp off the loom recycling about 9 ounces of warp, set up and beamed a 24 or so yard long warp on the Megado, and today I threaded, sleyed and tied that on.

The white yarn is the 2/16 cotton I was supposed to be beaming next, but...it was time to fold and get a new hand.

The 8 dent reed was in the Fanny, so I also cut that warp off and about a pound of rayon chenille went into the recycling bin.  What got woven will go into the rag bag, or maybe even the garbage.  Yes, it's that awful!

So when people ask me when you stop making mistakes, I laugh and say 'never'.  

Perhaps in the new year I'll go through the 1450 rayon chenille and weave some warps of that.  To be determined.  In the meantime, this is a quick way to accomplish more scarves with the least stress to me - physically and mentally.  It's all good.

Comfort Zone

One of the benefits of working only from my stash is that I have to be bolder in my colour choices.

Rayon chenille has been a wonderful yarn to force myself out of my comfort zone of colours that I prefer to work with.  When I'm doing a scarf series using it, I tend to weave plain weave (for reasons) and make the coloured stripes in the warp the design element.

I will routinely begin with the proportions of the Fibonacci sequence, tweak them, make a stripe that can be interpreted in a variety of different colours in those stripes.

For this one, the value for '1' was 2 ends.  The proportions were then 5:3:1:3, repeat.  This created a fairly static stripe sequence but a lot of people like to have a symmetrical stripe.  (I have done asymmetrical stripes, too.)  One of the ways I added more interest to this cloth was to change which colour went where in the sequence.

Beginning with 5:3:1:3 where 5 was colour A, 3 was colour B and 1 was colour C, this scarf alternated so that the first stripe was as above, then the second was A:C:B:C.  The other selvedge ended with colour A so that both selvedges are the same.  The weft is nearly the same as colour A but not quite - I'd pretty much used up colour A in the warp so something that was very close in hue and value was used.

This combination was not my first but closer to my last - as I was beginning to run low on sufficient quantities of solids to make a two scarf warp.  While the scarves have not yet been wet finished, I'm pleased enough with them that I think they will look even better once they go through the magic in the water.  For now it's the dry finishing that needs to be done.

And Still Not Perfect

If you look really closely, over there on the right you might be able to see that four of the ends are not in the lease sticks.

I was distracted today and nearly at the end of rough sleying, I took two pairs out of order.  This meant they were 'crossed' and when it came time to transfer the cross behind the reed...oops.

This is not terminal.  Not even close.  First I sighed - because still not perfect.  Then I simply made sure that both lease sticks were slid in under the threads that were crossed.  When I got to them in the threading, they were entered into the heddles in as close to the proper order as I could manage.  It really won't matter if they are not in perfect order - they just have to be close.  Rayon chenille has enough elasticity in it that having a couple of threads out of place by a couple of threads really won't make any difference to the weaving.

This is the last of my pre-wound warps.  By the time I finished threading, sleying, tying on and getting the header woven, it was after 4 pm.  I have other things I need to do today so I decided the weaving will just have to wait until tomorrow afternoon.  I may - or may not - get both scarves woven.   I have things to do tomorrow so it will depend on whether or not my energy lasts.   Once they are, it will be back to the Megado to see if I can make friends with her.  (She seems to be a 'her' to me.)

We have had typical autumn/October weather - grey, dreary and mostly wet.  It was blustery today and leaves were dropping - well, like rain.  I'm trying not to let the dreariness affect me too much, but I'm kind of at the end of my rope.  I may increase the amount of vitamin D I take, I might set up the SAD light.

For now I have done the minimum I wanted/needed to do and if I can make friends with the Megado with the next test warp, who knows?  I might even get a shawl warp into the loom.  Not that they will be ready in time for any of the sales, but it will make ME feel better to get that done.

Of course with a huge stash of rayon chenille, I found myself thinking up more ways I could use it.  So we'll see.

Dribs and Drabs

With inventory to make and stash to use up, I designed a new scarf to use some of my rayon chenille stash.

