2 Ply Yarn Test

Well, the sample of the 2 ply 50% silk and 50% camel has been washed and dried and strength tested. It was not able to be pulled apart from 4 inches away. It was, however, able to be pulled about from 20 inches away. This "scientific" test performed by my 16 yr. old son and I, was specifically to see if I would have a strong enough yarn to use as a warp for my next project. It was not a complete success because I would like it to be strong enough to resist pulling apart at any length. However, I was glad to see that it had to be so far apart and with extra effort on my son's part.

What this means to me, and you may have a different opinion, is that I need to add twist to my plyed yarn to make it stronger. If you would like to give me your experience on such matters, I would very much like to hear from you.

Strong enough or not, I was very pleased with how consistently even my yarn was and how smooth. It was 25 wraps per inch which is the very thinnest I have ever spun. It has an incredibly soft hand but is reasonably strong. I love both the shine and the softness.

I will try it again to see if adding more twist to the plying process might strengthen the yarn. If it doesn't improve, I will use it as weft and use 100% silk as the warp. I do have 100% Tussah Silk to spin and it would be very fine without the camel and less apt to break. I have included some pix in this blog. Hope you like what you see.

Test of Plyed Yarn

It was one of the first things I learned when I began to spin and weave. Sample, sample, sample!!!
When someone tells me something over and over it becomes part of my process. This was repeated in every class I have ever taken and I took it to heart. Thus began my purses, scarves, and jewelry because each was a way to use up a sample.

One of the funniest comments I got from someone at the first Convergence I attended, was, "You mean you actually sample? That's great!" My trouble isn't sampling, it's taking the next step. Making something bigger than a sample!

All that to say, this is my reason for making more than a sample. It is my reason for the blog. So far I have the yarn filled on one large bobbin, ready to be plyed . I have one like this last one, on the wheel. So on to more spinning.

In the meantime, I am warping my "Swan Lake" Jack Loom with some 10/2 cotton in Spice from UKI for some towels for our guild towel exchange. I want to have several towels to choose from so I plan to weave several different batches from different fibers and then decide which fibers make the best towels. I also am warping the Rigid Heddle with linen. Since linen has no stretch, I am a little hesitant to weave with it as the warp on my bigger 8 shaft loom because of tension troubles which are common. Instead I felt I should try it first on the Rigid Heddle. Sample the linen warp and see what I could do with it. I am in the process of warping both. I do it one step at a time because I don't have the time to dedicate to warping all at once. One step at a time works for me because of this.

I should have some time tomorrow to do another step of the warping process on each loom and do a little more spinning. Pictures to come.

Stay tuned and let me know if you have questions.

And I leave you with a question from me. Who was the very first weaver and where do we find this out?

Until next time,

Liana

Spinning for My Warp

Dear Fellow Weaver and/or Spinner,

Thank you for joining me on this adventure to weave with my hand spun.

It has long been a passion of mine to use what I spin in my weaving and I have done just that a number of times already. However, I have believed that my hand spun yarns should always be used in the weft. It has, however, bothered me that this was the excepted way of using hand spun.

I have always spun bumpy yarns with lots of character that works very well for my weft in many different weaving projects including my purses and bags. The yarns are what I use in the weft to weave the finished pieces for the purse as shown in the pix above.

Since this is all I have ever used my hand spun yarns for, I have never bothered to make a very fine yarn. I always felt that if I spun too fine a yarn I would not be able to use it in my weaving and therefore never tried. But then a student of mine, Rachel, and I were talking about the fact that the first weavers only had the spindle and used that yarn they created for both the weft and the warp. It therefore, stands to reason that we could also use our yarns for both purposes.

It is on this premise that I have started spinning a very fine thread of 50% silk and 50% camel. It has the advantage of wanting to be thin by nature. This I learned from listening to the very informative podcast, yarnspinners@gmail.com. Post 31 Bamboo and Tencel was all about how to spin these fibers into yarn. They also talked about silk and blends. In this podcast I learned that it is easiest to spin silk into a very fine yarn. However, I have spun it successfully into a very nice bumpy yarn, shown in the photo above. I was anxious to try their method of spinning the fiber to get a very smooth yarn that is very fine and very strong.

Here is were the connection to the warp yarns was made. I am now in the process, as I mentioned above, making a yarn that is strong enough, hopefully, to allow me to warp with it. And then weave a fine cloth. Something I have not tried, either.

Here is the yarn so far, still in the process of being spun.

This blog will be the rest of the process for the making of this cloth from this fine yarn. I will keep you posted. Fail or Succeed. You will see the progress as it happens, in real time. Keep in mind, I will not always be available to blog daily, but I will try as often as I can, so check back regularly to see how it is going and add your voice to my experiment.

Thank you for your interest,

Liana
lianasloom.com