Silky chic

About half a year ago I offered my friend MarvelKnits to weave a scarf for her. I had just finished weaving a three heddle scarf in purples, so she could either choose a narrow scarf with a four shaft pattern or a double-width scarf in plain weave. This was in the party it forward swap of the Dutch Karma Swap group on Ravelry.

MarvelKnits chose the narrow option with a pattern, and we met soon after that at a knitter’s party. I brought some of the scarves I had made until then, and she really liked the patterned purple one.

MarvelKnits  had brought a couple of yarn options, mostly pure silk. Lovely stuff!

Together, we chose the colours. She was quite into the pale, wintery whites, greens, and purples, and we chose a light green for the warp, since there was plenty of it, and the other colours all worked with it. She also brought some precious dark green wool, which was a great combination with the light green, but there was not enough of it for an entire scarf. So we added some white, purple, and even a daring pink for accents.

I had just started using the wonderful Weave It program. With this program, you can plan your weaving and simulate patterns in different colour combinations. This gives you a better idea of what the finished result might be. I played with it and sent MarvelKnits some ideas. She likes intricate, non-symmetrical patterns. They also shouldn’t be too vertical or edgy.

Of course, the result in real life would be a bit different. The yarns all had a slightly different thickness, so the pattern would not be entirely square, most likely. Also, I’m still a beginning weaver, and my consistency in beating is off sometimes. Anyway, I warped my Sample It loom, wound the yarns, and started weaving!

I estimated that I could weave a bit more than half the scarf with the dark green, so I added stripes of different colours regularly. I varied the pattern, and tried not to make all the stripes equally wide. I tried to be deliberately random in my approach.

The dark green worked really well with the light green and made it shine. I had to get used to the non-elasticity of the silk yarn a bit, it felt really different from working with wool (blends). But it’s so pretty!

It was a bit hard to stay consistent in my weaving. I was using cardboard strips to separate the layers, but the edges of the strips sometimes messed up the pattern. I also quickly learned that I really had to put all heddles in neutral position before beating, otherwise the pattern would become wavey.

In the summer I visited MarvelKnits in her beautiful house in the city. We had a lovely time and I shared what my approach was. She was a bit taken aback, because she doesn’t really like stripes! She had thought that I was mainly weaving with the dark green yarn, with just a small strip of other colours here and there. Instead, I was varying the colours the whole time (but with a larger accent on the dark green). Glad we found that out before I finished! We chatted about it a bit, and decided that I would just continue, but use more dark green from now on.

While weaving this project I also was working on other things, like spinning in the Tour de Fleece, and knitting lace. I picked up my weaving from time to time, and the scarf was growing steadily. Then I lost my weaving mojo for a bit, but I got it back in December, and finally finished the project!

Meanwhile, I had also bought a fringe twister.

You use it to twist a couple of yarn ends from the fringe one way, then you knot them together and they will twist back unto each other, creating a nice chic twisted fringe. It was the first time I used it, and I really like the result!

I sent the scarf to MarvelKnits this week, and she really liked it! I’m so relieved, because since I made it I can see all the little inconsistencies in tension/beating. I hope she will have a lot of fun wearing this chic scarf!