Fiber Monday - Yarn chicken

It seems only fitting that the weaving project that caused me no end of problems at the beginning should have some drama at the ending as well. Yarn chicken is the phrase fiber people use when they are worried they will run out of yarn before the end of a project. Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn't. This project leans towards the not working out side. I could have woven nearly half a yard more fabric if I hadn't run out of the weft yarn I was using. I even thought about purchasing one more come, but it was out of stock everywhere I was willing to purchase from. It's probably just as well. I did end up with a bit over three yards of fabric. 



I decided to use the variegated yarn in the weft for the rest of the warp. I figured it might end up being a nice bit of contrasting fabric. But I conveniently forgot that I don't really like variegated yarn in the weft of things with complex patterns. This doesn't change no matter how many times I try it. This one was no exception. 


It just looks washed out to me. Plus there was another problem. Below is a close up of this bit. The yarn packed down much more densely than my other weft. If you look at the very bottom you can see how the weft is so packed together you can't see any pattern. 


So I changed my beat putting more space between each line of weft. This allowed the pattern to (sort of) come through, but it also made a very unstable fabric. I decided I didn't need to weave anymore of it. 

To finish off the last bit of warp, I chose another shade of blue that was the same type of fiber of my original weft. (It is the smaller sample on top.)


This I don't live, either. It did confirm that I made the right choice with my original weft. Now I just need to wet finish it all and they'll be ready to make them into something. 

So how much warp did I end up having left over? About this much.

That's about 18-24 inches in length 

It's beautiful yarn and at over 900 ends, not an insignificant amount. I hate to throw it away when I could possibly use it for something else. So I ended up doing with it what I tend to do with much of my nicer loom waste.

I separated it back into single colors.


Then put each of those colors on a ring (with a lable, of course. They're attached by a lark's head knot which means I can pull off one strand without removing the whole bank. 


Right now they're hanging up in the closet along with all the other warp ends I've saved this way. At the very least, they will make good embroidery floss. 




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