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You are here: Home / All blog posts / Out of warp!
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February 8, 2009 by Tien Chiu

Out of warp!

Today was a relatively quiet day, with much less time at work than I had anticipated (thank goodness).  I even got 10 hours of sleep, which wasn’t quite enough to catch up on a week of sleep deprivation, but which did make life a lot more bearable.

Anyway, after work I was happily cranking away on the warp, weaving yard #6, when a warp thread tangled behind the lease sticks.  So I got up to disentangle it, then (while I was there) looked at the back beam and AAAAAAAAAAA!!  noticed I was nearly out of warp.

I hastily laid out the pattern pieces again and calculated the exact length of fabric I would need in order to cut and sew the body of the coat.  6.5 yards.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  That much I had.  Now how much would I need in order to make the collar and lapels?  About 30 inches.  Grump.  Not enough.

So I managed to weave up 6.5 yards of the Celtic braid fabric I needed, plus 15″ of a 3/1 twill for the lapels and collar.  This unfortunately means I do need to warp up again, but fortunately I have enough leftover yarn that I will likely have enough.  I also don’t need quite as wide a warp, so I think I will put on six and a half yards of warp (two turns around my warping wheel), and wind on warp on alternating sides, starting in the center, until I run out of warp yarn.  This should use up all the warp yarn, which will be nice since I hate having leftover bits and pieces – and should give me plenty of warp for the remaining 18″ of twill, one shawl, and some spare fabric in case I mess up cutting something.

I am, of course, miffed that I now have to warp on again for a mere 18″ of fabric, but that’s what I get for not measuring my sample for takeup.  I managed to get only 16.5 yards of weaving out of a 22-yard warp – that’s about 20% loss between loom waste and takeup!  Way more than I was expecting (10-15%).  Live and learn.  Next warp I assume about 15% takeup, plus loom waste.

So the 7.5 yards of fabric has been through the washer and is now in the dryer.  I have bought a small steam press (like a little version of the press they use at the dry cleaners)  and will use it to give the yardage a hard press.  The nice part about this press (a Singer CSP1) is that it puts 100 lbs of pressure on the fabric just by pressing down the handle, which I think is better than I could do with an iron (not to mention easier on the body!)

Oh, and we heard about the duplex; they decided to rent it to someone else.  *sigh*  But we saw a very nice three bedroom house in Sunnyvale over the weekend, and are going to put a rental application in for that one tomorrow. With luck we’ll snag this one, if not we’ll go hunting again next weekend.

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Filed Under: All blog posts, textiles, weaving Tagged With: cashmere coat

Previous post: Exhausted
Next post: Couture

Comments

  1. Laura says

    February 8, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    I’ve got a small Elna press like yours and it is great. 🙂 Even though I’ve got Puff, I keep the Elna press for the day when I can no longer afford to feed and house Puff. 🙁

    Good luck with the house-hunting. I’m sure the perfect match will show up.

    Congrats on finishing the warp, even though it’s too soon! And yes, it’s good to use up the yarns. That way you can justify buying more. :^)

    Cheers,

    Laura

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