I started cutting and sewing my daughter's coat yesterday. I was amazed at how beautifully the cloth wove up, and how easily. With handspun singles warp and weft at a 10 degree twist angle--the yarn knit up as a singles without any biasing--I was sure I would have some broken ends, particularly as I suddenly remembered halfway through my warping that I'd forgotten my plied selvage yarns! However, there were no breaks in the warp at at point, though my weft, spun the same way, broke several times. I'm guessing the action of winding the weft on the bobbin and/or winding it off during weaving actually took out just a touch of twist, and since I had put in JUST enough twist to hold together as yarn, losing a bit would make the yarn drift apart occasionally.
I washed/fulled the cloth in hot water in the washing machine, then tumbled it on warm in the dryer for about 15 minutes, which takes out the wrinkles and nearly dried the cloth. I then draped the approximately 4.5 yards over my loom to finish drying. It's amazingly soft and thick--cushy comes to mind :) But it still drapes very nicely. I've been taking pictures as I have proceeded, and hope to put an article on my website next month showing the results at each step. The pattern my daughter wants involves sewing two pieces up the center back--I ran a two-ply yarn of the same fiber, spun finer and tighter, through the (barely visible) weft loops for a relatively invisible seam. Next I evened out the cut edge that will form the base of a sort of bodice, and blanket stitched the edge. I'm a little concerned about that--the cloth is nicely fulled, but it's not really felted, so that I can pull wefts out, though it's difficult, so I don't know how well this edge will hold. The next step will be blanket stitching the bottom for a finished edge--the cloth is so thick that even turning just once is much too bulky, and she didn't want a lining. After that I will cut half way through each side just below the arms, and blanket stitch both cut edges. The loose part of the bottom folds to the center front, while the top part folds down to form the bodice and sleeves--about impossible to describe in words :) Finally, I'll overlap the bodice and sleeve seams and figure out a way to sew them for an unobtrusive but hopefully solid lapped seam. Oh, and since there's a half yard or so of extra cloth, I'll probably make patch pockets--that will be easy enough. I recently joined the bifocle club, and wonder if more experienced members can tell me whether it's to be expected that close-up work requires taking off the glasses--something I didn't have to do before this new prescription. It seems a little strange, but I can't focus on the cloth close enough to see where to cut and stitch with the glasses on. Holly To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
