The Dragon's Lair

And now to continue my tale of two scarves -

So now that my 2-inch-that-became-14-inch sampler was done, I could choose a weft. The double strand of 8/2 rayon proved to be the winner. I've been a fan of rayon for years. My closet (used metaphorically - I don't actually have a closet. But at least a metaphorical clothes closet only requires metaphorical cleaning, so it's a nice and sparkly clean and perfectly organized metaphorical closet... *ahem* Anyway, back to the actual post... My closet is full of a whole assortment of those rayon broomstick skirts, plus a few other items of clothing made with rayon. So weaving with rayon seems a natural addition.

So I set off, armed with my cotton tabby and rayon weft, into the world of overshot!

This was my first time with overshot, first time with a two shuttle tabby-and-pattern type of weave, and my first time with something as long as a 16 pick (*not* counting tabby) pattern repeat - as you can see, a lot of firsts thrown into the mix.

It was a little frustrating at first, as I didn't think I was ever going to get the pattern repeat memorized and would be doomed to 6 yards of continual referencing of the draft and counting of picks as I got lost once again. That smoothed out over time though, and I began recognizing where I was within a repeat and even eventually memorized it.

And this was the result - My very first overshot scarf - of persevering through this new territory:

The post-washing measurements were 55" (61 1/2" w/fringe) long, and 5 1/8" wide.

Another "first" that I added to the project was adding supplemental pieces to the fringe. This was a bit of an experiment as it wasn't an idea that I had seen used before (though I'm certain other weavers have done this before - I just hadn't happened to see an example or heard it described thus far). Bear in mind when looking at this photo that the warp was made 100% out of natural colored cotton, and perhaps you'll spot the supplemented parts:

I was afraid that the natural colored fringe would be too stark against the body of the scarf, so some of the brown rayon used as weft was carefully wound in to one half of every other fringe twist, giving it a bit of a 'candy cane' stripe. I have discovered that there are pitfalls to this idea (for example - it can easily pull your edge out of shape if you don't allow enough "take up" room at the top. It can also affect your twist some) and it makes the fringe take even longer than that already time-consuming task already takes. I was happy with the end results in this case however. Though I definitely wouldn't add supplements to every fringe - it has to really need it!

This scarf's journey next took it to another first for me - being an item for sale in our guild's annual weaving show and sale (PinkDandelion had a whole post about our sale, and even some photos of it, on her blog). It was a lot of fun to actually be involved in that, and not just a spectator this year. And to top off the fun, it happened that the purchaser was the owner of a loom I was using at the time for another project. I haven't actually met this person, as he isn't part of the guild, but we store the loom there for him in exchange for being able to use it. I believe it had belonged to his mother. Having a bit of a 'connection' to the new owner of the scarf seems rather neat to me.

This scarf's journey was complete now, but there was still more warp to go! Next on the list was samples - but not the same kind of sampling as before. What I needed now was a strip of cloth big enough to cut at least 2 dozen sample squares out of, to be affixed to the multiple copies of my project details page that I will be turning in for our guild challenge in a couple of months.
One neat trick that I learned at this point, from a suggestion K made, was to run a contrasting colored thread (in this case I chose some bright turquoise I had leftover on a bobbin) along both the warp and also used in the weft to mark my cutting lines. This is going to make cutting apart the samples SO much easier, and it made keeping track of how many samples I had a cinch too! So if you are ever making a strip of samples like that, give it a try!

Somehow this strip of samples managed to stretch from September to January!! As you can see, my heart wasn't really in the project for awhile. I would make a terrible production weaver! I'm definitely more of the "Ooh! Shiny!" sort ;-) As being distracted by my "Hidden Diamonds" towel project will attest to. But one day they were finally done! And it was finally time to start the last scarf!

And so next time, I shall bring to a close this tale, and produce for your viewing pleasure this final scarf. I shall forwarn that there could be another overabundance of the warm fuzzies in store, so if you don't like tribbles you might prefer to steer clear ;-)

For now I must leave you with one more "To Be Continued..."