Finished: Silk Garden Scarf

My first weaving project is finished!! Actually, I had finished this a while ago, I just didn't have the time to take any photos of it...or the proper lighting. I call it my "Silk Garden Scarf" solely because I used 2 skeins of Noro Silk Garden Lite for the warp. I decided to use Noro for this mainly because of the gorgeous colors and because they would somehow self-stripe in their own way. That way I can concentrate on getting the hang of using the loom and the motions, without ending up with a boring end product.

The scarf worked up pretty fast, considering that I was only weaving at night. Now that this project is done, I'm thinking I must save up and get my own Knitters Loom! It's absolutely fantastic!! Not to mention that I'm pretty sure my hands are thanking me for the break from knitting. Lately my hands have been rejecting the motions of knitting...I guess that's a sign that I'm knitting too much? Nah. That's definitely not it! I am an English-style knitter, and so my knitting is a bit on the slow side. I think I just need to remember to do some hand stretches when I do sit down and knit.

Anyways, back to the scarf. I'm usually not a fan of variegated yarns, even though I love the color combinations that some some yarns come in. I'm not a fan solely for the fact that I dislike the way variegated yarns pool, regardless of how careful you are. For those of you who don't knit, "pooling" is when there's a build up of a color in an area of the knitted piece. Keep in mind though, this is completely different to stripes. It is because of pooling that I usually avoid working with variegated yarns. Although with that said, I still buy a skein of variegated yarn from time to time...but I would have to definitely love the colors in order to throw down the moola for such yarn. Well, not anymore! Weaving is THE perfect craft to use said yarns! How delighted am I??

I could have used less than 2 skeins of Noro...actually, I should have used less than 2, cause the scarf came out pretty long. Mind you, when I was setting up the loom I really didn't take into consideration just how long I wanted my piece to be and just went ahead and threaded my warp up. And because the work is being rolled up as you work, I really had no idea how long the piece was becoming. I was too scared to unwind what I had to see how it was all working out, in case I didn't know how to wind it back up without messing up the rest. Hence why I kept weaving until I ran out of yarn.

Oh well, live and learn, right? So when I had set up the loom again I kept in mind to make the warp the length of what I wanted my FO to be. For this project my warp yarn is one that is made specifically for weaving. I purchased it at Knotty by Nature. I want to say it's Cottolin, but I have a feeling it's not. I think it's just straight up cotton. Either way, all I know is that it's a 2/8 thickness and I bought it in black, thinking that's the color I would probably use the most. And man, does this stuff last quite a while! I thought I had used a whole butt-load for this project, but after looking at the cone, it looks like I haven't even touched it! I guess I'll be borrowing this loom until I run out! Or purchase my own...(hint, hint...Brett...in case you are reading this...think: Christmas...)

The ends of my scarf are a little sketchy. The side that I had started the weaving on is a bit on the wonky side and I'm hoping that now that I had tied up the fringe it'll all settle into place. The other end is much better looking. Unfortunately I had tied my fringe a bit too tight and didn't leave a single centimeter for slack (as you can tell in the very first photo!). I'm thinking I might have to soak this and block it a little to loosen up the yarns, which the Ashford booklet recommends doing to every piece you weave. So I might do that and hopefully my ends will work themselves out! My edges are also on the wonky side. You can definitely tell when I was in a rhythm cause in certain areas my edges are nice and uniform, and then it goes back to being messy. Then again, I think this is also due to the fact that I was working with yarn that had an uneven thickness to it.

This project made me so excited about weaving, that when I cut the scarf off of the loom I had gone out and bought a few skeins of yarn that I normally wouldn't buy but think would be perfect to weave with. So stay tuned, I'll definitely have more weaving related projects coming up!!

Happy weaving!