05-19-2017

On Monday, I finished the first panel.

Even Charlotte, a professional weaver of over 30 years, commented yesterday that the fabric has a very good feel to it!

The resulting panel is 9 inches wide and about 62 inches long (without the waste). I might get away with three panels to make my skirt. I could also loose weight, we’ll see.

The yarn is “sticky”. I wove with higher warp tension to compensate for that. I had one warp thread break. Yes, it sheds a lot, partly because of the nature of the yarn, partly because I’m weaving it at 15 dent to get a tight fabric.

The “Mist” and “Patina” color combination is exactly what I desired to achieve.

The resulting fabric is VERY PLEASING!

06-24-2017

The second panel is done, and a new warp, for the third panel, is on the loom.

While warping the second and now the third panel, I cut the warp after each “Patina” section, and the weaving is much more even towards the end.

The higher tension and the friction cause the yarn to “fuzz”, but the resulting fabric is amazing … like “real” fabric.

07-03-2017

All done!

Ok, this may become a lengthy “note”, but I’d like to provide sufficient info so that others can make such a skirt, too.

Regarding the yarn usage, I only used a tiny bit of the fourth “Mist” skein, and a little more than half of the “Patina”. There’s plenty left to do something else with that leftover.

I wove a total of three panels as described before. I knotted all the warp strands by two, which was some work, but it looks pretty and drapes well. Hemstitching should work as well. I then cut each of of the panels in half for a total of six strips to achieve the final skirt length. Laid out like a skirt I got about 27 inch width and 32 inch length (without the fringes).

I wound up using five of those half panels to make the skirt, and I used the last piece to make a little cowl (see picture).

I sewed together the panels with a large zig-zag stitch with minimal overlap. Because the yarn/fabric is a little bit fuzzy, you can barely see the stitches. GREAT!

I left an 8 inch opening at the bottom of the last seam to give the skirt a little bit more width.

I used a 1 inch knit elastic for the waist band. I used 38 inches of length, but I should have used 1-2 inches less. First, I sewed the elastic onto the right side of the skirt, then trimmed the extra fabric, folded it over, and zig-zagged one more time along the top.

Lastly, I brushed the fringes and trimmed them evenly to about 6 inches of length.

I’m very pleased with the results. The fabric feels great, and the skirt is very comfortable.