The Story of the Bon Bon Scarves 🍬

I have done a thorough break down of my weaving journey' across 3 scarves .

I had seen scarves woven with ladder yarn on the internet and thought it looked lovely!  I have some balls of ladder yarn ( from now on, known as LY) and wanted to use it.

So I set up a 8/2 tencel gradient of 200 ends with LY every 25th end (total of 7). I used a sett of 20 epi. I wound it in with the warp. This did not go as planned. Of the warp for 2 scarves I only got one, and that I sat with tweezers and tried to gently tugged all the LY squares out.

Some conversations with 2 other weavers who have done this successfully and I end up with a new warp, a **sett of 18 epi, using a 12 dent reed ** Its sleyed 1,2, across. I always left an empty dent for the LY and finessed the sleying to have a '1' before, and after the LY. Giving it room to move.

The Italian Berlini LY was hung separately off the back of the loom in empty old film canisters (yes, I have a stash of those) BUT empty is too light so I end up adding one small stainless steel nut. You may have to play around and come up with what you have on hand.

Length of the LY: I used a 4 yard length for a scarf of 75 inches plus fringe of 10" x 2 and it wasn't enough! I would easily use 6 yards next time for one scarf. A safe bet is to double the warp length for the LY to the main warp. 

I had to do some some fancy addition of paper clips to new lengths to eke it out to get my scarf done and fringe allowance .... not for the faint of heart!

The scarf with the magenta weft: woven to 75 inches plus fringe allowance. I had some issues with tension that wouldn't respond to my tweaks, and so I'm not happy with it. Plain weave will show off uneven beat and tension issues. I also just let the LY sit and go where it wanted.

The scarf with the dark teal weft: woven to 75" plus fringe allowance. I would weave 4-5 inches and then using a blunt needle tease out every second LY bump to make it pop more. I liked this effect best, and this was my favourite of the three and the best effort.

It's plain weave.... and I spread it over 8 shafts so I didn't have to shift any heddles around, which on a Megado is a royal pain.

I hand washed these scarves and used the spin cycle only to get water out. I worked them with my hands to smooth and flatten and then laid over a clothes rack to dry.  

I pressed them using a wool setting and light steam to smooth the tencel portions. I folded the scarf in half and holding by the fringes, I 'wapped' in against the edge of the bed to soften and make the LY squares pop again. An old technique for de-crunching silk scarves after washing.

So I'm all done working out this out and moving onto new things....but since I have more LY in the stash, I will do it again.

Now I will add notes below each picture.... you may need to refer back up to the three sections on notes on each scarf for further clarity.

Initial warp wound with LY as a part of it.  Bad move.

The take up pulled on the LY and so it became tight in the cloth. I tried to tug some of the  colour buds out.   It didn't go well as I hoped. 

Scarf finished but looks blah.

I learned that the fringe needs to be tightly twisted.

Some colour nubs show now after working it, but its nothing like the scarf I saw on line.

So, I would another warp for two scarves.

This time in blues and the LY is hung separately..... with a small steel nut in a film canister.

Tencel 8/2 in Royal, Blue Ming and Azure

Berlini ladder yarn in colour 135 "Bon Bon"

Sett is 18 epi in a 12 dent reed; empty dent for the LY

The film canisters contains the extra warp length, which is good as its slippery stuff!

First scarf, I used red purple tencel and then struggled with tension issues on the right hand side.  I tried extra weights etc but I was too far in to cut off and start again, or unweave. 

.

The colour buds as they happened naturally during weaving.

Here you can see the issues with the selvedge. Its not truly bad but it bothers me.

With the magenta over the blues, it shows as rather purple.

So onto the final scarf, and my favourite. I used 8/2 dark teal tencel.

Now despite being on the same warp, and I did not cut off and re tie on, the tension issues disappeared!

The weaving went well and no problems with the edges.  Plain weave, to a pattern weaver, is sort of monotonous, so I found something to occupy my time. 

Every 4 inches or so, I used a blunt needle and teased out every second colour bud to to make it more prominent.  It shows nicely in the photo above.

The colour buds look great in the fringe too

So that's a wrap on this weaving adventure.   I'll make some more in time and have ideas for a different look.   I still have more balls of Berlini ladder yarn to use up!   But time for something new. 

Now, for the back story and credits:

It seems that the first known use of ladder yarn in weaving was recorded in April 2015 by weaver, Mette Froekjaer in her on line blog.    Kelly Paul of Berkshire Handwoven saw this and was inspired to try her hand.   This is her result:

It's beautiful and inspired me on my journey.  Kelly used 16/2 bamboo along with her Berlini ladder yarn.

