Long Live the Cricket!

The younger daughter is fifteen with a sixteenth birthday looming in December. Since she has had her learner's permit, she has voluntarily been my designated chauffeur, especially once her father and I bought her an Xterra.

When I stopped in Lucky Ewe Saturday a week ago, she went with me. Okay, she actually drove me there.

As I was visiting and shopping, she spied a skein of Vice Yarns Blurred Lines that she really liked with black, greys, and reds. It was in the San Antonio colorway.

There was a scarf sample knit up in it, and she tried it on. While sold on the colors, she said she wanted a thin, but long infinity scarf to wear. I bought two skeins with that in mind.

On Sunday of last week, I warped the new 25" loom with black tencel and started weaving with the Vice as weft.  It was not long before I decided I had a problem.  The color changes in the yarn were very long and I had 12" with no change. I put it aside to work on other things, as I tried to figure out how to make it work.

Over the week, my little Cricket loom was returned to me, I lent it to a friend who was waiting on her new loom.

Yesterday, I pulled it out and decided to warp it with the Vice. Again, I was greeted with the very long and slow gradient changes. Now this may sound wasteful, but instead of just pulling the yarn from the ball and warping with one continuous thread, after I had a sufficient amount of red in the warp, I cut it and tied it off. I pulled off the remainingred from the ball, until it was changing to grey, and continued to warp with the grey, until I was ready for a darker grey, almost black.

Because I had used the Weavoloution Warping Calculator, I knew I had plenty of yarn for warp and weft. 

These were my calculations:

Warp length is 108 inches (3.0 yards)

Length to weave each article is:
90 inches (under tension)
83 inches (relaxed)

Width in reed is: 7.8 inches
Number of warp ends: 94

Total Warp Required: 282.0 yards (2.2 ozs.)

Total Weft required is 326.4 yards (2.5 ozs)

I used a 12-dent reed.

I had two balls of Blurred Lines, each with 460 yards.

For the weft, I returned to the first ball I had pulled from for the original attempt.  I divided that ball onto 6 bobbins.  Here are the remnants of those bobbins:

I changed bobbins every 15" inches of weaving. While the color changes in the scarf are more abrupt, I think it works well and resembles plaid.

Overall, I am well pleased with this.  

The finished dimensions are: 74” in circumference x 6.5” wide.

Once the daughter rises from her teenage slumber, I shall gently inquire if she would like to do a photo shoot...

Wish me luck!