It's best to make your yarn into skeins so that you can wash it before
weaving. That will help set the twist, and settle the yarn into its
final shape and stabilize it. If you use singles in a plain weave,
washing the yarn first can help control tracking in your finished
piece. I use a 2 yd niddy-noddy to make skeins, so it's easy to know
exactly how much yarn you have in order to do your math for your
weaving. It's so easy to think you have plenty of yarn, then discover
(too late) you're short 10 or 20 yards. I'd NEVER know if I had enough
yarn spun if I left it on the bobbins until it was time to wind the
warp! It's even worse when it's weft you're short of.
I usually wind the skeins into center-pull balls when it's time to
measure the warp, just easier to handle. I don't have a good place to
clamp my swift while winding onto my warping reel, otherwise, I would
skip the extra step of winding balls. Sometimes I feel like I spend
half my "fiber time" just moving yarn from bobbins, to the niddy noddy,
to balls!
I have woven with singles as warp many times, and I have found that you
really need to size it first. Handspun just fuzzes up too much
otherwise, even worsted spun. I prefer to size the skein of yarn,
rather than the warp after it is made up. It needs to be in big loose
skeins for that. My favorite sizing is plain gelatin, a recipe from
Stephenie Gausted in Handwoven.
Lynn C
Seattle
What's the best idea for storing singles for weaving? Winding to
centerpull balls? Made up into hanks? Winding round some cartoon pipes
(e.g. from toilet paper)?
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