Project: Cream and Mustard Yellow Houndstooth Shawl

In case it was not yet obvious, I just love houndstooth as a shawl pattern.  The beautiful interplay of the balanced warp and weft just work for me in ways that other patterns do not.  So it should come as no surprise to see me working up another houndstooth shawl or bed throw or pocket square (as the recipient is so inclined to call the end product).  It's a rectangle, that's all I know.  A BIG rectangle.  Perhaps it could be used as the roof on a pillow fort. 

This time I used a fine sock yarn from Spud & Chloe in "popcorn" and "bumblebee", aka ivory and light mustard yellow.  The yarn itself is an 80/20 blend of merino superwash wool and silk, and has a lovely soft feel.  As has been my recent pattern I purchased the yarn at the Purple Purl on Queen Street East in Toronto.  They give a 10% discount to guild members, and although I am sure they intended for the discount to apply to knitters, weavers' guilds also get the discount and my membership in the Ontario Handweavers & Spinners guild totally counts.  Which is good, because I buy yarn in bulk now that I am weaving, rather than a ball at a time like I used to when I knit.

For this project I used my trusty Kromski Harp rigid heddle loom set up with a single 10-dent heddle (in the back position to give me more working space without having to advance the warp as frequently).  I warped up the loom in my preferred 2 x 2 pattern, alternating the ivory and mustard across about 28" of the reed, for 100" of total warp.  This delivered a finished dimension of 24" x 93 1/2" (excluding fringe) before washing, and a final dimension of 23 1/2" x 92" after washing. 

There were no real surprises with this project, which wove up relatively quickly.  I warped up the loom on March 21 and finished the project today (three weeks later) after bringing it with me to Columbus OH on a brief family visit weekend last weekend, and ignoring the work for long stretches of time when I was out of town on business (it has been a busy few weeks for me).  I do love the portability of the Kromski Harp that gives me the option of bringing a project-in-progress with me on short trips, and I took advantage of that functionality on this project. 

I chose the mustard because it was a colour requested by a friend of mine, but I wanted to lighten it using the ivory to keep the finished work from being too bold.  Plus, if I made a mistake when selecting the wool and went too yellow or too mustard with the main colour, the ivory would attenuate the visual impact.  As a further plus, it just looks pretty, so there's that.  It also makes for a subtle houndstooth pattern, which adds to the visual interest.

I am going on another family visit in a couple of weeks and have another shawl/bedrunner project I would like to start and finish, as well as a couple of tea towels to make as hostess gifts for my relatives.  It will be a busy few weeks of weaving for yours truly!

Now I must swift the yarn for my next project.  As soon as I can find my swift, that is.  And probably as soon as I clean up the debris from this latest weaving project - - shouldn't start a new project with the vestiges of the old cluttering up my workspace!