A Tale of Two Warps

It was a pretty productive weekend. All three looms have their designated warp measured out and two looms have them beamed on and ready for threading.

Hey Baby Louet has on the Plymouth Hillside Linen which is alpaca and linen and I would warp this yarn on gladly, any day, all day. It has beautiful drape and weight and keeps itself in line nicely. It was beamed on in under 5 minutes and I just know the scarf is going to look and feel handsome. It's slated for auction at the humane societies Puss & Boots Ball on Halloween. I wish I could afford to use this mix in a blanket but maybe as a coverlet on a cotton or linen warp with this as weft in overshot might

be doable at some point? I can always dream!

So after the ease of the Hillside Linen I decided to tackle the mixed warp of Habu mohair/nylon and Habu mohair/ silk. As easy as the Louet warp was, this one was a bugger. Mohair loves to wrap it's halo around it's neighbor, this mohair figured it took a village to make itself happy. After 2 hours of rolling an inch on and then unsticking the warp I decided to try something drastic. I combed it. I unstuck all the haloed threads for the umpteenth time, got my little ducks in a row and I took the fine end of my comb and started by the lease sticks and brought all that fuzz up to the raddle, beamed on until the halo got close to my sticks again and repeated.

It worked like a charm. It also produced a lot of static. In my best horror film voice I told the dogs "It's alive, it's alive!".

I finished by pulling everything out of the raddle once I completed my beaming and brought that fuzz up to the point where I would cut the warp and we said farewell as I dumped the waste in the trash. I was done in under 10 minutes after fussing and cussing for the better part of the morning. If this warp wasn't for my Mother I might have given up, but when the folks come for their visit, I want that scarf to be sitting there on her bed as a surprise treat.

I will say the mohair was tough stuff. The Habu is very very fine, just thread size really. I might even have some quilting thread that is heavier. But it held and it held well. It stood up to clumsy manipulation and a lot of tugging as I worked to separate those village sized halo knots and not one thread broke. The mohair/nylon is the lighter green in the center, the mohair/silk blend is the darker outer edges. The weft will be a light green cashmere.

Barbara V is ready for me to start spreading and beaming but with 11 yards I decided to wait until I had an extra set of hands just in case.

Gene arrived home late last night. The fire is no longer a threat to the town of Mosier although mop up crews will be working for a while yet. My home alone time was just about long enough and I was CERTAINLY ready to hand Pogo back to his master. Saturday night was just too pitiful.

The poor little fellow sat on Gene's side of the bed,in the dark, ears forward waiting to hear the truck pull into the driveway, until after 11:30 p.m. He finally gave up and nestled in behind my knees. Last night was a whole different story. Like mother hens we ushered our flock of peeps up to bed and everyone had their little safe haven and the person of their choice. The snoring race was on. Dennett, who has a bed by the bed lead the way. It's music to my ears hearing the old guy sleep and I was right behind him.