Truly Gorgeous Woven Wrap (from handspun!)

A few posts ago, I mentioned that a friend of mine had taken some of my handspun and woven something with it.

Here's a pic of part of it, taken at an angle.  But isn't it lovely?!!  The stripes are various widths.  This uses most of four batches of my handspun.  Plus my friend had a bit of leftover yarn that had been dyed for a different project, so that got added, too.

The weaving is amazing.  The wrap is amazing -- beautiful and soft and cozy.  My friend said that weaving my not-so-good batches of handspun was like having a conversation with the weaving.  If there was a stretch that was too thick or thin or uneven, adjustments were made with an extra or an omitted throw of the shuttle.

Here are the batches of handspun.  None are particularly well spun, sorry to say.  They're all slightly different thicknesses, probably, as well as having some thick-and-thin areas and occasional neps and what-not.

These skeins are from natural-dyed roving, in cutch (brown), Himalayan rhubarb (yellow), and kermes (red), all mordanted with alum.  The roving is white merino/dorset (I think the sheep is a crossbred sheep, not that the roving is a blend).

I dyed and spun these many years ago and they've been sitting in my stash ever since.  I liked them well enough but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with them.  The kermes is a bit of an odd color, I thought.

This is a batch I spun from a mystery batt.  The baggie it was in was labeled as Shetland, but who knows.  The batt consisted of some mixed shades of brown and mustard and green, with some neps and bloops of the same colors and more.  As expected, the yarn is somewhat textured.

The final yarn, as I wrote above, was leftover dyed yarn from another project my friend wove.  It is a very dark purple, almost but not quite black.

The warp was also commercially-spun yarn, some kind of white wool.

Anyway, I think it is amazing.  It's so different from knitting.  The way the warp and weft interact really give it a different feel.  Colors that would look kind of eh if knitted up (unless added to a larger project) really pop and meld when woven up like this.

Needless to say, I'm hoping to give lots more handspun to my friend.  I'm also looking forward to seeing what happens with the other handspun skeins that were part of this first batch.

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Apparently I am knitting Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride at 4 stitches per inch, 2-stranded.  The target circumference is about 9" rather than 8".  So, my sock was unraveled and I started over on 36 stitches.  I'm past the heel on the first sock.  The two very similar colors of Lamb's Pride look really nice together.  They're just different enough to add a bit of depth.

I've started yet another charity hat, same yarn and everything as the last one.

I'm still dithering on a Next Sweater.  And the Miami Vice shawl is getting closer to done.