Weaver's Poker Challenge - First Contestant Diana A.

The group decided to undertake a challenge last year.  In our version of Weaver's Poker, we came up with options for five different attributes of a handwoven project:  Structure, Yarn Fiber Type, Color, Color Relationship and Design Element.  All of the N2S's who participated drew a cards from grab bags containing the five different aspects.  Each person had the flexibility of discarding one of the attribute cards.

Diana was the first to finish her project.  She describes the project as follows:

For our weavers’ poker project I drew the following cards:

• Color – Black and White
• Color Relationship – Complementary colors of similar value
• Design – Stripes
• Pattern – Rosepath
• Yarn – Metallic

I decided I could not have black and white and also complementary colors. Since I have wanted to try to weave something in black and white, I decided to discard the complementary colors card.  I decided to weave a scarf as my finished project.

I didn't want to buy any yarn as I have a huge stash that needs to be used, so I found some soft white super wash merino (about 2060 yd/lb), some black 18/2 wool/silk, and some grey 10/2 bamboo.  I did buy a small spool of 3-ply metallic embroidery thread.  I warped these yarns in a random order with random widths, 10” in the reed expecting it to shrink down to about 8”.  The sett was 16 epi for the merino and 24 epi for the wool/silk, bamboo, and metallic. On the warping board I made sure these fibers would fit my sett plan.

I used the white merino yarn for the weft. To incorporate the Rosepath structure, I wove 2 bands of dusty rose (probably wool) about 2 inches from one end of the scarf and 3 bands of the same near the other end.  Treadling was all plain weave except for the Rosepath bands. I finished the scarf with hemstitching and a loose fringe.

 

 

To keep my selvedges even, I used a weighted “faux temple” system.  This uses two weighted clips rather than the traditional “toothed” temple.

 

 

 

I was not entirely happy with the finished product. It is a little stiff, and probably too wide.  It only shrunk ½” in width. (Maybe the temple system worked better than it should have.)  Using Twill the structure would probably have been a better choice than plain weave in order to make the scarf more drapeable.

If I wove this scarf again, I would make it narrower, use a twill treadling, and a finer weft yarn.