Eggshell Cotton Huck Lace

 My eggshell cashmere silk scarves were a failure, at least as far as being saleable. So I combined my customers’ requests for white or eggshell scarves and their desire for cottons into one product.

After my recent experience with the 5/2 handpainted Egyptian cotton, I knew that I wanted to sett the eggshell cotton farther apart than the 15 ends per inch I used then. I also wanted to make them be handwoven lace, because that would help with softness and drape. Lace weaves need to be sett and beat loosely, so I took a gulp and set the neutral 5/2 pearl cotton at 12 ends per inch. I threaded the loom for an all over huck, and sat down to weave.

I LOVE THESE SCARVES!

They’re soft drape really well for cotton. The color and lace provide a very classic look; the cotton ensures great versatility. I’ll be amazed if they don’t sell at the Roycroft summer show this weekend. I’m sure I’ll be making more of these. (Hope I don’t end up eating those words.)

Like with most of my handwoven lace, I made these scarves on my delightful little counterbalance loom. It is totally possible to weave with 3 shafts against 1 on a counterbalance. It just takes a bit more care, since the shed (the opening where you pass th shuttle through) isn’t as large.

No, once again I didn’t sample these scarves. I am much more confident when I’m working on my little loom. We operate on the same mental plane, and I just knew this one would work.

June 24th, 2011 

Cracked Eggshell Scarves

One of the things people wanted at the Kenan show was more scarves in white or eggshell. I’d ordered the silk in white, and thought I’d get it in time to weave with it, so wanted to make something in eggshell.

I recently bought some eggshell cashmere & silk yarn, so perfect. I decided to try a new lace pattern in a diamond shape. I wanted to use a 7-thread huck instead of my usual 5-thread huck, and combined those two ideas. I sett the yarn at 18 ends per inch, which is the sett I used for all the cashmere silk lace scarves I’ve made, all of them successful.

These scarves may look ok in the picture (I chose what parts to show you, after all), but using the three new ideas in combination was a recipe for disaster. There wasn’t enough plain weave surrounding the lace for stabilization. The 7-thread huck had floats that were too long at this sett. And the Macomber, which I had to use for the pattern, is hard on the cloth on the cloth beam when I advance it. So all in all, the scarf is a failure and can’t be sold. (It’s the scarf on the left in the picture.)

So since I’d warped for two scarves, I decided to make some changes for the second scarf. I modified the treadling to make the pattern more stable, adding much more plain weave in the pattern. The scarf on the right is much more stable, but...

...there’s one place on the scarf that the Mac really smushed the weft threads together. I could not fix it in the wet finishing, so this scarf, too, is unsaleable.

Poop. I think I’d better start changing my attitude about sampling, don’t you?

June 20th, 2011