How to Finish Your Triloom Woven Shawl

The last weaving pass is run, the center yarn is clipped and your shawl is done! Yippee!

Oh yeah, the weaving is done, now there's the finishing. 

How do you go from that triangle shaped weaving on the wall to the beautiful, drapey, shawl to wrap around your shoulders?

Follow along on the pictures below, and if you have any questions, you can contact me via messenger from our Havencroft Farm Homestead Facebook page.

The weaving is done! This is a twill/tabby combo pattern done with 100% Havencroft Farm grown Jacob sheep wool (Patchwork Cowboy and Havencroft Lauren's fleeces) processed into yarn at Yampa Valley Fiberworks and hand-dyed by me.)

Pretty as it looks from a distance, there are still some spacing issues that need fixing.

Spend time lining up yarns with your trusty weaving comb. (Not to recommend Walmart, but this is the comb I use.)

Once your weaving is all evened-up to your liking, crochet off the top. This shawl is not fringed, so the color changes are along the top. I'll weave those in later. The chain I use to take a shawl off the loom is; pull the corner loop of the shawl onto your hook; pull a loop of your finishing color through that loop; pull the next shawl loop off the nail and through the loop on the hook; pull another loop of finishing yarn through that loop; and all the way across, shawl loop, yarn loop. You should only ever have one loop on your hook. You can see the pattern in the picture above. At the end of the top edge of the shawl, pull up your last loop, cut the thread in the middle and pull it back through, then knot the starting thread for the shawl and the ending thread of the finishing yarn together.

The top edge is crocheted off the loom. Now to lift the bottom two edges.

Just gently lift the yarn off the pegs, or nails, starting at the bottom corner.

This shawl is now attached to the loom only at the top two corners. This is where you can see floats or any other issues that may need to be fixed by stitching them in. 

Take off the finished shawl, hang up your loom and start the next shawl. I always put the next shawl on the loom right after I pull the shawl I'm finishing off. I've planned it while weaving the last one, and I'm eager to get started on it, plus I hate seeing a naked loom!

I weave in all the color join ends with a crochet hook. Some people use a yarn needle. What ever works for you. I take out the knot that I used to join the colors (why I knot the joins loosly), make sure the yarns are crossed over so there are no awkward holes at the top of the shawl, and tuck the ends in, weaving them down their own color run.

Some shawls I crochet a decorative border, and strenghthener on the top, other shawls don't seem to need it. This one needed a bit of straightening on the top edge, which is provided by the crochet border.

Once you are happy with your finishing on the shawl, it's time to wash it. This "wet-finishes" the shawl, allows the yarns to bloom and meld together and sets it as one garment, instead of a lot of woven yarn. It also assures me that the piece does not have any flaws that I missed in the planning or weaving. Hand wash, gently in cool water with wool safe soap. I do the same - lather, rinse, repeat that I do to wash most things. Make sure you fill the basin first and dissolve the soap before adding your garment. Take the garment out to drain while you rinse the basin and prepare the next water bath.

After washing and rinsing, roll your shawl up in a towel and gently squeeze out the excess water. 

Lay your shawl flat and shape it how you want it to dry. I put a king sized sheet over a few towels on our queen sized bed to block my shawls. It's a big enough space, and the door is closed to our bedroom, so it is a cat-free zone, too.

Give it a bit to dry and then wear your beautiful new shawl. This particular shawl is for a friend, if you want to see a picture of her wearing it (give me a few days to get it delivered!) visit our Havencroft Farm Homestead Facebook page.

Birdsong and painted skeins

A new batch of painted handspun Jacob sheep wool yarn in the predawn blue light

The bird and insect symphony was so rich in this morning's predawn blue light, as I was hanging newly painted skeins of yarn out to dry. I wished I could share the whole experience with everyone. But even if I had video'd it, the richness of the morning air, the deep blueness of the light and the unique harmonies of the morning chorus would not have come through.

So, just grab a cuppa your favorite morning beverage, (mine is Dean's Beans Mocha Sumatra coffee, cold with goat's milk) take a deep breath and imagine sharing this beautiful blue morning here on Havencroft farm.

Have a delicious day.

Swatch test

After washing

Before washing

After washing

Before washing

I've learned, through experience to swatch test all the yarns I want to use together in a weaving project, especially if I'm putting them on the Newcomb. It takes 16 hours to tie and wind a warp onto the big old rug loom, and that's after I've dyed and measured the yarns. Then I can weave between 5 and 8 rugs on that warp, depending on the size of the fleeces, so I need to make sure the yarns in that warp play well together.

To do a swatch test for rugs, I take the yarn I want to use and crochet tem together. Then I just throw them into a regular wash load and see how they come out. I think this batch will make a pretty set of rugs. And I should have it on the loom by this year's Shearing Day, Saturday, March 30.

