Ocean Swell Scarf

So having had some success with my first idea using my homemade heddles, I threaded the loom to try another. This time I wanted to use the chocks I’d had laser cut at the same time.

Sock yarn had worked very well, but there had been the weft shifting issue. I wondered if using a sticky, feltable wool would help threads stay put. So I warped up the loom with a graduating yarn I bought in Denmark last year. I started with three gaps:

After 20 rows I slid changed the existing chocks with smaller ones, and added little ones where I wanted to grow the new gaps.

After 10 rows I changed them again.

And again…

I kept on this way until I had two gaps, after which I wove 20 rows, then reversed direction. This method took longer than the first, since I was wasn’t leaving gaps between sections of weft. But it was less fiddly because I didn’t have to remove the top of the Vari Dent Reed in order to manipulate the heddles. I just loosened the screws, added and removed chocks and slid the heddles into place.

When I was done, I rubbed the scarf gently between my hands when I washed it, hoping to full the threads into place. They do seem to be staying put. But I wasn’t as happy with the final result. Why? I don’t think the slowly changing colours of the yarn worked as well as the self-striping sock yarn had.

The method worked fine, though, so I want to try it again. But in the meantime I’d had an idea for fixing the wandering weft problem. Also, one of the laser-cut heddles had cracked while I was threading it. Though I’d had spares made, the plastic used in the Ashford ones is clearly much more flexible. I wanted to see if I could modify their heddles to enable me to try the first method again.

I did wrangle a solution, but that’ll have to go in another post.