For our November 2024 Secret Stash Yarn Club “Lizzy Line”, we were looking to find a project that would really highlight the sense of movement in this custom colourway. Creating a plain weave, handwoven scarf was a perfect fit, maintaining the beautiful effect of lines of colour moving vertically through the cloth. With purple in light, medium, and dark shades, plus white, grey, and hits of red and blue, the chosen weft colour softens it all both in texture and appearance.
ABOUT THE LIZZY LINE COLOURWAY
Back in the summer, Felicia travelled with her family to London — a city filled with creative inspiration. Felicia’s most memorable weaving inspiration came from visiting the little retail shop for Wallace Sewell. This weaving studio’s portfolio includes pieces that combine modern design with traditional techniques. Some of the projects they have worked on has been in collaboration with the Transport for London (TFL), designing moquettes (upholstery fabric) for many of the London Underground trains.
This month’s colourway “Lizzy Line” is inspired by their moquette of the Elizabeth Line. It is a purple pinstripe pattern that is designed to convey a sense of speed. Your eyes flutter between one point and another point, with a vertical stripe pattern creating rhythm and repetition, and a horizontal stripe creating irregular balance and movement. The colourway features purple in light, medium, and dark shades, plus white, grey, and hits of red and blue. Read more about the Lizzy Line colourway here »
PLAIN WEAVE SCARF SAMPLE
With this month’s colourway, SweetGeorgia team member Charlotte wove a warp-faced, plain weave Lizzy Line scarf. With the SweetGeorgia Mohair Silk Sock base being a finer, fingering-weight yarn, we decided to use a new 15-dent reed which Schacht recently released. This also allowed us the perfect opportunity to work with our new SweetGeorgia 20/2 Mulberry Silk yarn in Twilight as the weft.
The scarf takes the skein of yarn with the splashes of red, stretching them out on the warp with the colours distributed beautifully and very evenly. It creates lines of colour moving vertically through the cloth. We wanted the colour of the weft to blend into the background of the skein, making it a more muted purple overall. This allows the weft to fade away into the background so that the red is not obscured. If you were to use the same yarn as weft, you would get a plaid pattern starting to happen. However, we wanted the keep this sample warp dominant.
To finish the scarf, Charlotte hemstitched the ends with the fringe left loose. The drape on the the fabric is absolutely amazing and the entire scarf is buttery soft.
JOIN THE CLUB
We look forward to sharing more project inspiration with colourways we’ve concocted as part of our Secret Stash Club. Telling stories through our colours and sharing how we see the world. We hope you join us there!
Lizzy Line in Plain Weave Handwoven Scarf
Equipment
- rigid-heddle or other weaving loom with a 15-dent reed
- additional weaving tools dependent upon the loom and the preferred warping method: shuttle, bobbins, tapestry needle, cloth tape measure or ribbon, 2 T-pins, fringe twister (optional).
Materials
WARP YARN
- 1 skein SweetGeorgia Mohair Silk Sock in Lizzy Line *see yardage notes below
WEFT YARN
- 1 skein SweetGeorgia 20/2 Mulberry Silk in Twilight
Instructions
WARPING THE LOOM
- Warp your rigid heddle loom using your preferred warping method. While winding the warp onto the beam, try to keep even gentle tension on the warp. For help with how to warp a loom, we recommend reading Felicia Lo's Direct Warping on a Rigid Heddle Loom post, or Amanda Wood's Hybrid Warping article. You can also check out Felicia's Rigid-Heddle Weaving Basics or Essential Weaving courses at the School of SweetGeorgia for video lessons to guide you through the steps.
WEAVING THE SCARF
- Using the Mulberry Silk 20/2 yarn, weave plain weave for the desired length, placing each weft pick at about 7 picks per inch. Remember to cultivate squares of open space between warp and weft.
- Complete the hemstitching, cut the hemstitch yarn and weave in ends.
- Wet-finish the scarf and roll in an absorbent towel to remove excess moisture. Hang to dry completely. Enjoy!
Notes
- Weave Structure: Plain weave
- Picks Per Inch (PPI): 7
- Loom: Schacht Cricket Loom with a 15-dent reed
- Direct warping: 90 inches, 150 ends
- Warp Yarn: SweetGeorgia Mohair Silk Sock (used about 90g)
- Weft Yarn: SweetGeorgia 20/2 Mulberry Silk (used about 25g)
- Hemstitching beginning and end, cut 4 inches fringe
