Finished scarf

I finished my woven scarf and am declaring it a success.

You can read about the set up for this project in this post.

I wove until I was having to fight to get the stick shuttle through the shed — the top and bottom of the warp get too close together to pass through smoothly, particularly with the mess of criss-crossing strands caused by using a variety of different yarns and spacing them randomly along the heddle.  When I weave with just one yarn I can be tidier and weave much closer to the end before I have to stop.

Because the strands at towards the ends tend to resist moving up and down, especially the “stickier” alpaca yarn, I had to be vigilant to make sure I wasn’t skipping over (or under) any threads I shouldn’t have.  You can see in the picture above that I missed in one place.  The weft is going over three warp threads, when it should be under the middle thread.

This was very close to the end of my weaving, so I just cut the warp thread, pulled it back through to the spot I missed, and then wove it in properly with a tapestry needle.

Then I cut the rest of the warp threads loose and pulled them out of the heddle.

Knots keep the whole thing from unraveling — every five stands together keeps things in place and makes a nice fringe.

The finished scarf is a little rough and bumpy, so the next step is to even that out.

A good sloshing soak relaxes the yarns and smooths out the tension.

Some time drying in a slight breeze, a trim to even out the fringe, and I have a new scarf to put into the gift drawer.