Just finished cutting this off the loom. It’s the last of the samples I’m providing the participants of the Magic in the Water part II workshop in Albuquerque.
The white yarn is a cotton with lycra in it. The pinks are Bambu 12 (about the same size as a 16/2 cotton). The cotton/lycra was set at 16, the Bambu at 32.
The weave structure is plain weave, and the weft was a very fine mercerized cotton I had in my stash – roughly equivalent to a 40/2 cotton. (The label is long lost but when I compared it to a 20/2 it looked about half as thick.)
When the cloth hits the water, the water will activate the lycra causing the white yarns to contract. In order to promote this contraction the cloth was woven fairly loosely. The more densely set the cloth the more resistence to the contraction. On the other hand, I don’t want to weave it too loose or the cloth will not have structural strength. The silk gimp I showed yesterday can be woven much more openly because the knobs of the yarn help to hold everything in place.
Now I have to do the paperwork documenting the fabrics I’m providing in addition to the 7 they will weave during the workshop. This should provide the participants with a good over view of a variety of fibres and weave structures. They will have a binder of samples – before and after wet finishing – to study and refer to when the workshop is over.