Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Noro Silk Garden

Thanks to Dorothy's inspired idea of using the Noro sock yarns, I finally found a use for the two balls of Noro 'silk garden' yarn in my stash. I had tried to knit something with them but found them a bit 'scratchy' to feel. Then seeing Dorothy's success, I thought that if the weft yarn is soft, it may improve the overall feel.
I used the Ashford table loom on 4-shafts. The draft was the 'Hair line effect' twill from the 'Marguerite Porter Davison' book. Weaving 4 shaft on the table loom is reasonably quick.
This yarn is thicker than the sock yarn and was woven at 10epi.

I love the way the colours arranged themselves. The 2 balls of yarn had the same colour code and dyelot. However, when the warp is wound, it is clear that the colour sequence is different. I liked it. It enabled me to create colour without really working hard at it!

I used a subdue colour as the weft so that the colours of the warp took centre stage.

The suprise bonus - there was only about 4 inches of loom waste and this is without using a dummy warp! I used a shorter rod at the back beam so that the warp can come right up close to the heddles.

Overall, I am really happy with the result and I did see some 'Silk Garden lite' the other day at the yarn shop, on discount.......