The Art of Selfishness
A few days ago, I was actually feeling exhausted and a bit burned out.
I had not been weaving much at all with several continuous days of not touching a loom. I was not spinning, knitting, reading or writing (for pleasure, rather than work), or even engaging in any type of needlework. At most, I tackled preparing a warp or three, but that was the sum total of my creative pursuits.
I thought I was just too tired to do anything.
I did play a lot of scrabble against the computer, which constitutes a mindless activity for me. It is something to kill time.
I know I am in a bad place when I do this for hours because I really do not sit and do nothing like for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time.
Television, movies, and series really do not interest me, as I typically figure out the end quickly and spent most of the time thinking about all the things I could be doing instead. That monkey brain does not know how to relax.
For at least a month, I have been gearing up to dye cotton warps.
Years ago, I delved into dyeing wool and had a great deal of fun and success with it.
I understood cotton was different, so I began reading and researching the process.
The good news: It appeared to be a bit simpler than dyeing wool.
The uncertain news: How difficult would it be to dress a loom with the dyed cotton?
The dye was not my issue, but what happens to wet, stringy thread throughout the process of dyeing, i.e., the tangled mess I would be left with in the end, even if I left it on loose chains.
Further, my initial plan was to insert four 2-inch chains of dyed yarn into a warp 24” of mostly undyed yarn.
Would all the wetting, washing, dyeing, rinsing, and drying alter the length of dyed chains?
It also begged the question of whether I could stick the stationary rack in the dryer on which to plop the dyed chains to help them dry faster...
The last I could not bring myself to do, as my gut told me the introduction of heat would shrink them and I just did not want to add another variable to the equation.
However, this is just the kind of thing I grind on endlessly.
Fortunately, those thoughts do not paralyze me with inaction.
Note: I do plan to use the rack and dryer in the future when I am dyeing a complete warp, rather than a small portion of one.
When I began weaving, 8/2 was my standard go-to thread.
Tea towels are the one thing I make the most often.
8/2 warp and weft are great!
I know instinctively now how much they draw in and shrink at a sett of 20 or 24, depending on the weave structure. I am comfortable with 8/2 and know what type of fabric I can expect.
Somewhere along this weaving journey, I picked up some 10/2 cotton.
I suspect it was after I discovered the wholesale prices at R&M yarns.
If memory serves, there were slim pickings for the 8/2 cotton, but a greater selection of 10/2. I looked up what 10/2 was typically used for, the sett, yards per pound, etc., and thought “Why not?”
I began using 10/2, both mercerized and unmercerized as warp with 8/2 weft.
Oh, gosh!
I loved it!
The 10/2 was smoother and more tightly spun, which gave it a silkier feel. The mercerized was shiny, too!
I did use some of the 10/2 for weft on the 10/2 warp, but that is a lot more weaving!
Somewhere in my DNA is a gene for efficiency, and it was not happy with all that extra weaving.
Thus, 10/2 has been predominantly resigned to warp with one specific exception.
Last year, I made these Everything Towels, in a deliberate attempt to replicate a Teema Towel I bought.
For me, tea towels require a firm beat.
For these Everything Towels, my goal was a supple fabric with a great deal of drape. They required a very soft beat. Even with 10/2 as weft, my efficiency gene was satisfied. Thank goodness!
The net result on my stash was a slow down on the 8/2 acquisition and an uptick in the 10/2 purchases.
Due to the additional processing and, perhaps, the extra yardage per pound, as it is a finer thread, 10/2 mercerized is generally more expensive than 8/2.
However, late last year Michael of Georgia Yarn Company sent an email announcing he had 2.5# cones of natural 10/2 unmercerized cotton for dirt cheap prices. I think my first 20# order was at $1.75/#.
A month or so later, he emailed a reduction in that price, which, again, was an offer I could not refuse.
I ordered another 20# and wondered if I should not have just asked him how many pounds he had and bought it all.
The tiny rational gene, who rarely speaks out, piped up at that time and quietly suggested I figure out where to store 40# of 10/2 cotton before I even thought about 200# of it.
I conceded immediately. Rational gene had a valid point.
Besides, 40# of 10/2 cotton is 168,000 yards.
With a sett of 24 and a weaving width of 24, a 20 yard warp requires 11,520 yards.
40# of 10/2 is enough for 14.58 20 yard warps.
Not a lifetime supply, but more than enough to entertain me for a while, especially as I have plenty of other threads to work with, as well.
However, while solid natural warps are great, the thought of hand dyed warps are better, no?
Boom!
Just like that.
So here we are.
The first thing I did was plan a project. I wanted four 2-inch stripes evenly spaced in a sea of natural warp.
This required 9 individual chains, only four of which were dyed.
The four to be dyed were first washed and soaked with Synthropol.
Geez, the filth that came off them!
The photo was after the initial soak and after I drained the orange-brown water.
From there, they were rinsed clean and popped into a mixture of soda ash and water:
The soda ash is caustic. As the powder can attach in the lungs, mask and gloves are required.
After a soda ash soak, the excess is squeezed from the thread and they are ready for dyeing.
I set up a table in the garage and covered it with black trash bags. On top of that, I added a layer of cling wrap on which to dye the cotton, as well as to wrap it up to keep moist and allow the dye to set. Time, not heat, is required with the dye process, as well as the high pH of the soda ash.
In no time, I had this:
I left them overnight, instead of 24 hours, as I applied the dye with a heavy hand.
The longest part of this entire process is rinsing the dye from the thread. This was a shock to me. As I had only ever dyed wool, that process exhausts the dye and dye bath is nearly clear at the end.
Not so with cotton.
I added the warp chains to a hot water bath with Synthropol, it turned dark purple. I was afraid the purple would over-dye all the lighter parts, but the Synthropol arrested the dye process, thankfully.
I drained the water and rinsed the cotton under hot water and allowed them to soak again.
This process was repeated five or six times until the water finally began to run clear.
I thought about popping the chains into the washer on spin only, but I was already worried about the mess they were in and refrained.
Instead, I lay each one in a beach towel and rolled them up before walking across the rolls to get as much dampness from them.
It was cold and very windy outside, so I hung them up in my utility room with the sun streaming in from a window.
By late afternoon, they were mostly dry, only very slightly damp to the touch.
So, I began warping the loom with all 9 chains.
WOW!
In no time it was apparent all the effort was going to pay off.
Oh, there was shrinkage in the dyed chains. They were all 8 to 11" shorter than the original non-dyed chains!
Whoa. I found that to be significant, especially for a 10-yard warp, but not unexpected.
An hour after my regular bedtime, I changed the tie-ups and sleyed the reed.
A few more minutes later, I lashed on a did a quick bit of weaving:
I went to bed a very happy weaver!!
The 10/2 warp is natural unmercerized cotton.
The weft is 8/2 in white, as I wanted some contrast.
The draft is a simple 8-shaft point twill.
YAY!
While a lot of time and effort, this project was just what I needed. The moment I began working on this, I became energized.
This was a selfish, all-consuming project. It allowed me to ignore everyone around me and concentrate on learning something new.
I am in introvert (INFJ), and I need long periods of solitude to stay in my head, feed my soul, and fill the reserves.
THIS is exactly what I needed.
If it is possible to be tired and refreshed at the same time, that is what I am today.
It is all good!
And, yes, there will be much more dyeing in my future. More dye colors are en route this very moment.
May you engage in what restores and revitalizes you, too!
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