Sampling again

I’m still waiting for some of the metallic yarn samples to arrive, so in the interim, I’m warping up some samples for the 60/2 silk.  This will be for the dress underneath the coat.  In the interests of keeping it relatively simple, I’m sampling five things:

1. the advancing-twill heart pattern I posted about a week ago
2. A 5-end satin
3. An 8-end satin
4. A 12-end satin
5. the hearts draft with floats over plainweave that I posted in my last blog post.

I’m especially curious whether the advancing-twill heart pattern will show, woven white on white.  So I’m threading it up first.  I will weave about 2-3 yards of this, so I can submit it for the Complex Weavers’ Fine Threads study group samples that are due this month, and if I like it I may weave another yard for the Complex Weavers’ Garment Study Group.  After that I will do the satins.  I’m curious what the difference in luster will be between a 5-end, an 8-end, and a 12-end satin.  I’ll have to rethread and resley between samples, obviously, but I don’t think I’ll have to re-beam.  And I put 10 yards on this warp so I don’t have to worry about running out.

So far I’ve beamed on the sample warp (it’s only 6″ wide so this is pretty quick) and threaded the first motif, 65 threads.  The sett is 65 epi for the advancing twill; it will go up to 80 for the 12-end satin and down to about 55-60 for the plainweave with floats.  I think I can get away with that on a warp beamed at 65 epi.

I had worried a bit about working with such fine threads.  No problem!  They are a little harder to see but other than that, it’s just like threading 30/2 silk, just more threads to thread!

That’s it for now.  I expect I’ll finish up threading and sleying on Saturday.  I can’t wait to see how that advancing twill comes out!