This week I started pondering my next project and it uses some really beautiful knitting yarns that I may or may not be cursing when I start weaving. The project is a cover up sweater and I just found some fun variegated purple and red knitting yarn at the most amazing store ever. The Legacy is a place in Sebastopol, CA that is a thrift store for craft items only. It is so fun to dig through and find exciting treasures, like this wool, mohair, cotton blend. Since I'm planning a sweater and this wool/mohair/cotton yarn has to be the weft I had to look for a thicker type knitting yarn for the warp. Well, last year I purchased some black cotton knitting yarn from Cast Away Yarns for a project and then decided not to use it so it's been sitting on the shelf staring at me since. Well why not try to use it as a warp! Recently, I learned a trick about finding out if a knitting yarn will work as a warp yarn. First, you have to take a piece of yarn and hold each side. Then tug on it, go back and forth, relax then quickly pull taut. The trick comes in feeling the resistance in the yarn because yes, if you pull hard enough all yarns will break, but if you hear a crisp "thwap" when the yarn is pulled taut it should be strong enough for tensioning on the loom. The other, possibly more important, test is the abrasion test. Take the piece of yarn again holding it between your hands tightly and then rub it against the corner of something. Rub and rub and see what happens. This is supposed to mimic the yarn in the reed and heddles during weaving. If the yarn falls apart you know not to use it, or if it starts to fray maybe think about how annoyed you want to be, ha! Okay so I did both tests on the black yarn and it passed. Which means I shall try this knitting yarn as a warp, check back in a few weeks to see if these tests actually work. Now, after my last project of hating all the colors I tried I figured I better do a small test swatch to see if I like the two yarns together and, since I'm doing a pattern, if the pattern shows up. Well, I grabbed my tiny pin loom and wove the pattern on it. The bottom part of the sample is the 1/3 twill and the top 5 or 6 picks is the 3/1 twill. And if you flip it over you can see the 3/1 twill pattern just as distinctly. Now I think I can start warping the loom without a headache during weaving (hopefully!).
The yarn is tested for weaving and the colors work together and with the pattern. So we'll see shortly if I have a beautiful sweater or a scary ball of fuzz. Wish me luck :) Happy Weaving!
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Author: Vader
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