Weaving FAIL

If you've been reading this blog a long time you may remember (you probably won't) that I took a weaving class in 2008. I made a few little samples in class and didn't warp the loom again until 2010. I started that sampler and never finished it. I finally cut it off the loom a week or so ago because I signed up for the Floor Loom Weaving class on Craftsy because I wanted to try weaving again. I had visions of making a big wrap from the rest of my Shetland DK but wanted to make the class sample projects first. I thought I'd use old yarn that's been in my stash the longest, this Donegal Homespun from Tahki that I got from a friend in 2003. I can't find this version on Ravelry. It's old. The price on the tag is $1.99. I used some Cascade 220 from my stash to go with it. Then I had to buy more because I somehow failed at simple addition and number sense (350 yards is more than 220). I borrowed a raddle from my co-worker, Cathy. I slowly and carefully wound my warp and warped my loom.

I knew I was in trouble immediately. The Donegal was super-stretchy but also brittle and tender. After correcting threading errors, reed sleying errors and any other error a new weaver could make I could still not get the tension right. If I pulled hard enough to take the slack out of the warp the Donegal would snap. I also made a rookie error when winding on the warp of not using paper wide enough to separate the warp threads. The edges of my warp ended up shorter than the center of the warp and there was no amount of adjusting in the world to set it all right. I tried using weights off the back to tighten the slack areas but that lead to more snapping of threads. I despaired and gave up.

This sad little sample is all I have to show for my few weeks of effort.



And this is what happened to the rest of the Donegal.



It's in the yard waste bin.

*Sigh.*