So far it's been a qualified success.  These three shelves show the dribs and drabs of some of the solids that are left.  What I'm not showing you is the other shelves that are laden with yet more.  There is one shelf that is entirely variegated, one shelf that is solids but in a lighter weight.  The variegated is either 1450 or 1300 yards per pound; the lighter weight solids are 2000 yards per pound.  Not a combination I tend to use together in a warp in case of tension issues.  Or, if I do, I use them differently than the current design.

So I have been trying to use the 1450 and 1300 yarn for warps, then cross them with the 2000 ypp solids. 

Unfortunately I don't have enough colours in the 2000 ypp rayon chenille, so I have also been using up the 1450 as weft, too.  Which is why these colours are nearly depleted.

Yesterday I got the blue warp dressed and today managed to get one scarf woven with a darker blue weft.  This run of scarves is being woven longer at 80" in the loom, in part because people were asking for longer lengths.  My standard length in previous years was 72" in the loom, but that wound up about 66" in length after wet finishing. 

Unfortunately I don't have enough of the darker blue to weave a second scarf, but I found a partial tube of the lighter blue.  It doesn't have enough for 80" in the loom, so it will be shorter.  It will be as long as it is when the tube runs out. 

Not everyone is tall and wants a longer scarf as a friend just pointed out.

Currently reading Unto Us a Son is Given by Donna Leon - the latest Guido Brunetti mystery

Showing Up

I'm over half way through this bin of rayon chenille scarves, but still hours of work to do yet. 

Today Doug is working on installing a new light in the laundry room and, for safety's sake, the computer that runs my loom needed to be shut down.  Ergo, I could not weave.

While it was enormously tempting to take the afternoon 'off', things don't get done, so instead of weaving I'm back to fringe twisting.  My goal is to finish the fringe twisting and, if possible, get all of the scarves wet finished before I leave.

In a recent conversation with another fibre person, she commented about people running 15 things off the side of their desk.  Well, I do that, but I also use my dining room table...which is why there is a clear plastic cover over the hand woven table cloth that graces my table but largely remains invisible due to heaps of stuff all over it.  

Being self employed means showing up, even when you don't much feel like it.  I'd much rather be thinking about our upcoming holiday - the first in several years.  Frequently my trips are for 'business' and sometimes I can sneak in a few days here or there that might qualify as a 'holiday' - insofar as I'm not actually making any money during those days.  So, a holiday.  Of sorts.

All too often I work at least a little bit, every day.  Including 'holidays'.  Yes I have been known to weave on Christmas Day.  Thanksgiving.  There is always some aspect of being self employed that can be tucked into a day - ledger entries, project planning, writing (like this blog - although that is more unpaid labour), research, writing.

Now I will be adding conference planning.  More unpaid labour.  But that is part of returning to the weaving community some of the benefit I have had, being part of that community.

But if I don't show up and do it - well, nothing happens.

Dreams are well and good.  They are a pathway.  A goal.  But the only way to get there is to walk the walk.  Show up.  Do the work.

Deadline: Critical

Someone asked me recently how I keep track of what needs doing when.  As usual, there's not really an easy - or short - answer to that.

I keep calendars where I note events coming up.  Since I parse that information best by seeing it in print, I have several 'paper' calendars, plus one erasable one.  The erasable one has my business/studio events and the paper ones are mostly personal.

The studio ones get entered at the beginning of the year because those events are usually repeats, then when inquiries come in about teaching I can quickly and easily reference that calendar to see what I am already committed to and whether or not another event can be fitted in around those annual events.

These things are my priority and I have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen to meet those deadlines, partly because I know how much prep time is needed for teaching, and how long it takes me to make textiles for the craft fairs that I do.  

Articles for publication can usually be fit in here and there when I have the time and inclination to do those.

My biggest commitment of time and energy is, of course, the craft fair season.  As I scale back we are now down to three shows a year, two locally and one in Vancouver (plus the annual guild sale, but that's not a 'major' show for me, more an opportunity to put end of season stuff on 'sale').