We all had to loosen up and use less normal setts, leave an empty dent for the LY,  hang the LY separately and allow almost double the warp length for the LY.    So you can use what you have to hand, but be sure to follow the basic guidlines.    I recommend you re-read my mistakes and how I found a way forward again.   It seems something simple.... isn't.  😊

Taking Another Path

I like to check in with the new owner of my old Megado and see what they are up to to.  Some months ago Jessica had some happy bright towels on and the pattern was very pretty!   It resembled a flower and she shared the draft number from handweaving.net with me.   16 shaft twill as shown below.

So I worked up  a draft in some colours to hand and was quit excited about the project.  612 ends, 24 epi and approximately 8 yards long.  A big commitment!   (colours below are much brighter than the actual ones used. I get lazy and use something 'close enough' and don't fuss about in Fiberworks)

 

# 79714

Once I got started I noticed an issue right away with a very long float, coming from shaft number 5 and about 10-12 pics long! 😳   I immediately checked the threading and all was correct.  I checked the shaft to see if it was floating.... nope.  I checked my dobby to make sure all the solenoids were firing as they should and all was working well.      

I thought about it for a few hours and decided that it simply wasn't worth the time and aggravation to track it to the source and so went looking for another tie up to use.    A year ago when my loom was brand new I wove up the draft below # 79912.    I did a test run and it looked great and so that's what I went with.

I used the threading from #79714 and the tie up from #79912 and went down another path entirely! 

                                    I used only the tie up only of #79912

A test run to see how they meld together....   All 8/2 cottons from Brassards, of Quebec.  Sett 24 epi.

And after a time, 8 yards came off the loom.    I had woven all 7 towels differently in some way.

This one with the window panes is my favourite.

This one I wove colour in the small stripes and white elsewhere.

Here a colour block followed by a same sized white.

Next up I simply wove all white weft so the warp stripes are more dominant.

The window pane effect was colour and then white for all small cross stripe.

This towel has alternating colour blocks in sequence and no white weft at all.

Then all white but with a border at either end: periwinkle, turquoise and salmon

Same again but this time with: periwinkle, pink and salmon.

So my kitchen towel Christmas war chest is nicely full!    I have a total of 23 towels on hand now.  I'm still planning another 8.5 yard herringbone twill towel warp though as they are very popular.   Times are going to be hard and money tight this next year or two.....   I'm trying to check the crystal ball  and read the tea leaves here....  Results may vary! 

Cabbage Rose Shawls

I had a  long painted warp from Carr Park Artisans  patiently waiting for me to bring it out to play.   It's called "Cabbage Rose" and what you see below is all that's left of it.      I finally found a pretty draft that I thought would do justice to the soft pastel shades. 

It's this 16 shaft one by Rebecca Logan and you can find it at Handweaving.net #81232.   Rebecca has 4 shaft point twill in the middle section and I modified that to 8 shaft and played a bit with the far left and right borders.

Both of those were solid 8/2 tencel Ecru.   The green section was 8/2 olive and portions are alternating olive and lemongrass.   Sett is 24 epi.

The centre section is all the painted warp and I used ecru as my weft yarn for both shawls.  No other colour did it justice. White just bleached out the pastels even more.

 

Some pictures of the project underway.  The transitioning was a very interesting effect!

Here's a close up of the green border on the top side.

Photographing it outside was not a good option with the high intensity sunlight.  So I tried in the studio and then again in a brighter part of our home.

This one on the mannequin was sold very quickly to a houseguest.   I was glad to have woven up two!

Here it is again in more natural lighting.

The pattern simply supports the  soft pastels and the border frames it.  The border in the picture below is the reverse side .   Its pretty either way!

Below you can see the pattern's 'x's and o's .

So I think it was well worth the wait.....

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We have been having a quiet summer at home.  Very grateful that we are not directly affected by extreme heat domes, drought (although we do have water restrictions) and wildfires (though we did have lightening strikes start some up island).  Our new heat pump we installed last December was the best investment ever!

We have been doing a lot of small improvement projects around the house.  Replace this, paint that, plan to get carpets and furniture steam cleaned and...... we bought all new appliances.   It was time and actually beyond time.  They were all dated 2006 and so 20 years old.  The dishwasher worried me the most as when they fail, it can be a devastating 'inundation'.  😳 The washing machine was plain annoying and I had to babysit it through the wash cycle as the dial got 'stuck' and the machine would grind on and on.....   The dryer was more like a cool fluffer.... not much heat at all.    We got a new fridge as well as the other was either too warm or too cold and froze our (expensive) veggies. Frozen lettuce anyone?? 

My new LG washer and dryer set are apparently smarter than me and I may set the cycle I want but then it jiggles and weighs my clothes and adjusts the water level and  then locks me out to do its job.    The dryer insisted the dryer vent was not open.    We called in a company to check and apparently, the dryer was right and it was 80% reduced by lint.   Not a good thing!    So AI in my dryer helped to prevent a house fire. 

Gee Whiz....      Go check yours now....... 🏠🔥 😳