25/07/2013

A maiden voyage: tencel, part 1

The three cones of tencel 8/2 had been sitting on a shelf for maybe 2 years.
Now I wanted to make a smallish V-shawl, and I thought maybe it was time to try this yarn. There has been lots of talk on the 'net, and maybe 2 years is a suitable ageing time - .

No way I was going to warp with just one end, but, at the same time - to make three spools of just a couple of meters each - so I just made one extra spool of each. And it linted... I noted also that the yarn had a low twist.

So I wound a warp of about 180 cm. The recommended sett was 20 ends per inch, which converts nicely to 8 ends per cm. Pre-sleyed, ready to "beam":


Beam, in quotes, because on my extra long loom a warp shorter than 2 1/2 metre will not reach the beam. There are ways to fix that, of course:


Threading a warp that is not stable takes some extra care, but is not really a problem. Threaded, sleyed and tied on - a few picks of each colour in the top layer, to determine which to use as weft:


Weaving the "arms" was quick and easy - but the warp felt somewhat dense. OTOH, tencel/rayon is slippery, so it probably would be OK. And, after all, the whole piece was to be seen as a sample, anyway. Interestingly, it linted less when weaving.

1 comment:

charlotte said...

Nydelige farger og veldig spennende med V-skjerf! kan jeg spørre hvor du får kjøpt Tencel? Har ikke sett noen norske forhandlere som har det.