This project was a disaster because I used the sari-silk as the warp and it kept shredding and coming apart.  I reconnected the broken and shredded ends with sewing thread.  I gave up after about two feet.  After twisting the fringe, I decided I liked the way it turned out with a lot of threads randomly shooting out and it now sits on a little stand in my bathroom.

I cut the project off the loom and used the remaining undamaged warp threads as weft in a couple of runners.

Because I can't figure out how to display the picture with my comments, I have added it as an attachment.

 

Comments

lkautio (not verified)

If you try using this yarn as warp again, you could size it, ply it with a stronger thread if you spin, use it only as weft with a stronger warp, or (my preference) run it with a strong fine thread such as sewing thread or 60/2 silk so that each heddle has a fine and a sari thread. On the fly, you can sometimes use white glue to repair a broken end (let it dry before returning to weave). It is pretty and looks worth trying again. cheers, Laurie Autio

April Mae (not verified)

Laurie,

Thanks for the ideas.  Using the Sari Silk as a warp seemed like a good idea and a way to tone down some of the wild colors by having them stripe lengthwise rather than double across each other as a weft on a narrow warp.  One thing which would have helped would have been using a reed with less dents per inch - like a 6 dent.  Maybe I'll try again one of these days.

April

Caroline (not verified)

If you are a spinner, or felter, you can re-use those precious silk threads either by carding them and re-spinning them, or adding them to felted projects. I have used softly spun sari silk as weft, and love it, but spinning my own I do get a chance to tone down the colours and can keep a colour sequence going for a while.

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