Friday, October 18, 2013

It's that magical time of the (yarn) year

Hello, countdown to holiday gift knitting!  Maybe you start earlier but around about now - when I have Halloween mostly sorted (and an embarrassing amount of Halloween candy ingested) - is when I start noticing that Christmas is next and I've done nothing crafty to prep for it.

So,


Time to get out the loom.

In fact, 'Set up the loom' has been on my to-do list every day for the past two or so weeks.  I consider it a triumph to be writing this post today, all things considered.

The weaving itself: not such a triumph.  The plan was to use this skein of Twisted Fiber Art Arial, purchased from somebody else's stash, for a scarf - the whole skein, for both warp and weft.  Then I noticed this:


I put a lot of length into it.

After I calmed down enough I did the math, which goes like this:

36" = 1 yard.

Each row of weaving takes at least 10" of yarn.

There are 6,912" of yarn left over from setting up the loom.

That means about 691 rows of yarn.

It takes 20 rows of Arial to get 1" of scarf.

Bottom line: after setting up the loom, I am going to have enough matching yarn left over for a 34" scarf.

GAH.

Fortunately, I found some similar-weight black cashmere blend yarn that's meant to go with another colourway and may yet do so, if this scarf works out and there's enough left.


I'm alternating stripes, doing 15 rows of each colour, and starting and finishing with black because I have more of it.

Now that I've figured out how to change colours neatly I must say that stripes are a brilliant solution to the boredom problem that trails along behind my loom: I'm just so motivated to get to the next stripe, I've done the first foot or two without wanting to stop.  And I find my thoughts drifting to the sock yarn I may never get time to knit with, because I think a solid stripe would look better than this variegated one.

(but not my Vesper sock, Leslie!  I'm hoarding that.)

What do you think? Does the variegated striping work?


And now that we know what I'm doing this weekend, let's focus on you having a great weekend yourself.  Do something fun, and I'll see you back here Monday!

5 comments:

UmmRania said...

I love it!

Trish said...

Love it! And kudos to you for keeping at the weaving!

Marianne said...

I love it!! I so want to learn to weave.. maybe I'll hint for a loom for Christmas : )

Anonymous said...

I love the stripes! I forgot-what kind of loom do you have?
Jan

Mary Keenan said...

It's an Ashford Knitter's Loom Jan - the smaller size. Trish and I went sharesies on the bigger size too but the smaller one is what lives at my house, just right for a 10" wide scarf :^)