The two doubleweave shawls in 30/2 superwash merino and 1/7 linen/lambswool/silk are underway. Real problems with the selvedge on left had side with repeated warp breakages. The 30/2 is at the limit for being a viable warp but it has worked in the past on other projects with the same warp and weft. The blues and yellow shades I have used before seem much stronger and less sticky than the red. In the end there was a twisted thread around a heddle eye that was probably exacerbating the problems and the 15 epi reed may also be causing too much friction, I'll use 10 epi next time with 3 ends per dent.
The two faces are in sharply contrasting colours, each face is a separate cloth joined in the little double density squares where all the yarns form a single "integrated cloth". The cloth shrinks on finishing the results can be seen here.
My problems haven't ended there, I forgot to lock the draft in Tempoweave and at some point when returning to weave I will have clicked my wireless mouse to turn it back on (when unused it goes off to save battery) evidently the mouse must have been over tie-up and changed it very slightly...enough to produce long floats on the reverse side of the cloth (hidden from view) in line with the integrated squares. By the time I noticed I had made over a hundred passes of the shuttles.
No alternative but to unweave (I only have enough of the light grey weft to make the first shawl so I could not cut it off). The super fine warp and slubby weft stick together and in the dense integrated squares they were literally feltef together! It took 2 hours 30 minutes to undo. Things are back on track now and I'm halfway through the first shawl. There'll be a colour change on the second.
