February 2019 – I Dyed it My Way

and the challenge of creating garments with it.

One important difference between commercially-made and handwoven fabric is the former is usually woven on mechanized looms at a width of 45 inches or more, and handwoven fabric is frequently made on a smaller scale loom and often woven at a much narrower width.

Using a formula to calculate how much yarn will be needed for a project, the weaver must figure out the sett, or how many ends (individual warp threads) there will be in each inch, multiply that by the number of inches of fabric width, then multiply by the warp length, usually in yards. That number is the total yardage of warp yarn required for a project. The required amount of weft yarn must be estimated similarly.

Many of us impulse-buy a given quantity of yarn and add it to our stash, uncertain of the exact project for which it will later be used. At some time in the future, the light bulb of a creative idea lights up overhead and we have to determine if we have enough yarn available to create our desired project. For example, perhaps we have just enough of THIS yarn available to warp a 25-inch wide fabric set at 12 ends per inch with a total warp length of 3.85 yards. And perhaps we have enough of THAT yarn to weave as weft, assuming 10-11 picks (woven rows) per inch, weaving a total of 112 inches, or 3.1 yards of woven fabric.

Figuring that we will lose about 27 inches of warp to the parts tied to the back and front beams of the loom, as well as draw-in, take-up and shrinkage, we will be lucky to produce a finished fabric that is 20-some inches wide and barely 3 yards long. After wet-finishing and ironing the fabric, if it becomes evident that it would be beautiful made up into a jacket or some other wearable item, we now must find a garment pattern with pieces small enough to lay out on the narrow and short fabric and still have enough to cover a body.

Such was the challenge I faced late last year with two narrow pieces of handwoven cloth. One fabric was woven with a slate-blue silk noil warp and a black wool weft. The finished fabric was about 24 inches wide, but just 3 yards long. I thought it would make a great jacket fabric, but it was going to be difficult to find a pattern that could be made up with such a small amount of cloth. Likewise, another handwoven I had made with an alpaca warp and a wool crepe weft (plied with a silver lurex strand, for a sparkling winter white effect). The crepe yarn wants to collapse; it is stretchy and it pulled in at the edges of the fabric as I wove. This finished fabric ended up only 20 inches wide, but about 4 yards long.

Fabric made with gray/blue silk noil warp and black wool weft.
Fabric made with alpaca warp and wool crepe weft.

I needed a jacket pattern that called for minimal hems and no overlapping facings. Fortunately I found a pattern for a zipper-closed puffy coat: McCall’s 7695. Rather than make the outer fabric puffy with batting, I purchased a quilted lining for the blue/gray fabric and a plain white lining for the alpaca/wool fabric, as well as separating zippers for the non-overlapping front closure. On the blue/gray fabric the pattern pieces extended selvedge to selvedge and I had to crowd them end to end. No extra fabric to spare! The jacket back pattern piece extended past the selvedge of the alpaca/wool fabric, so I had to cut just a portion of it, splicing in a piece down center back. Again, no fabric to spare!

The silk/wool jacket and its quilted lining.
The alpaca/wool crepe jacket and its smooth lining.
The alpaca/wool crepe jacket has a spliced-in center back panel.

This story does not fully convey my lengthy and nerve-wracking search for a jacket pattern solution, nor the late-night layout problem-solving that disturbed my sleep. But the story has a happy ending: I have two new lined jackets made from my own handwoven, albeit too-narrow, too-short cloth.

The finished silk/wool jacket is shorter than the white one because the fabric was a shorter overall length.
The slightly longer finished alpaca/wool crepe jacket.

Old blue jeans were recycled into a rug, then recycled again when the old rug wore out.

About 25 years ago, when I learned to weave, one of my first projects was a set of rag rugs made from strips of denim cut from worn-out blue jeans. The rugs were woven with colored cotton rug warp set at 8 ends per inch and the denim strips averaged approximately 1 inch wide. A header of cotton yarn was turned and hemmed at both ends of the rugs.

One rug was placed in a hallway; the other was positioned just inside the front door of my house, where for almost 25 years it received the dirt, mud and road grime from thousands of feet wiped on it before they entered the main room of the house. The hallway rug did not get quite as dirty as the door mat, but it was trodden on by just as many, or more feet, and eventually the warp threads frayed and broke. The denim strips frayed a little along the edges, but remained surprisingly intact as the warp threads deteriorated.

The first recycling: old, worn-out jeans cut into strips for weaving rag rugs.
After years of wear and tear, the warp threads fray and break, exposing the denim strips and creating a safety hazard.
Left: the frayed hallway rug. Right: the stained and dirty door mat.

The exposed cloth strips started to become a safety hazard, so I decided the rugs must be replaced, but it seemed so wasteful to throw out so much fabric that appeared to have a lot of life left in it. I decided to wash the rugs and recover as much of the denim as possible, then re-weave it into new rugs. I put the rugs in the washing machine and sent them through three full wash cycles with detergent and a dose of washing soda. The frayed edges of the denim strips held up well through the washing and I hung the heavy rugs outside to dry.

When I brought the rugs indoors, I cut off the cotton headers, opened them up and recovered the cotton yarn to use again. I pulled the now scrunched-up denim strips out of the warp yarn and wound them directly onto a large stick shuttle. While the denim in the door mat rug is certainly clean after all the washing, many of the strips are just too stained and dirty-looking to use again. Still, I was able to recover 75-80% of the strips to reuse. Meanwhile, I had warped my loom with a red linen-cotton blend yarn, again set at 8 ends per inch and 28 inches wide. I wove a 3-inch header of cotton yarn, then started weaving with the now twice-recycled denim strips.

Recovering denim strips from the old, washed rugs.
Recovering the cotton yarn from the old rug headers.
The second recycling: weaving the recovered denim strips into a new warp.

I wove one rug with recovered denim and another rug with strips freshly cut from old jeans. The twice-recycled rag rug doesn’t look as pristine as the once-recycled rug, but it will be a welcome addition on my concrete studio floor, where I hope it provides cushiony comfort under my feet for another 25 years.

Top: the new rag rug woven from freshly cut denim strips. Bottom: the new rug woven from recovered denim strips.
The twice-recycled rag rug.