Thing a Day

Yesterday's Thing was the spinning of the singles that I will use as warp/weft for my next loom project.

It's really hard to tell from the craptastic colors in the picture but those are black and turmeric gold dyed singles. I spun them, and then used my fancy new Target drying rack to set the twist. The black appears to be much sturdier than the gold, but that's to be expected. Carding the gold turned it from a combed roving into a carded one, and therefore a woolen yarn instead of a worsted one. Since the bulk of the warp will be the black worsted yarn, I don't think there should be too many strength issues. They both appear to be sturdier than the yarn we used in the last project, and after the loom was tightened, that yarn really didn't present a problem.

Because the black yarn seemed so sturdy, and because this project represents an experiment from start to finish, I have decided NOT to size my warp with gelatin. This may prove to be a huge mistake that ends everything in tears, but on the other hand, I may save myself a fortune in Knox purchases if it turns out that my singles are sufficiently over-spun not to require sizing. I won't know until I try!

If things start getting a little hairy, there's another technique for adding sizing to a project while it's on the loom by hitting it with a bit of aquanet. Not period, but it's good to know that there's something that can bail me out before I hit "epic fail" status.

( For those of you who were waiting with bated breath for pictures of the sock and the bear from Wednesday and Tuesday respectively, here they are! )