So, even though I actually wove the above bin of scarves oh, last December?  Around the time mom got sick and went into hospital/hospice, they weren't needed until, well, now.

They don't need pressing, so they could be fringe twisted and wet finished much closer to the sale date.  

BUT - I am going to be out of town more than I am home for the next six weeks or so.  Which means I need to start getting the fringe twisting done now.  I may not get all of it done before my first trip, but I should be able to make a good dent in the pile.

Nothing like a deadline going critical to light a fire under me!!!

Revving Up

One of the things I did last year (maybe the year before!) was wind a bunch of rayon chenille scarf warps.  I managed to weave off a few of them, but there were seven warps, sitting in their boxes waiting, patiently.

In an effort to reduce rubble, I decided to weave them off.  So far, so good.  I think once the one currently in the loom is woven, there are just two left to do.

Unfortunately, I have lots more rayon chenille.  About 50 or so pounds of it.  The shelving unit is full, plus the two boxes on the floor, plus the boxes that are not in this photo.

However, there are still 60 yards of warp left on the AVL and I'd really like to get them finished.  The panels need to be done for the conference in Victoria the end of June, and I'm heading into a very busy teaching schedule in May/June, with homework from the Olds students beginning to arrive very soon.

So, as soon as I finish off the pre-wound chenille warps, I will fire up the AVL and see if it is in a snit having been ignored for so many months.

Currently reading Rather be the Devil by Ian Rankin

Pushing Limits

One of the things I like about working in series is that as I work through colour options, I find myself becoming more bold in the colours I put together.

While this warp was wound a long time ago, it is an example of what happens when I start to run out of colours in my stash, or I find myself wondering 'what would happen if'.

I'm still not sure about this particular colour combination.  I don't personally like lime green, but I have a cone of it and it needs to get used up.  I'm not sure about the addition of the burgundy with the lime green, greyed green and dark green.

I am completely out of my comfort zone with this warp.  But it's wound, so I'm weaving it.  We will see how it looks once woven.

Never ending

Just cut a blue/black chenille warp off the loom with two more scarves woven.  Unfortunately weaving chenille scarves is beginning to feel like a never ending story.  The next warp - black and grey - is ready to be rough sleyed, six more warps are wound, ready to go, the next colour is at the warping board with four more colour combinations pulled, waiting in the wings.  

I guesstimated I had about 50 pounds of yarn before I started this production run.  I'm thinking now that it was probably closer to 75.  With each warp taking about 12 ounces of chenille, I have a lot more weaving before I see any appreciable reduction in my stash.  

Yay?

End of the Line

See that rats nest of yarn in the foreground?   I reached the end of my patience fighting with the rayon chenille yarn at the selvedge and as soon as I finished one scarf, cut the rest of the warp off.  Life is too short to be fighting with yarn.  It's not a great loss...less than six ounces of yarn. 

My problem is that I think the next warp is going to be equally challenging.  The black I used at the selvedge was stiff and felt pretty nasty.  It may suffer the same fate.

Snip, snip!

Working In Series

I like working in series.  Yes, that means that I am doing essentially the same thing, over and over again, with minor tweaks.  It means that once I have found a design I feel is working, in a general way, I can then begin making small changes in order to see how they affect the whole.  

In a stripe sequence such as this, I can change the colours, the values, the weft yarn.  All such changes are tiny.  Many people would get 'bored' but I find it endlessly fascinating how such small changes can make such a large impact on the cloth.  

But then I'm also the person who finds it challenging to weave plain weave, so take this observation for what it's worth.   ;)

Crunch Time

The first show of the season is this weekend.  Doug is packing up all the inventory we have ready and I'm juggling the dry finishing with getting more woven.  As usual I think I can do more than I really can.  Guess at my advanced age I'm not about to learn that time is finite and there are still only 24 hours in a day!

