Before the holidays we had dinner with some friends and one of them told me her favourite colours were red and black. Well, that just screamed out "houndstooth" to me. I love that colour combination and I was pretty sure I could weave something nice.
For this project I chose a wonderfully soft merino wool from
Malabrigo in Ravelry Red and Black that I picked up at
Romni Wools on Queen Street West in Toronto. Each skein contained about 210 yards, so I picked up 5 skeins of each colour (for safety) to ensure I could set up a 100+ inch warp across 300 ends and not run out of wool.
Rather than using my 12-dent heddle (as I did for the lilac and black shawl), I went with the 10-dent heddle after seeing that the yarn could
comfortably work on even the 8-dent heddle. I was pleased with how easy it was to sley the reed using the 10-dent heddle (
much easier than the 12-dent). The wool was also very easy to weave using the 10-dent heddle, not rubbing overmuch on the reed and throwing off only a slight amount of lint.
This wool is very stretchy however, so I had some concerns about how evenly it would weave up, but it turned out the weave was fairly balanced and it appears my concerns were misplaced.
This is your typical 2 x 2 houndstooth pattern - - 2 ends of each colour alternating across the reed with 2 picks of each colour for the entire length of the warp.
I was hoping for a shawl that measured more than 70" long by 24" - 27", and the finished shawl after washing and trimming ended up being 72" x 26" - - right in the sweet spot.
Santa brought me a fringe twister for Christmas so my next big work will have twisted tassels. The ends for this project were left in a simple fringe that untwisted after washing into a fluffy end treatment that is kind of visually interesting, if nothing else.
I hope my friend likes her shawl!
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