sweetgeorgia

Mixed up.

Destash. I’ve set myself a bit of a laughable goal in wanting to use up pretty much every last drop of my yarn stash. The aim is to not acquire any new yarn until I’m done with the current stash. Jen, this does not include the lovely yarns I picked from your stash… you are going to London and it’s just not practical for you to take all your yarns.*

I’m attempting to destash by breaking up bags of yarns that were originally destined for full-on sweaters, because, really… when will I have time to sit and knit two sleeves, two front pieces and a back? Instead, I wanted this big, chunky scarf … I didn’t realize, however, that it was going to weigh about 200 lbs.

Ingredients for the knit scarf:

* 2 x 50g of dark eggplant alpaca from La Droguerie, purchased in Tokyo
* 2 x 50g of Rowanspun 4-ply in Rumtoft
* 2 x 25g of Rowan Lurex Shimmer in Bronze
* 1 x 25g of Rowan Kid Silk Haze in Splendour
* 3 skeins of Habu Tsumugi Silk, purchased in Kichijoji
* 1 x 100g of 5/2 bombyx silk, handdyed in cochineal

I’m looking to make this scarf about 10 feet long if I can manage it…

And this is destashing by handweaving with mixed warps… I used up the Saje and Golden Siam silk yarns that I [purchased in San Francisco about two years ago](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2005/11/a-foggy-day.html). Plus, I added two strands of 5/2 bombyx silk… one pale lavendar (from cochineal with no mordant) and one pale cool green (from osage overdyed lightly with natural indigo). The dark green warp thread is cashmere and nylon. The weft is 100% silk… slubby and raw… and completely purple. I feel like this scarf might have been fulled a bit too much (my washer and I are still getting acquainted) but it is now wonderfully soft and warm.

Today, the [6-yard silk/wool warp](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2007/09/tangled-up.html) is going on the loom.

*Aww yes, [my friend Jen (of South African yarn tourism fame)](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2006/12/not-so-lost-in-lesotho.html) is moving to London TOMORROW and has [started writing about her adventures already ... here ...](http://figonthames.wordpress.com/)

Done.

During a quick visit with Irene last week, I picked up a big ol’ ski shuttle from her and finished off my Boheme Blanket. Just a couple hours of uninterrupted weaving time allowed me to complete the yardage, hemstitch the ends, full and brush the whole blanket. Similar to Michelle’s GBGB, this blanket measured 41.5″ x 84″ before fulling and 36.5″ x 69″ after fulling in the washer.

There was a bunch of warp ends that didn’t make it into this particular blanket and so I’ve tied them onto the loom already, randomly spacing them out. I’ve dyed more Briggs & Little wool in dark brown which will fill in the gaps. I like to think of this next blanket as the sister blanket to the Boheme Blanket. It’ll be brown overall with the mohair and warp in dark brown… the leftover warp from the Boheme blanket will lend a couple flashes of fuschia in the midst of all that brown… Kind of like when you take a chunk of bread dough and save it to incorporate with the next bread baking session. The subsequent loaves have more depth, more flavour, more maturity… Taking a chunk of one warp and distributing it into the next blanket might be a little haphazard, but I like to think of it as growth and learning as subsequent projects unfold.

Great Not-So-Big Green Blanket

I must have true finishing avoidance disorder. The [Great Big Green Blanket](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2006/05/the-great-big-green-blanket-project/) that I am making for Michelle, well, I [finished weaving it back in July](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2006/06/not_my_loom/). All I needed to do was finish the hemstiching at the starting edge of the blanket, trim the fringe and wet finish the blanket. It’s November now. So the unfinished blanket has been sitting there, patiently waiting, for four months now.

But last night, in a burst of energy (probably inspired by a yummy dinner at The Foundation) I sewed up my [Lucy in the Sky Cardi](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2006/09/random_thursday/) and blocked it AND finished the blanket!

At first I attempted to wet finish the blanket by hand with a plastic tub full of warm water and lavender-scented woolwash. It was too tiring, so I took the wet blanket and dumped it in the washing machine. We have a front-loader and I’m told that front-loader washing machines are terrible for felting wool. So, I started up a full cycle on the machine with two glugs of Eucalan. Every few minutes, I’d stop the machine and take a look at the blanket… to see if it was fulling or felting too quickly. After about 15 or 20 minutes, I stopped the washing and set the machine to rinse and spin out. After another 15 or 20 minutes, almost all the water had been spun from the blanket. The resulting fabric was more cohesive, nicely fulled… and much smaller!

The blanket is originally 450 ends with a sett of 10 epi — so that would be 45″ on the loom. Then the measurement off the loom was 40″ x 78″. Already, the fabric had pulled in to be narrower… _After_ fulling, the blanket is now 36″ x 62″. So the blanket _shrunk 25%_ of it’s original size! Now, it’s a nice and compact lap blanket perfect for staying cozy on the couch.

The colours are, well, more intense than I had originally planned… because I misplaced a decimal point in my dye calculations… So the colours are basically ten times darker than I had intended… oops. But I’m completely pleased with the result. I took a clean stiff-bristled hairbrush and brushed the whole surface of the blanket (I brushed so hard I gave myself a workout AND a blister!). The delicately-coloured brushed mohair weft creates a beautiful hazy nap that softens the more intensely coloured wool warp. I’m so in love with this blanket, I want to make ten more just like it… in all different colours of course.