Tonight I will take this bucket to guild drop in and trim the fuzzy bits off the end of the fringe.  Tomorrow they will get tagged and priced so that they, too, can get packed, ready for set up Friday evening.  It isn't looking good that I can get any more shawls ready but I might get them done on the weekend.  If Doug will do booth duty I could still trim and tag the dozen new shawls that are woven and wet finished.  If not, they will be ready for the shows in Vancouver and Calgary.  

I just wish my stash looked like some of it had been used up.  I still have waaaaay too much yarn!

Currently reading Fools Quest by Robin Hobb

Upping the Ante

With my health issues taking most of my time and energy lately, I confess my weaving has been...well, I had enough challenges on my plate.  So I stuck to the tried and true, the stuff I didn't have to think about much, that was pretty well ingrained in my thought processes.   Sticking to what was easy for me meant that weaving was mostly about the therapy, not about the intellectual challenge.

Re-visiting rayon chenille scarves, I felt I needed to be more challenged.  I had kind of burned out of doing the 'usual' and started thinking about options, if only to make them more interesting to me.

Since I want to weave the stash down, the first challenge was to see what I could do with what I have on hand.  Since some colours are low enough there might not be enough for weft, the first decision was to use some 2/16 cotton for weft.  This would do two things...the rayon chenille would only be used for warp and the cotton would make a lighter weight cloth.

The initial prototype scarves were acceptable but a bit predictable.  As I started weaving the warps, surface attention was given to the weaving allowing my little grey cells to mull over other options and I came up with a further modification to the stripe sequence I had designed.  

This option isn't easy, in fact it takes quite a lot of concentration to wind.  But I was able to do it, which tells me I am continuing on the healing journey since my addled brain was able to not only come up with something decidedly different AND accomplish my objective.  

I am not back to where I was, yet, but feel that I am making progress.  Thank you for your support and encouragement.  It is very much appreciated.  

Currently reading Murder Road by Stephen Booth

Rayon Chenille Re-visited

Back around the turn of this century (my, do I feel old saying that!) I wove a bazillion rayon chenille scarves until, frankly, I was pretty sick of them.  

They were a good thing to do at that time.  Each warp was five meters resulting in two scarves.  In order to weave them quickly I concentrated on plain weave and coloured stripes of various combinations.  When I got tired of doing them I had learned an enormous amount about Colour interactions in plain weave and gotten really good at weaving plain weave.  I don't regret doing them, although I was reluctant to return to doing them again.  

But I have all this rayon chenille...probably 50 pounds, maybe more.  And I was out of inventory of scarves. 

Since I really did not want to produce exactly the same thing, knowing I really needed to use up the yarn, I bit the bullet and designed a stripe sequence and started weaving scarves.  

A warp winding elf offered to wind some warps for me and having her in the studio, all new and enthusiastic gave me a much needed energy boost and I have a small but growing stack of scarves.  And already variations are beginning to percolate.  Part of that is necessity.  I'm getting very low on variegated rayon chenille and some colours and I really do not want to buy more.  

I am also running out of time before the sale season begins.  My explorations into this interesting, and at times demanding, yarn is going to continue for a while.  

Racing

With deadlines for shows rapidly approaching, I feel like I'm racing towards a finish line.  I'm so low on rayon chenille scarves that I am trying really hard to get a bunch woven, even at the expense of doing some other stuff that doesn't much appeal to me.   I am being aided and abetted by a friend who has been coming to wind warps for me.  Today she got two more done and will come back tomorrow morning.  

Today I dressed the loom with a warp (each warp yields two scarves) and wove them off.  Just now I beamed this warp and expect to get it weaving before dinner.  

But not if I don't get over there and just do it!

Optimistic

A friendly elf came yesterday and wound some rayon chenille warps for me.  Even better, she says she will come back on Saturday.  So I had to pull some more colour combinations...

Since I'm leaving for a 12 day trip next week, and the show season begins the week after I get back, perhaps I have been a trifle optimistic?

Currently reading Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

Before and After

Before

Colours are not true.  More green than blue.

