I’ve been thinking a lot recently on the half-used balls of yarn floating around in my stash, and came to the conclusion to weave something again. My loom has been sitting mostly-unused for about a year, now. The December Member’s show at the gallery got cancelled last year because we had to move some shows around due to being closed for a few months in the summer, so I haven’t had a reason to weave any bags. However, there is nothing quite like weaving to use up spare amounts quickly. And to justify buying more yarn to oneself, but that’s neither here nor there.
So, out she came. I pulled some leftover sock yarn and warped it together with some extra Cascade 220 Fingering and started.
I have a very scientific method for measuring out my warp yarn, which is to say I wrap it around my bedposts. Between the head and the foot of the bed if I want a really long warp, and between the posts on the foot if I want a shorter one. Heaven forbid if I ever want to weave something to specific measurement. Measuring yarn in this way is actually quite meditative, as I sink into a rhythm as I wind the yarn, and not just for me. I looked up to see my dog sitting on the other side of the bed, one ear flipped back, staring at me as I wound back and forth, following me with his eyes.
Since I have absolutely no method to how long or wide my warps are, I was set to either weave a scarf (depending on how many warps I ended up with), a cowl (depending on how long the warp was), or a table runner (depending on both). I was leaning towards a table runner, as I had enough yarn to thread through each space, but lost a bit of length when I had an argument with the loom while tensioning my yarn and lost a few feet to a nasty tangle. Turns out warping several yards of fingering weight yarn when you haven’t woven for a year makes for a bit of a mess. Cowl it is, then. My weft yarn is mostly Lion Brand Jeans Colors which is a bit limp and boring with contrasting stripes of Bartlettyarns 2-Ply which is a joy to behold but a bit rough for next-to-skin use, but it’s tempered by the softness of the Jeans.