Differential Shrinkage (differential expectations)
I shawl intended for a Masters project requirement. I used two wool yarns from Jaggerspun. The darker one is 8/2 Heather and the other is a 24/2 super-wash merino. I was hoping for some cool differential shrinkage – which I got , and I was hoping for a masters project which I DID NOT GET. Just notice the threading where the arrows are pointing. This repetitive “close – but no cigar” story would be a serious bore if it weren’t for how nerve-wracking it is. “How could this happen?”, you ask. Well, I was short by 36 threads on the right, so I went back and found a threading error that I thought explained the shortfall. I rethreaded from the error and found myself still 24 threads short????? Okay, I must have miscounted when winding the warp. I made a 24 thread warp bundle and weighted it of the back of the loom. I then started to weave and here is my pathology in a nutshell: I wove about 24” WITHOUT NOTICING THE MISTAKE DESPITE THE FLASHING LIGHTS OF THE WARP SHORTFALL. I then didn’t have enough warp to cut, rethread and weave on. I actually didn’t notice the mistake until I took a picture. There could be a tool for correcting my brain here. I get so “micro” at the beginning of a warp – checking for minute tension problems and treadling errors that I can’t seem to see ‘macro”. Maybe using the camera to switch between the micro and the macro will push me kicking and screaming out of this pathology. On the bright side I got a nice “sample shawl” for deflected doubleweave with differential shrinkage for my guild talk. Bright side, bright side, bright side . . .
