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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Yarn Along - The Daniel Scarf

When my mother passed away this winter I inherited her weaving loom, a (now) vintage Leclerc table loom and floor stand.  I don't remember her weaving with it, but she had a good collection of weaving books and some leftover yarn, so she must have made a good run at it at some point.

Daniel's 2015 fleece went to A Yarn Well Spun last year (and 2016 this year) and she had a run of yarn spun from it.  I picked up a couple lovely undyed skeins at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival in May and as the Tour rolled around, I decided to combine it with the loom and put both to good use.


The finished scarf.


Before fulling/blocking - you know, my favorite part ;-).  

Notice how you can see each individual strand?  How almost rough it looks?  Woven cloth is not finished until it's been "fulled".  Fulling is done (at least here) in the washing machine and involves hot(tish) water, soap and a few seconds (30 this time) of machine agitation.


Notice how much softer and fuzzier and comfy it looks now?  The yarn all melded together?  You should be able to click to biggify.  Isn't that fun?

I used a fairly simple diamond twill pattern that you can only see from certain angles. Interestingly, from some angles the fabric looks like light brown and white, not just light brown.  I love that because Daniel has a few faint stripes of white mixed into his brown body, too :-).


Some mandatory blocking (where you size it and even out any uneven spots) pictures.  I used the house porch this time, but I'm going to move back to the Wool House porch next time because the table height (an actual table ;-) is more comfortable up there.  


And yes, it's a simple, straight, rectangular woven scarf (as opposed to, say, a fancy, curvy knitted lace shawl), but any time I put wool and a measuring stick together, you know there are going to be pins involved. Lots of pins.  An insane amount of pins.  I LOVE to block :-).


The cats are all pretty much self blocking these days.  No pins required.


My latest favorite spider, doing a little spinning and weaving above the red bench.  You'll need to biggify to see her.  She's quite pretty.

After several (!) disappointing book downloads, I was luckily reminded that you can never go wrong with a No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book, so enjoyed my weaving listening to the latest from Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi and Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni.  

I had a pleasant surprise in the mailbox over the weekend, too. Shepherds and Shepherding by Jonathon Brown.  It's packed full of historical shepherding information and pictures and I'm thoroughly enjoying that as well.

Joining in with Ginny...




14 comments:

Becki said...

It's a beautiful scarf. Not being a weaver, I know nothing about fulling, but I believe you that it finishes a woven piece. That said, to my uneducated eyes, the unfinished scarf looks just amazing. How wonderful to have your mother's loom and to be able to create such lovely things with it.

Linda said...

Love, love, LOVE the scarf! I can't decide if I like it better before or after fulling. Very nicely done!

lisa said...

Absolutely lovely. And full of beautiful connections.

KP said...

What a gorgeous scarf!!! You are so talented!

Claire MW said...

That scarf is absolutely perfect. What a beautiful creation. I am hoping to be able to use my looms more often now that I'm finally getting "settled" again.

Sheepmom said...

"self blocking cats" - too funny! Around here we say they're melted. The scarf is great! love the pattern and what a nice even job! You can really see that it's not white when you put the book next to it. Be sure and show it to Daniel and see what he thinks. ;-)

LannieK said...

Just beautiful - in every way :-)

MarmePurl said...

Daniel, Daniel. Oh how I love thee.
Working this up on your mother's loom...so perfect.

Katie C. said...

What did you use for a blocking board? I'm a beginner knitter and have never blocked anything.

thecrazysheeplady said...

That is a piece of some sort of insulation foam board from Lowes. Can't remember what it's called, but it's a pretty dense piece of styrofoam sort of stuff. I duct tape the two boards together to block bigger pieces. There are fancier set ups out there ;-).

Debbie said...

What a beautiful scarf. I sure do enjoy following your blog! :D

sophy0075 said...

Your and Daniel's scarf is lovely. You like blocking almost as much as I do. Tabitha Kitty likes to pull out the pins, and scatter them through the house, where they can be stepped on. One more reason why I feel about blocking the way I do.

Now to brew myself some redbush tea. Funny, in all of my diplomas, not one says "97%"!

Michelle said...

A most worthy TdF accomplishment!

thecrazysheeplady said...

I had to buy some red bush tea, too! :-D

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