I actually finished this some weeks ago and have only just gotten around to blogging it. The shawl didn’t take very long to weave – in fact much less time than my planning and warping had taken. I think I was done in less than three weeks. The plain weave was very easy to weave, the only thing that slowed me down was having to beat very gently. I ended up more placing the weft with the reed than actually ‘beating’ it at all.

It came off the loom and still felt a little stiff in my hands. I assumed that like the sample a wash would take care of that. Above you can see it laid out on the floor, not a great way to photograph it. As you can see I left a long fringe on it. I knew that I wanted a fringe but hadn’t decided how to finish the ends. However Nick had long ago bought a lot of cobalt blue beads and one lot were about the right size for the ends so, after removing the waste weft I simply beaded and knotted the ends of the warps.

Next I trimmed the fringe to a reasonable length, about 20cm, and washed it. It is still a little stiff, giving it a lovely drape and body, while the wool warp gives it some warmth. It will be really nice for summer evenings.

More photos of this project are on my Flickr.

I discovered at my next weaving meeting that the weft that I had thought was silk, because of its lustre and slubbyness, is actually linen. So there you go, one lesson learnt: test your fibres.

Waste Not

I actually ran out of the weft a bit earlier than expected and so there was a bit of warp left over. There was also some warp left over on the bobbins that the sectional beam uses so at Nick’s suggestion I used those left overs as wefts and wove a bit more. There’s enough for a small bag or cushion cover or something like that.