Balling up a skein of yarn

My yarns arrived on Saturday and I have been very excited to try them out! I finished the first scarf on my warp in a bit of a rush in order to get to the new yarns.

Alright. I have never used skeined yarn before. The kind that looks like this:

I figured it worked like anything else, you pull out all the ties that are holding it together and you pull the loose end. This quickly turned from an exciting moment, to all out war. Both ends came loose and I didn't know how to hold it on tension (or that you needed to) in order to wind it on a ball winder. It turned mostly into large piles of knots. I decided that before I went any further, I should probably look up HOW to ball up a skein of yarn...Since I don't have a swift, I looped each end of the circle of yarn onto my knees and held it taut. While I did this, I pulled one end completely out until all the yarn was lying in a pile on the floor and had the other end attached to the ball winder. This whole process ended up taking me about an hour or so to get several small balls of yarn (because I kept having to break the yarn.) and one larger ball. Who would have thought yarn could be so confusing?!

Well anyway, I've tested a little of the yarn (The Spice colorway) in a twill on the warp. It feels SO SOFT!! It's lovely yarn and I think it will weave up nicely. I'm not particularly attached to it, so I might end up selling this scarf. Also, I have another scarf that is pretty much the same colors. I think I'll probably weave up the green and aqua scarves for myself. (well it was MY birthday present!!) I was thinking I'd use the olive Tencel I have with the Dill Heather (the green) and then use the aqua (Shallows) with the navy Tencel I have. I don't like scarves that are cotton. I have one and the only reason why I like it is because it's the first scarf I ever made. But it's not particularly warm, it wrinkles a lot and it can get a little itchy because of the weave structure.

I'm sure those scarf warps will not go on next though. I'm going to try to weave napkins and place mats for my culminating project over the break. I need to make 4 place mats and 4 napkins. I am making plates in my throwing class this semester that will match the place mats and napkins. I can't decide if it would be better to have the place mats be variegated or the napkins variegated...Hmmm...I am getting a bit excited about weaving all this nonsense. I'll just have to hurry and get those scarves off of there!! I'm still not sure what I'm gonna do for the third scarf...I might use the yellow and tan in stripes that match the warp. I'm actually kind of not crazy about the twill that I'm using for the current scarf. I don't really like straight twill...But maybe I could try going up and down to create a zigzag pattern instead. I like that a lot on my overshot scarf. I need to stop blogging when I'm in an office. It makes me want to go straight home and get on my loom!!
~JoAnna

November already?!

I can't believe it's November already! School is keeping me so busy and it's going by so fast! I can't believe that I only have one semester left and then I graduate!

My yarn still isn't here. The tracking info says Monday. :( I don't want to wait that long! I got to weave a little last night on the scarves. I'm still on scarf #1. I got the pattern at the bottom of it done though. I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with it...But that's okay. I can maybe sell it. I'm also not sure I'm crazy about the tabby on rayon...For the second scarf I might try a straight twill and see how that looks. We were talking about different weaves in my Textiles class and my professor said that twill weaves are usually looser than plain weaves. Maybe I could try a basket weave variation too...I just wish I had the time to sit down and weave more!! Maybe I should have sampled a little more at the beginning. I was just worried about not having enough space to weave three scarves on a warp.

Ohhhh!! What if I did the cordovan, orange and red scarf/runner in a basket weave?? Here are the colors:




I was thinking of using the rayon (Cordovan/plum) for warp and then using the orange and red for weft. Seems like a good idea...For now anyway...I want to start using longer warps though. I got frustrated with short warps this summer. It seemed like I was always dressing my loom. Which was good, because it taught me quickly how my loom works and how to dress a loom quickly and efficiently. But weaving is the fun part. And longer warps allow for more weaving time. I'll keep thinking about what else I could do.
~JoAnna

A little bit of weaving

I got to weave a little more last night. I have finished the sampler section of the warp which is a bit short for another scarf, but perhaps it could still be used for something. It was helpful to figure out what I DON'T want to do. Seems a bit backwards, but that's okay.

I found a scarf striping pattern I liked on a friend's facebook. The main body of the scarf is cream but at each end it has a series of stripes in brown, yellow and green. Since I don't have any brown yarn to work with, I will be using an ash color instead. Perhaps I will be able to test it later this week. But right now, I'm pretty busy with school. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to do for the other two scarves on the warp...But my yarn is on the way from Knit Picks so perhaps I'll end up using some of that to weave with.

I ordered some lovely variegated lace weight yarn in a colorway called "Spice".

As you can see, lovely. I'm very excited about it. This might end up looking nice with the warp I have on there. We'll see!
~JoAnna