It’s almost 2 years since I got my 8-shaft loom and just over 3 since I dusted off my 4-shaft table loom and actually learned to weave. In that time I have made lots of towels, and a few scarves, a shawl and 2 baby blankets that were super challenging. So far almost all of it has been with commercial yarn of various fibers, and most of it has been two ply. Now I am thinking about doing something more ambitious. I’d like to make an actual gown with my handspun yarn. But there is a lot that goes into planning that kind of project, and first I wanted to be sure that the handspun would hold up to the task and also look and see what effect using singles would have on the weave. I’ve been researching what kind of fiber I want to use when I do the big project, but I. The meantime, I had some fiber sitting around in a bag…

It’s a fine fiber with moderately short staple and a fair amount of crimp. it was great to get started on as I waited on my Shetland to get in from The Woolery.

I spun it out pretty fine. I had read that a high twist would stand up better to the push and pull of being warped, so I spun using the 1:20 ration my wheel hoping for a firm woolen thread. In truth, I’m not sure what the preparation was of the fiber. It was closer to a roving than true top, so the resulting fiber is probably more accurately termed a semi-woolen.

I only have 10 dent reed at the moment, so I warped up a 15epi warp. It was a little loose, but it would give me a chance to see what fulling would do to the fabric.

This was a sampler piece, so I tried a couple of different things. The warp is Z-spun. In the weft I first wove in a two/two twill followed by plain weave both using z spun singles. This was followed by a segment of plain and then twill using s-spun singles. At this point I could no longer deal with the number of broken warp threads, and I had to cut the piece off the loom.