After wet finishing.  The variegated yarn is acrylic, not rayon so it doesn't feel as nice as all rayon.   Plus the acrylic didn't shrink so it seersuckered, but I expected that and, because it is consistent, it's a design feature. 

Fuzzy

I have been very low on rayon chenille scarves for the past couple of years and this year after all was said and done, there were just three scarves left.  I could have sold a lot more if I'd had more, and since I still have significant inventory of rayon chenille, I'm revisiting them.

Actually a friend came and wound this warp for me last summer but with my back issues they never got woven.  So it was a slam/dunk to take the already wound warp and get it onto the loom yesterday after I cut the last painted scarf warp off.  I even got it threaded before dinner so it took just a few minutes this morning to sley, tie on and begin weaving.

My challenge now is to use up as much of my rayon chenille stash without buying more to go with it as I can.  Of course that means stretching my creativity to the limit as I'm very low on the colours I like and have plenty that don't sing to me.  But sometimes that's when you really begin to stretch and grow as an artist/artisan.  It is only by pushing our boundaries that we do grow.

My friend wound two warps for me so I'm really hoping I can get both done and deliver the four scarves to the fringe twisting elf tomorrow night.  Since rayon chenille needs a pretty substantial beat, I don't know when I'll be able to whomp away at weaving so I'm trying to get these and some place mats done now.

Time Management

next (last, for now) rayon chenille warp, empty AVL in background

When I chose to become a professional/production weaver I had to make some choices.  One of those choices was in the type of product I would make.  Even though I am mostly interested in weaving, intellectually, in terms of weave structure, quite often exploring that aspect of weaving can be quite time consuming.  Because exploring in that area is, for me, searching beyond my comfort zone, my foundation of knowledge, an effort to increase my knowledge.  And that pursuit is fraught with 'errors'.  It is not a pursuit that lends itself to product for upcoming sales.  Or at least, not right away.  Product development happens during the spring, not the weeks leading up to the shows...

Therefore, when I am in full blown getting-ready-for-sale-season, I am not pursuing my love of weaving by wandering down unexplored avenues.  I am trying very hard to get as much product ready for the sales as I possibly can.  I have no time to baby recalcitrant warp threads, use more labour intensive techniques, slide around on the slippery slope of the learning curve, etc.

I need to slam warps into and get them out of the loom as cloth just as efficiently as I can.

With just two weeks before I leave for the Eastern Great Lakes conference, I am feeling the pressure of deadlines enormously.  I have very little patience.  I am...testy.

I have made a significant financial outlay for the up coming sale season.  I have put very many of my 'eggs' into one basket - that of a 4 week time frame during which I need to earn enough money to last me all through most of next year.  It's not a very secure feeling.

After the rather disastrous day yesterday where I cut not one but two rayon chenille warps off the loom and consigned them to the recycle bin, I decided I would only weave two more rc warps (hopefully with no adventures during them) and then turn my attention back to place mats.

The disadvantage with having all my inventory elsewhere is that I can't just run around the corner and see how my inventory is looking.  Mind you with everything jammed onto the shelves it was hard to see exactly what I had, anyway!

But I do remember that I also need more place mats.

If I can get 4 more scarves woven (two are now done), that will give me about a dozen and a half of those, not a large selection, but at least enough to be starting the season with.

The advantage to switching to place mats is that they are very fast to weave, I can bring bins of them with me to Seattle to hem - I can even bring unhemmed ones to Vancouver/Calgary along with my small flat bed press and during down time find a quiet corner and hem.  Then press them in the hotel room to add to inventory as needed.

Once the show season is over I can go back to the rayon chenille and weave them in a more leisurely fashion.  I have used enough of the yarn to see that the shelves do have a tiny bit more space on them, but I'm still far from done with rayon chenille.

As for the AVL?  Doug is winding a 'fast' towel warp onto it.  They won't be terribly fancy, but once again I will be able to use up some of my never-ending (seemingly!) stash and have some tea towels for sale and hostess gifts.  Not sure when I'll find time to weave on it, but at least it won't be nekkid.