This version of the fabric, while not wholly opaque, is much crisper. A small amount of light remains when switching from the plain weave to float sections, but otherwise, it’s nearly solid. I was easily able to beat to square so that made me hopeful that if I was happy with this fabric, I could make yardage without too much difficulty.
First pass of colors was back to the dark blue and light brown. Here it is against the light brown weft:
While that looks good, I liked the higher-contrast blue/light pink combination from the previous fabric, so I wove off a section like that as well. Here it is against the darker brown warp.
And this is where I stopped. I’ve more warp on the loom, so there’s one more round of sampling to come, but I also noticed that I made a sleying error near the left edge. I put six ends in one dent, rather than the planned three. Since this was a sample, I didn’t worry about it at all (there was enough trouble-free fabric elsewhere) but decided that I would cut off and finish this piece so that I could not only fix the error, but also make any more decisions about how I wanted to handle the end of the warp.
That said, here’s my thinking for what’s left:
- Weave off a chunk with a combination of wool and silk. Try different color wools to see if there are any that are truly appealing.
- Weave off a chunk in monotone wool and overdye. I remembered how much the dark Merino roving loves to be overdyed so I’m going to cut some sections and do them in red, teal and blue. My hope is that a monochromatic, rich color scheme might make those big medallions bearable.
- If any warp remains after doing those two, I’m going to pull out the linen/silk blend and weave off some with that. I’ve both a light blue and a natural, and if I have enough, I’ll try and overdye a patch.
Yay for more sampling! Sometimes, I wish I had the patience to just sample for a year (or ten), because so many cool things emerge.
So, does the crisp fabric retain its crispness after washing? I was intrigued by your comment on FOAY that dyeing after weaving would allow you to weave with the yarn when it was still crisp (that is what you meant, right?).
The fabric does, indeed, lose it’s crispness post finishing – and that’s why I suspect there’s some sizing or other milling artifact left on it. The wool blooms and softens nicely.
As the yarn is so fine, and (rather) delicate, I’m not sure that it’d weave up as well once it’s been washed, and that means that dyeing post-weaving is a better idea.
Now, if I weave off multiple yards of the stuff, that makes it harder since I’d be dealing with a heap of fabric. Back to vest and small amounts of fabric. :-)