Weaving with Handspun (part 2)

So, my aim is still to weave some projects entirely from handspun… but I got impatient with finding handspun in enough quantity that was also colour coordinating, and decided to start with an easier option – handspun warp, with a commercial yarn in the weft. This meant I could use a single-coloured weft yarn that wouldn’t distract from the colourway in the warp, without having to specifically spin a single-coloured yarn to match.

I used the Sett Checker from Yarnworker to work out what sett I wanted to warp at. I then measured roughly the circumference of the skein and counted how many rounds there were to estimate the length of handspun I had.

Project: Twisted Shawl
Warp: Handspun polwarth wool, dyed in “Orchid” colourway and plied as a fractal.
Weft: Commercial wool, from Bendigo Woollen Mills, Luxury 4ply in Raspberry.
Warp length: Direct warped on rigid heddle at 1.9m (74″) (aiming for 1.35m woven length), off loom 1.75m (including fringe) and wet finished 1.7m (including fringe) (67″). Final woven length 1.35m (53″).
Sett: 10dpi
Width: full width of 40cm (16″) reed for weaving width, finished fabric width 36cm (14″).

I wanted to use up as close as I could to the full skein of handspun, so I’d designed the warp length & width to suit. However, when I’d warped to the intended width (37cm or 14.5″), I still had some handspun left. Thinking maybe I’d measured the yarn inaccurately, I decided to just increase the width to use up all the yarn…

I then realised just how springy and stretchy polwarth wool is. Really springy. Despite my best efforts to not put much tension on the yarn as I warped, I clearly had stretched it without meaning to. Once I removed it from the warping peg it ‘bounced’ back quite a lot and I realised why I had ended up with a wider warp than my calculations had indicated. Because the yarn was so elastic, I had stretched it out during warping and the true ‘at rest’ length of the warp was about 15cm (6 inches) shorter than I’d planned!

Not wanting to start again, I figured I’d just weave it and see how long it ended up. The weaving was fairly quick, as I only had the single weft colour to work with and was using a boat shuttle.

Luckily, the warp did not shrink much in the wet finishing, I think because I’d already washed the handspun fairly thoroughly as part of my yarn-finishing process. I had originally hoped for a twisted shawl/cowl that could be looped around the neck twice with the triangle part hanging to one side, but it ended up not quite long enough for that. Still, due to the extra width it does give a pretty good coverage over the shoulders and both back & front. Also, it’s super bright and cheerful!