Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Postscript #2

I have finished the sample that I wrote about in my previous post and it has worked out very well. The combination of an open sett and a more restrained fulling process has produced the the effect that I was hoping for. The secret of success for this look is to get the shrinkage with just enough felting to hold the scarf together but no more.

As I have said before this was a lovely project to work on and I have learned enough to enable me to produce similar scarves in the future.

So, what's next?

Off the loom before fulling

After fulling

The model

Fulling Table

Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Fulling the sample

I have been having fun today felting the sample. We are having a little heatwave at the moment so it was very hot in the laundry whilst I was doing all this.

Sample as woven

This is the sample before I started the fulling process. It is 18" long and 16.7" wide. I twisted the fringe at one end and just left the other hem.

Washing up bowl and milk thermometer

Agitating the sample

First fulling

I used a washing up bowl to do the fulling and I borrowed my wife's milk thermometer to assist in temperature control.













The technique that I used was 5 minutes gentle agitation in hot water followed by 5 minutes agitation in cold water (from the cold tap which is 60F today).












This is the degree of fulling after three hot/cold cycles with hot at 120 F.

There is a nice bit of movement. The sample length has reduced to 14" (22% shrinkage) and the width has shrunk to 13" which is about the same percentage.

Second fulling

After the second fulling which was two more cycles at 14 F the sample was 13" long and 11.5" wide which is a 28% reduction in length and a 32% reduction in width.

Second fulling

This is another picture of the sample after the second fulling. I think that I want to achieve something between the two around 25% shrinkage.

Felting

Here one can see how much the merino has felted. Again, I think that this is a little bit too much. So, I shall repeat the process to get myself to stage one and then do little increments of temperature to get to the ideal 25%

This is all very exciting. It is too warm to do any more messing around with hot water so I shall  wait until tomorrow to start on the scarf. Time for a nice cup of tea and a bit of gentle fringe twisting

Differential Shrinkage Scarf - Planning

I wove a differential shrinkage scarf 4 years ago and I can still remember the excitement when the yarns in my sample stated to shrink and pull everything into interesting shapes.

In planning this next project I have used  my notes from last time, the good stuff in Handwoven ( articles by Stefanie  Meisel are particularly relevant to this project) and the articles in the "puckers and poufs" section of
The Best of Weavers Fabrics That Go Bump with particular attention to the one by Liz Williamson.

The shrinking yarn of choice in most of the Handwoven articles is Jaggerspun 18/2 Merino. Because of the prohibitive costs of getting yarns posted from the US I was delighted to find that Yarn Barn in Melbourne stocks 2/20NM Merino.  My non shrinking yarn will be Borgs 20/2 Mora which I get from Glenora Weaving & Wool.

I took about a yard of each of these yarns, rolled them into a ball and the massaged them vigorously in hot water and plenty of soap. The Mora resolutely refused to cling to itself but the Merino formed a very satisfactory felted clump. That will do for sampling for the time being.

Based on my last scarf and the articles I shall allow for 25% shrinkage in length and 30% in width.
As for sett, I am going for 2/3rds of the plain weave sett. The warp length works out at 154" and the width will be 18".

The loom is ready, the yarn and warping wheel are waiting so lets get at it!