Epic Spring Weaving Project Begins -- The Faux Ikat Scarf in Delphinium Blue

Hand-Dyed Warp for the Faux Ikat Scarf

Everything takes longer than I think it will ...  I've been wanting to wind this warp for the past few weeks, but I've been "shaving yaks" ever since.  [Granted work takes up a lot of my waking hours ...] What do I mean by shaving yaks?   It means -- before I can do this, I have to do that, and before I do that, I have to do something else ...  and it takes forever to get down to the yak under all that fur!  

First I had to decide on a project: Katherine M's Faux Ikat Scarf.  It was something I saw on Ravelry / Pinterest.  Then I had to order the Sept/October 2011 issue of Handwoven, to get the pattern.    But the pattern turned out to be for an 8-shaft loom and was a much more complicated project.  So then I found a similar pointed twill weave structure for 4-shaft.  I made some rough estimates for how much yarn I would need,  and ordered  the yarn ...  Hurry up and wait!   Last week, I wound the yarn into balls.

 

 

Here's the yarn I'm using JaggerSpun Zephyr 50/50 Wool / Silk Blend.

Pewter color, which means a light gray.

I was somewhat paralyzed by the math before I committed to winding the warp.    I know there are calculators to help with all these decisions, but what if I make a mistake, and I need more yarn than I ordered, and then I can't get any more? 

Choices! Choices!  There are so many possibilities!

• How many warp strings do I need?  235 (221 Heddles plus 2 selvedges, and a few extra for repairing broken strings)
• YES on Floating Selvedges
• How long a warp?  3.5 yards  I'm making a scarf, so 1 yard will be sacrificed as loom waste.
• How wide? (11 inches on the loom, expecting to finish just under 10 inches)
  
• What sett will it be? (18-20 for a twill)
• Yarn is a lace weight at 34 wraps / inch.  For a twill weave structure, sett should be roughly 2/3.
  
• What reed?  10-dent reed with 2 yarns per dent
• Yes-- I have a weave structure picked out that I think looks like the one I saw on Ravalry, but made for a 4-shaft loom.
  

The next step is to hand-paint this warp in an ikat style -- I am after a shabby-chic grungy look where the weave pattern will appear and disappear into the background according to the colors painted on the warp. This can be achieved by binding section of the warp where the dye will NOT penetrate.

What colors to dye the warp?

• Indigo / dark blue / Wilton's Delphinium Blue
  
• Deep purple
• the background color (light gray/pewter) 

Will it be Procion/Dharma dye or Wilton Food Coloring?

The yarn is a lovely merino and silk mix, so if I use Procion, no soda ash because that will damage the fiber.  It has to be heat and vinegar to set the dye with either method.

Do I have to stretch the warp out on a table where I can be more precise about what color goes where?   Or can I wind it into a pan and add the colors a little more serendipitously?  Although I've done quite a bit of dying in the past 30 years, I've never painted a warp like this -- What if I get it wrong? Yikes!

I will default to what I know works ...  I think I'm going to bind off sections of the warp, and put the whole thing in the slow cooker with the Delphinium Blue and a little vinegar.  The open parts will take up the dye and leave the 

I bound up the parts of the warp I don't want to soak up the dye, and left open the parts that I want to turn blue.  I used a plastic bag and some thrums from the last project.  Thrums are better known as "pieces of string too short to save."

Here is the warm in the slow cooker.  I'm soaking it in the water as it comes up to temperature.  I'm using a rock to weight it down.

I decided to go with Wilton's Delphinium Blue in the slow cooker.  The 3.5 yard warp weighs 105 grams.  I let it warm up in the crock pot for an hour.  Then I wrung it out, and let it sit outside the pot for a bit while I prepared the dye bath:

•  1/2 tsp. of Wilton's Icing Dye melted in a little hot water, long enough to melt the gel

• 2 Tablespoons of vinegar

Mix it up briefly in the slow cooker pot, and then add the fiber back into the mix.  Turn the heat down to low, and let it sit for the next few hours until the dye is taken up by the fiber.  You know it's done when the water turns clear.  After 2 hours, the water was still blue -- a lighter aqua blue.   Blue acid dye often needs a little more acid to dye the fiber, so I added another tablespoon of vinegar and let it cook on low until I went to bed at 10 pm.  Then it had all night to cool down and acclimate to the new colors.

 

The plastic I'd used to wrap / bind the "white" parts had turned pink, so I was concerned  (panicked?) that maybe some of the printing on the recycled bag I'd cut up had transferred some color to the yarn.  Whew!  It was just some of the magenta dye in the Delphinium Blue that couldn't get through the plastic.  Mission accomplished!

This is how it looked as I was starting to unwrap it.  I expected some dye to wick up into the ends, like this.  This part doesn't really matter as this is the end that gets ties to the loom and won't be in a finished woven project.

 

Completely unwrapped and in the rinse bucket.

Beautiful blues and aquas in Delphinium Blue! 

 

 

Here it is hung up to dry.

I must admit, I thought there would be a little more wicking than I got at the bound ends.  These look a little too straight across.  We'll see how it is on the loom ...

Did I leave too much white space? 

 

Here is the dry and dyed warp. 

 

 

 

 

I think this will do nicely for this project.  

Next task is to warp the loom!

It's nice to be "back in the saddle again," playing with color in the dye kitchen!

And the great part about using Wilton's is that it's food grade and I can be in our regular kitchen, not banished to the basement which is only 43 degrees this time of year!