“But,” I hear you say, “Laura is also an expert on wet finishing.  What about that?”

Well, yesterday I asked her to show me some “interesting” fabrics from a wet-finishing point of view.  She suggested trying collapse weave, as she had several yarns in her (extensive) stash that would do well for collapse weave.  So off we went.

I threaded up a warp (plainweave) with stripes of blue/white Lycra yarn and stripes of white Lycra yarn, alternating with 12/2 cotton.  I then tried all sorts of wefts with it – 2/28 (feltable) wool, silk, high-twist wool singles, 12/2 and 20/2 cotton – each with an open and a dense beat.

I got a lot of very interesting results – which I will post later, when I have more time – but for now, I’ll just show you one of the more dramatic ones:

This is (as the caption says) a very fine, high-twist wool singles done with a very open beat.  The right side is the sample before wet-finishing.  The left side (top sample) is the sample after wet-finishing.

Isn’t that cool???

Now, one of the interesting parts (to me at least) was contrasting it with the exact same warp and weft, but with a dense beat with lots of ppi:

See how there’s a little texture, but not a dramatic collapse?

This really illustrated how collapse weaves need “room” in which to express the collapse.

I’d love to see what this looks like with the high-twist singles alternating with cotton stripes (densely and open-ly beaten), with an open sett – thus giving the high twist singles room to work their magic.  I’m guessing it would be a gridded cloth, and be quite interesting.  If I have time left at the end of this shawl warp I’m making, I’ll do a sample of that.

Because yes, I’m making an entire shawl out of this pattern/warp; I think it’ll be very pretty, not to mention warm.  It’ll also make something nice to show off at my next guild meeting.

And, for those who have patiently read through to now, here is a little treat: my second bobbin lace project!

I’m very pleased with it – there are no errors (that I can see) and the contrast in colors looks very nice.  I’m getting ready to start a third bookmark, but as most of my time is going to be spent concentrating on getting the shawl done (I only have today to finish it – I fly out tomorrow!), I’m not at all sure I’ll finish it.