Winterful Weave-Along: Finishing Handwovens

It’s already December! How is your weave-along progress so far? We’ve seen some finished Kaleidoscope scarves popping up in our chats and forums recently and they all look fantastic!

FINISHING TIPS & TECHNIQUES

As you’re getting closer to finishing the weaving of your scarves, it’s time to turn our attention to actually “finishing” the scarves. In my mind, this includes wet finishing and literally tying up loose ends…

To start and end our weaving, we often recommend hemstitching as a simple way to finish the woven edges so that the weft yarn doesn’t fall out of place.

Once you cut the scarf off the loom, we highly encourage you to wet finish your handwoven pieces. This means submerging the cloth in water completely and helping the yarn deflect and settle into place. Laura Fry teaches wet finishing in her fabulous Magic in the Water course on the School of SweetGeorgia. We learned from Laura that wet finishing is more than just rinsing the cloth in water and laying out to dry. She also talks about the importance of a final pressing of your cloth and demonstrates a number of ways to do that. It truly is magical how cloth can be transformed after weaving and cutting off the loom.

Finally, the fringe… depending on the type of yarn you use, we sometimes suggest working twisted fringe before wet finishing and sometimes after. In this case, because we are weaving with a superwash-treated yarn, there is less worry about the fringe felting to itself, so we can work the twisted fringe after wet finishing. Next week, we’ll share a tutorial about how to use a fringe twister to help you out.

GRETA’S KALEIDOSCOPE SCARVES

Following last week’s project info, SweetGeorgia Team Member Greta has completed weaving and wet finishing her two Kaleidoscope scarves…

Greta Cornejo's finished handwoven Kaleidoscope Scarf
Greta’s finished Kaleidoscope Scarf (and beautiful handspun & handknit sweater beneath!)

“I finished both by scarves with hot tap water with some Soak for 20 minutes, laid in a big towel and rolled as a burrito and hanged to dry. When the scarves were almost dry, I ironed them with a clean cotton rag in between the iron and the scarf.

I love seeing the difference of the pattern in between the handspun yarns version and the one using the SweetGeorgia Party of Five. Both the weaving experience and the final object show how versatile a pattern can be depending on the materials.”

Greta Cornejo's finished handwoven Kaleidoscope Scarves
Top scarf woven with handspun yarn, bottom scarf woven in SweetGeorgia Party of Five mini-skeins

SHARE YOUR PROGRESS WITH US

We would love to hear from you about your weaving projects! Is there any new tips or tricks that you’ve found to be helpful in weaving your scarf? Have you been enjoying playing with colour in the log cabin design? Whatever stage you’re at, share with us at our SweetGeorgia Discord and SOS Forums spaces!

The post Winterful Weave-Along: Finishing Handwovens appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.



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