Tabby Two-Step

Just a note before posting the following. I actually wrote it last week when I was on my way to Asheville. I arrived last Thursday and have been working full out to get the studio organized. I’ll post again with pictures of the new studio, but here is the Two-Step for now.

Testing out the new rayon chenille before the Just Weave class scheduled for January, I put on a warp for two scarves before I left Jersey. One is for my husband who not only drove me to Silk City, but waited around for me while I shopped, with only a couple of references to the time. He fancied a super fine cashmere and a black/ivory tweed rayon chenille. The cashmere would have been at least 45 epi, and a fortune even at outlet prices, so I threw the tweed chenille in the basket.

I set up a 2 dark, 2 light color-and-weave warp with black for a little variety. With my warping board in North Carolina already and only the horizontal warping reel left in the New Jersey studio, my first challenge was trying to use the warping paddle with the reel. Couldn’t figure out how to make the crosses with the paddle and the pegs on my reel, so I wound two separate warps and warped front to back, not my preferred method.

Once the warp was on, it wove very quickly with a wonderful tabby rhythm, even with two shuttles for the color-and-weave pattern. I don’t weave a lot of tabby, preferring structural patterns, but I had fun with this. The color-and-weave houndstooth check with the tweed and black held my interest and made a nice subtle patterns for both scarves. I let my husband choose his favorite, which was the one with only a block of the color-and-weave on each end. The other is houndstooth all over except for black ends. It’s headed for the sutherland studio in Asheville, where I am headed this week.

I added a picture of the scarves before I cut them from the loom. The extensions from the apron rod let me weave until the knots were within inches of the heddles, a little trick I learned while working on the COE Level I samples. Multiple times, I ran a little short of warp when what were supposed to be final samples became more practice samples.

I also have a tendency to estimate warp length a little tight. Blame my mother. During our trips to the fabric store, she always looked at the fabric requirements on the back of the pattern and declared, “We don’t need that much.” As I recall, she never ran short of fabric, but she did do some very creative pattern layouts.