I was going through the stash looking for something to weave when I saw a cone of ladder ribbon and I knew what I wanted to weave . . .My favorite scarf is one that Mum wove for me; it is a silk ladder ribbon in peacock colours, purple, lime green, and blue. It is crossed with a teal Orlec and every time it is worn I get a compliment.
The scarf looks like it is woven as undulating but that effect is from the interaction of the silk squares with the weft. And I am looking forward to experimenting with this effect, with the pink ladder ribbon.
Recently I have put back on the sectional warp beam and second back beam on the Minerva. So I had to remember how to beam a sectional again. I am using a modified version of the Louet method, because the ladder ribbon could be difficult in a tension box.
I placed a metal bar between the sectional sections to attach the extenders for the warp. The warp has been separated in a raddle at the top of the castle to help corral the ribbon and to place even tension on the warp. The warp is then pulled on slowly making sure that the ribbons stay in their designated sections.
In the very first photo is a pink cone of Orlec which I was going to use as weft, but it was too thick and obscured the ribbon. I don’t have a picture, of course, but I had to cut out about 5 inches because I was in denial. I do have one piece of advice about ladder ribbon which is when hemstitching do it during the day when you can see, I lost count of how many times I had to undo, lots of two steps forward, one step back!
I had to find a weft that was finer then 2/8. I spent a lot of time going through the stash looking for weft, the 2/20 black Tencel was too fine and looked like a spider web. The 2/20 pink cotton was too pale and too fine. The weft that worked turned out to be a purple 2/16 mercerized cotton!
It just disappears and lets the warp do its thing. I am being very careful to just tap the weft into position; I want the lumps and bumps. I really like the weaving of this scarf, in just a couple of hours this afternoon I have already woven 40 inches, only 30 inches left! I am really looking forward to seeing this scarf off the loom; I think that it is going to be amazing!
10 comments:
that looks very exciting!
Hi - I love your pink ladder yarn, the scarf will be very pretty. I have used ladder yarn as weft on my rigid heddle but never as warp. We have a weaver not too far away who uses ladder yarn for both warp and weft with a loose weave and she turns out lots of scarves and sells them locally. I am actually going to visit her this afternoon !!
Nice project !
It is already! Just beautiful.
Wow, that is beautiful! And you are just using tabby weave? It does look undilating.
I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on this scarf tomorrow!
The other ones you made were quite striking and looked very complex... and fooled me completely
:) Susan
Are you able to share what size of dent and what your sett was?
To answer anon....this was so very long ago I can't remember the sett or reed size for sure. But upon looking at the old photos I have it sett at 1 per dent and it was either an 8 or a 10 dent reed because those are the sizes I have. My best guess is that I used the 10 dent reed....hope this helps.
Thanks Lynette...I would have never thought of using ladder yarn for a warp...it looks fab and I have to dig out the few skeins that I have!!
Hi, my name is Sandie and I live in Tasmania. Greatly admired the ladder yarn scarf. I am currently warping my loom with ladder yarn. Question please. How do you manage the twist in the yarn as you progress. The twist is becoming unmanageable. Any hints or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Sandie
Hi Sandy,
I completely ignored the twist when pulling the warp. Then when I wove it the twist seemed to pick the weakest part of the warp which was the ladder part of the yarn to twist. This worked out really well because that was where it was going to collapse anyway. The woven sections seemed to stand proud which was what I wanted and the weft covered the twisted portion of the warp. Hope this helps.
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