I live in an area with a lot of alpaca ranches. Well maybe these days, there are lots of alpaca ranches in a lot of places. In any event, it's nice to weave with this fiber.
I had some wool/alpaca/angora blend in a few different shades of gray so I decided to use all that I had for warp for a shawl. It was a good thing I had decided to commit it all since I needed every inch. With the different shades, I came up with a plan to move from the dark yarn through the medium grays to a natural color. It turned out to be semi-systematic with only one section that was too much of the same shade for a bit too many warp threads.
The warp was threaded as a point twill on 8 shafts. The thread order was 1->8, 1->8, 7->1, 8->1. So kind of like a double 8 shaft point. The sett was 12 epi.
The weft was a medium gray alpaca yarn I bought at Carol's estate yarn sale several years ago. It was a nice medium color that worked well with the variation of shade in the warp.
The tie-up is my standard 2-2-1-1-1-1 that I'm using for my towels. To be honest, I have to say I used is since it was already on the loom I wanted to use and it is a pain to change the tie-up. And since I knew there were more towels in my future, I left it. This was treadled as a double point - treadles 1->8, 1->8, 7-> 1, 8->1.
I love making things that don't require doing something to the fringe in order to finish the piece. Unfortunately, this shawl needed to have the fringe "finished". I used my hair curler to twist the fringe. This takes almost as long as the weaving but worth the effort. This was the first time I finished the fringe before wet finishing the shawl.
To wet finish this shawl, I did take it for a wash in my front loader washing machine with cool water and a handwash setting. With trepidation, I put it in the dryer on the very low setting for about 8 minutes. Fortunately it turned out great.
This is my third shawl made with mostly alpaca yarn. I think I'm starting to feel comfortable with this fiber.
2 comments:
Question: you often refer to your standard tie up - and I understand about not wanting to change tie ups! - but you give it in various ways: 3-2-1-1-1-, 3-2-1-1-1-1, 2-2-1-1-1-1-, and other ways. I would be very interested to know what exactly is this tie up that you have found so very useful. Your weaving is beautiful.
Thanks, LaJean
LaJean,
Sorry, I guess I'm being sloppy with my descriptions since I've been doing this. This piece was woven with a twill pattern. Instead of a standard 2/2 or 1/3 twill, I used a twill that is an 8-shaft pattern with 1 thread up , one thread down, one thread up , one thread down, two threads up and two threads down in the tie up. The notation is 1-1-1-1-2-2. A good resource for twill tie up ideas is Marj Coe's website. She has a handout with lots of possibilities from 4 to 8 shaft twills: http://www.e-weaving.com/diagonal%20tie-ups.pdf
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