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Friday 5 January 2018

weaving with my hand spun yarn!

Last time I showed you how I was creating a tweed effect yarn. I am excited to tell you that I have almost finished weaving the cloth for my jacket. Actually, I thought I had finished but when I started to piece the jacket I realised I need a little more cloth to make the arms wider for ease of movement.

I have read that you can't use hand spun yarn for warp threads because it will break. I wanted to get around this and racked my brains for ways of making it stronger without core spinning. Then I had a light bulb moment - felt it of course!

To do this I washed the yarn after spinning and whilst still wet held one end of the skein and swung it so that the other end bashed against a table. Then I moved my hand round and bashed another area and so on. If you try this be sure to keep checking the yarn to see if you have achieved the degree of felting required and make sure the strands of yarn don't felt together. It only needs to be a little stronger and not totally felted.

My loom is a Brinkley loom. I used to have a rigid heddle loom but hated warping up so much that I sold it. This loom has a continuous warp and can be set up in about half an hour. I have the smallest one available because I didn't know if I would enjoy using it. In hindsight I wish I had bought a larger one. Here is my Brinkley loom with some of my weaving on it.
This is my finished cloth. I hope to complete the jacket in the next few weeks and will update you accordingly.