Monday, February 21, 2022

Black Table Runners

I had noticed that we are a little low on table runners in the shop and black table runners are always popular.  I went through the weaving stash and I found some lovely mercerized 5/2 cotton in black and taupe.  They will be perfect for some table runners.

I have some favorite patterns that I like to use for table runner but I felt that this lovely gleaming black cotton deserves a special pattern.  So I picked a gorgeous 12 shaft pattern that featured circles.  I’m very excited by this pattern, I love weaving circles!  

I started to pull the warp for the table runners and I had to get Mom to take a photo of my hand because of the fine dust that was coming off of the black cotton.  That was the first hint that something was wrong.

I finished pulling the first 100 threads and then when I tried to tie onto the warping board for the second bout the black cotton just shredded in my hands.  I’ve never had this happen before.

The black cotton turned out to be unusable for warp, with just a soft tug the yarn would break apart.  It definitely would not hold up to the tensioning on the loom.  When I moved the cone, a circle of fine black dust was left on the floor.  The fine dust meant that I couldn’t take the risk of using the black cotton as weft, I had a feeling that it would disintegrate further.     

So I had to throw away the whole cone of black cotton, which was quite sad as it was lovely.  I’m glad that I found out that the black cotton was bad before I had spent more time setting up the loom with threading and such. 

I went back into the stash and thankfully found more black cotton this time 2/6.  I had to shorten the warp to from my planned three runners to two runners but thankfully I can still use the same pattern.  

I have finished threading and tying onto the loom.  I’m looking forward to seeing the pattern develop on the loom.  Hopefully I can weave today!

Final Garden Photo is the catkins on the Contorted Hazelnut - Corylus avellana 'Contorta' (Harry Lauder's Walking Stick).  The catkins and leaf buds are a wonderful sign of spring. 

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