Finishing up the Chenille Scarves

This is the second installment for this diversified plain weave scarf, the first part of the story of the music note scarf;  is here.  Once I finally got the motif and the threading (had to redo it three times!) correct for this scarf it quickly wove up. 

It wove up so quickly that I only took one set of pictures, it is a little hard to see but I wove the second motif upside down so that when the scarf is finished the ends will match when worn.

The music note scarf joined the black piano scarf in the closet waiting for a sunny day to do the sewing for the hems.  Definitely need a lot of light when trying to sew a black scarf.

But they are now both done and here are the beauty shots.  The black piano is quite striking.  For Sale.

I preferred the black music notes with the white background for the music note scarf, so it turns out that I actually wove it upside down.  But it is pretty and continues that music theme that I have for the chenille scarves.  For Sale.

In the end I was able to weave three white piano scarves, one black piano scarf and one music note scarf.  It is quite a stack of finish scarves.

I am finished with weaving chenille scarves for the year but I was able to tidy up my pile of black and white chenille.  I emptied two cones and two tubes, the leftover tubes now fit in one of the tubs that we use to corral the weaving yarns in the closet.  I think it was a success!

Final garden shot is Feather Reed Grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Eldorado') when the light hits it, it seems to glow a wonderful golden colour.

Diversified Plain Weave Music Notes Scarf

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

I wanted to use up the last little bits of chenille in the stash; I had some white chenille on a cone, the last little bit of the creamy white chenille on a tube and the last of the black chenille on a cone.  Looking at the empty cones at the bottom of the warping board, I think that I did a pretty good job of using everything!

For Diversified Plain Weave there is one thick thread for every two thin threads.  I used the chenille as the thick thread and 2/20 cotton/Tencel as the thin threads.

I drafted this music note motif myself, if you would like to know how I did it here is a drafting tutorial blog that I did this spring.  I used a cross stitch pattern to help with the shaping of the musical notes.  I think it looks pretty looks cute!

I don’t know what I was thinking about but I decided to look at musical notes on sheet music to see if mine look correct.  Well, they look different from what I had drafted not a lot different but enough that it bugged me.  I had already woven 14 inches of the scarf but now that I knew what the notes should look like I had to change.  Now looking back at the double note it looks like the symbol for pi!

So, I carefully unwove the scarf, I was taking a big chance with the chenille, it could have frayed apart, but luck was with me.  I fixed the pattern and I had to rethread adding more shafts and retying up my treadles.

I also took the opportunity to change some of the threads.  At the edge of the black borders I had placed two thin white threads next to the black chenille.  It added a harsh white line next to the black edge so I changed to two thin black threads and I think it is a much cleaner edge.

I started weaving with the new threading and I got the second pick of the motif and I could tell that I had made a mistake with the threading.  So I unwoven about 6 inches and fixed my threading error, yet again.

So for the third time I wove the first motif and yes it is finally right and I can go ahead and weave the rest of the scarf!

Final Garden Shot is a dwarf goat’s beard (Aruncus aethusifolius) the fall colour of this perennial is spectacular!

Black Piano Scarf

You may remember from the piano scarves blog that I had a cone of creamy white chenille that didn’t match the others, which I didn’t find out until I had pulled the long 7 plus yard warp.  But I had just seen Bohemian Rhapsody, the Queen movie, which is really good by the way.  Anyway, in the movie there was a black piano and it sparked the idea for a woven black piano scarf.

I did the math to find out if I had enough of the white chenille to do a black piano scarf, and I did, just.  I had to scale down my pattern to just one scarf but I had enough white chenille to go for it.

It is surprising how different the piano scarf looks just by reversing the colours.

It is interesting how stiff and cardboard-y the scarf is before washing.  The amount of shrinkage in the width is also surprising when it is compared to the washed and dried white piano scarf.

I wash the scarf by hand then put the still slightly damp scarf into the drier to finish drying and to fluff up the fibres.  The scarf is in the dryer with two large bath towels and some wool drier balls and yet it tied itself into a perfect knot?!  (Sorry for the bad photo)

I wish that I could show you the finished scarf but I caught that terrible cold that is going around and so the scarf has been hanging in the closet waiting for me to finish the hems.  Hopefully I’ll have the finished scarf by next blog.

Final garden shot is the Flying Dragon Bitter Orange Tree (Ponciros trifoliata monstrosa); its fall colour is just spectacular.  The bright yellow and orange leaves are a bright spot in the garden next to the silvery sage and green spears of the Siberian iris.

Finishing the Piano Scarves

By the time I got to the third piano scarf I had the pattern memorized so it wove up quite quickly.  I also think that the boat shuttle really helps with speeding up the weave time.  It is a Little Man Howell which is 15 inches long, the bobbin is 8 inches and it can hold enough chenille to weave about 40 inches.  I got it by chance with an AVL mechanical loom purchase, the loom is long gone but the shuttle has stayed!

I don’t do a lot of long warps so I was a little surprised by the thickness of the scarves around the cloth beam by the end; my knees were almost touching the roll.

After taking off the scarves for washing I noticed the thick layer of dust on the race of the (reed holder).  After seeing that I went around my loom with the vacuum! Talk about dust bunnies!

After washing the scarves I put them into the drier with some towels and felt dryer balls.  It's really nerve wracking but the softness and drape of the finished scarves is worth it.

The scarves then have their hems pinned up; here they are waiting for sunny days so I can have enough light to hand sew them.  Here on Vancouver Island  during the first week of September we had the average rainfall for the whole month. It has continued to be a dark and wet month, buckets of rain today again!

Here are the final beauty shots for a piano scarf.  For Sale.

I haven’t shown you the final beauty shot for the yellow and red brown Tencel scarf (previous blog about it).  It is really something very special and wonderfully autumnal.  For Sale.

Final garden shot is a blue passionflower (Passiflora caerulea).  Our neighbour has the original plant on the other side of the fence, but, since it has put runners into our back garden which have rooted, and now the runners are blooming, so I'm claiming it!

Piano Scarves

I meant to weave these piano scarves earlier in the year but I've finally got them on the loom now.  In the spring I placed an order with Brassards for some more white chenille, as I didn’t have enough left in the stash do make a piano scarf warp; it really takes a lot of white chenille.

Last week when I pulled all the chenille out of the cupboard, I found that I had a little bit leftover from last time that I wove these scarves which was also from Brassards.  So, I eyeballed the old cone to the new cone and it looked like it matched, you don’t really expect white to be that different.  Well it was really different; the little leftover cone is really creamy next to the new chenille as you can see in the photo below.  Unfortunately I didn’t find out until I had finished pulling my warp, while it wasn’t very many ends it was long, over 7 yards which is long enough for three scarves.

So I pulled everything off the warping board and started again.  Although, I first had to check my math to make sure that I had enough white chenille for all three scarves.  Luckily, I do have enough white chenille.  After all that everything went smoothly and I have just finished my second piano scarf.  Tomorrow I will start the third and final scarf.

I’ll show you the finished scarves next time.  For now I have the creamy white chenille sitting on the mantle in the studio while I am trying to think of a cool project to do with it.  I am hoping that I have enough to do a black piano scarf; I think that it would be cool.

Final Garden Shot is Himalayan honeysuckle (Leycesteria formosa).  The plant is over 6 feet tall and the long burgundy bracts have both white flowers and purple/brown seeds that are edible and taste like treacle.  The honey bees just love this plant; it blooms from late spring until winter.