Weaving Samples - in Wandering Vine Overshot

Part 1:  I did a round with the new singles yarn from Maritime Fibers in Maine.   The yarn is actually from Canada -- I bought it BEFORE Trump's tariffs kicked in.  Whew!  This yarn is going to work out very well for a coverlet.  It has a nice hand, is NOT rough or picky like some wool can be.  

Maritime Family Fiber - Sport Single Ply 100% wool  yarn singles
 

The control was 17 inches x 6-1/4 inches.

      The wet-finished sample shrunk down to 16 inches x 6 inches.

Now if I could just decide on a pattern! 

Here it is still on the loom.  The color is more of a dark teal, than the blue it appears here.

After I cut this off the loom, I cut the sample in half.  I kept 1 half as a control, because I wanted to compare it with the wet-finished sample.

You can see that it shrunk by about 1 inch.  Don't worry -- that moves into texture and a 3D effect that is what we love in weaving after the magic of wet-finishing. 

 

On the left is the wet-finshed sample.  You can see the cotton has melded with all the other lines in the tabby weave-- They've become a team, all working together.  As the tabby (white yarn) melds in the background, the blue pattern yarn can also puff up and do it's thing -- although it was sort of doing that already.  

 

Here's another shot with a different orientation.  The wet-finished sample is on top, and the control sample is on the bottom.   It illustrates the same idea where the wet-finished side has transformed into a cohesive fabric.

Part 2

I also wanted to weave a sample of the wandering vine pattern with some of my own homespun yarn, from Patty Reedy's sparkly fleeces.

All that wool fiber I've spun through the years ... esp. Patty Reedy's sparkly lustery fleeces.  Now I wish I had not bothered to ply them.  I could have used them as singles for the weft in a coverlet.  I see the old coverlets in my collection that used singles for warp, and how it puffs up so nice after washing to provide that extra R-value for warmth.  And it looks neat, too!

Here, I am testing some of my own homespun to see how it weaves up in a coverlet format.   Will it be worth getting more fiber from Patty to spin and start over?  Or will that take too long?

The other yarns I've purchased for coverlets 1 and 2 work ok, but the plied yarns act a little different in the cloth.

My own homespun shrank up more than I thought it would.  Looks like it would be a good felting yarn.  It's thicker than the other sample -- which makes sense as it's 2-ply.  It also feels pickier, not something you'd want next to  your skin -- That said, it would still be nice and warm.  I am not crazy about this color for a coverlet either.

How much did it shrink?

The sample was 17-1/2 in. x 8-1/2 in

         The wet-felted sample shrunk down to 16-1/4 in x 8 in.

 In this photo, the wet-finished sample is in the top half of the photo, and the control sample is in the bottom half.  You can see how it really puffed up -- almost felted while it condensed.  Not quite what I was after for a coverlet.  That is why it's good to do samples.  I would not be happy if I'd spent 2 years spinning this yarn, and then a year to make a coverlet to find out it didn't quite behave as I'd hoped or expected it to.

 

This is how it looked on the loom -- and on the bobbin.  This looked promising ...

 

This is the woven sample along with a ball of my homespun yarn.  You can kind of see how it sparkles in the ball of yarn.  That's why I love this wool!   Maybe it needs to be next to itself to literally shine? But I think I will have to find another purpose for it.  Maybe a sweater?