Gobi yarn

Every once in a while there is a fleece that I just cannot wait to play with. As soon as we are done shearing it, that fleece goes right next to my spinning wheel and I hurry to get any other yarns off the bobbins.

Funny little Gobi. She's really not as thin as she looks in
this picture, she was just tucked up from being sheared.

This year Gobi's fleece was that special. Gobi is Boo's little ewe lamb, born last July. She's twin to Rambo, who sold to a new home on Saturday. She's a funny looking little thing, halfway between a lamb and a yearling. Because she was born at such a strange time, she didn't have any "classmates" to play with, so she never really learned all the sheepie games.

Gobi yarn on the bobbin

But I've always loved her coloring, I have a special fondness for the darker fleeces. My friend Mickie Ramirez, whose Broken O Ranch is in Fort Collins, Colorado, always knew she could call me when she had an especially dark lamb that needed a new flock. Two of our foundation sires, Caruso and Hotpants came from her flock. Mickie makes the most fantastic hats from her jacob fleeces.

Back to Gobi, so far, I've spun two 100 yard skeins of yarn from her fleece and they've washed up as soft and wonderous as I thought they would. I have at least enough fleece to spin another two. So, this little (about 35 lbs.), funny, off-season lamb grew almost enough wool in half a year to make a shawl. I'll only need to add one skein of some one else's wool to that shawl... perhaps her brother's? Or maybe a mohair highlight yarn. What color(s) would look good with this black and white yarn?

Creativity in progress

Blue carded wool, blue mohair yarn balls, blue uncarded wool
blue hand spun 2-ply wool, blue and natural pewter handspun
wool and mohair two-ply yarn. 

This has been one of the most successful weeks of my personal professional life. I have accomplished or set in official motion projects that I have been working on for three or more years. I have presented proposals, gotten approvals taught classes and relaxed by spinning beautiful blue yarn.

Last evening, I went with several girl friends to help pack up house for a coworker who is moving to another park. We had fun and accomplished a lot. When I got home I was tired and listened to myself share worries about the upcoming year with Shawn as I carded and spun blue wool.

This morning, I have a few minutes of down-time to think over the week. I decided I really needed to write down and celebrate the amazing week I'd just had, just to keep the accomplishments from getting buried in the fuss and worry of life.

The week started with my getting approval to present a draft of a project that I have been researching, gathering information on, tweaking and finalizing since before I was Craft Director at OFC. Every year I have run the idea and information by my boss and gotten told it just was not complete enough, or that this was not the time. Now, the time was right, the info was there and I could start this wonderful concept on its way through the approval process. I really liked the proposal I wrote up. Shawn, in his much appreciated roll as my production manager, did some great charts and helped me get the numbers real. If this gets approved, it will dramatically change our 2012 season at OFC. If we get preliminary approval, we can start on the budgeting process for it next week.

Then I finally taught my super fun Traditional Winter Foods cooking class. I had a great group of students and we had fun and made delicious food.

The weather turned sunny and astoundingly gorgeous. I am coming to appreciate my office for its windows. Even when I can't be outside, I can still have the inspiration of the natural world.

Wednesday was devoted to catching up on projects and paperwork. The Quilt Retreat is going to be great fun this year, with almost 30 quilters already signed up. Our adult craft class morning on Feb. 12 is filling up and the Bluegrass craft show is so full, I don't know where I'm going to put everybody. I really need to get some top notch publicity out about that one!

Joanne Webb, lifetime member and supporter of the Arkansas
Craft Guild, Stone County and so much more. I will miss
your smile and sweet voice.

Thursday was in inspirational day. I am on the board of the Arkansas Craft Guild. This guild is the longest continuously running craft guild in the US. But, it has been suffering the same economic stresses as the rest of the country. We have made some changes there and are going to have the guild gallery open on Friday and Saturday only through March 5, with all volunteer help. People have been stepping up to the plate and the whole process is enough to make you positive about people!! We are opening the Joanne Webb Coffee Room in the Gallery, in honor of a truly wonderful lifetime member who passed away this week. I will miss her terribly, but now will be able to think about her every week as I visit with friends in the coffee room.

Then, yesterday, in Little Rock, I got to present another proposal that was the culmination of 3-years of work and planning. We are going to have a Glass Shop at the Ozark Folk Center!!! Thanks to the generosity and planning of the Ladies of the Committee of 100 and to Sage Holland, Beau Anderson and the help of OFC Superintendent Grady Spann, we will have a shop that presents the amazing history of glass in the Ozarks and that teaches and demonstrates how to make glass beads and that will be a place to buy those beautiful, sparkley treasures!!! Wow!

Yep, wow, what a week. Now Lena and I are headed out to do our weekly body score and FAMACHA check on the sheep and goats and to move the first batch due to lamb into the pen closest to the house. The weather is still beautiful and I'm going to enjoy the day and leave the worries about the future to the future.
love and hugs to all - Jen