Fauxberry and Denim, Yadda, Yadda

A while back I found tartan designer software online. I was intrigued as it looked very user friendly and very applicable to weaving tartans and plaids. I don't particularly like the colours and look of Burberry plaid and find their goods to be ostentatiously overpriced but I thought I'd try to weave a Burberry-esque scarf. Perhaps someone might like it as a gift when I'm finished

I googled a photo of the Burberry plaid and deconstructed it to create the formula.

I ordered some red and black Stroll sock yarn from KnitPicks, was given the tan Kroy sock yarn and found some white Sisu sock yarn in my stash.

I warped it using all four colours as follows:
tan - 2 ends <--float end plus 1
*red - 2 ends
tan - 12 ends
black - 4
white - 4
black - 4
white - 4
black - 4
tan - 12
and repeated once from *
and ended with 2 red and 2 tan (including the float)

When I went to weave it I tried twill and it did not work at all so I took it all out and just did plain (tabby) weave. I found I preferred the look of it fairly firmly beaten so for the weft (to make it look proportional) I am doing 20 tan, 4 red, 8 black and 8 white.

I have learned to carry the yarns up the side wrapping them with the float. I think it's going to look pretty cool.

Initially I hoped for 10 ends per inch (e.p.i.) but I didn't have a 10 dent reed so I switched to a 12 dent reed. Originally I had hoped for a 9" warp on the loom which would reduce to about 8" when taken off but when I had to use a 12 reed it reduced the width. It's about 8" on the loom so will be a bit narrower when it comes off the loom. I will be hemstitching and doing a 4" fringe on each end.

Now that the warping is done and I've re-started weaving using plain weave, it's moving right along. If I do this project again, I'll make the warp wider - perhaps 11" or 12".

In spinning news, Jennifer and I were the only 2 at spinning on Monday - no problem. I grabbed this bag of beautifully dyed Polwarth roving as I was flying out the door to go to spinning. It's 115g - 4 oz. I must have bought it from Heidi at some point.

I like the different shades of blue.

As the colour intensifies when I spin it, it looks like denim. Dontcha like my WooLee Winder? It makes spinning so smooth and winds the bobbins so evenly.

I'm spinning it fairly thinly and plan to 2-ply it. I'm not sure what I'll knit with it when I'm done.

In other news, last night I went to turn on my computer and it wouldn't power up. So I traipsed downstairs to use the PC in the dining room (that Scooter is glued to most of the time he's with us as he's addicted to a video game on it) to discover a sticky keyboard full of crumbs from whatever Scooter has been eating whilst masterminding battles on the video game. Goldfish crumbs, cookie crumbs, etc. After I cleaned the keyboard, the letter 'i' no longer would work. That was a problem for me because my surname begins with the letter 'i'. So I traipsed back upstairs and unplugged my keyboard from the non-functioning PC and plugged it into the other one.

This morning, I took my computer to the repairer and for only $100 he diagnosed the problem, replaced the power source, gave it a good cleaning (there was a massive amount of dust in the CPU) and tested it. It's about 7 years old but still works great (except when some plug and play device craps out on me) so for $100 it'll probably be good for another year.

And the most exciting news of all.... the glass for our new shower was installed today! Yayyyyy!! The silicone caulking needed to cure for 24 hours so tomorrow morning at precisely 9:30am, I'll be taking the inaugural shower. After which, I will practice my squeegee technique. Soap scum be damned!