Gifted wool shawl

I did a bit of design work at MGT on my first real weaving project, a double-woven shawl out of various skeins of worsted wool that have been gifted to me.  Here’s the colors.

Shawlcolortest1

I have approx. 408 yards of the taupe, 322 yards of lavender, 364 yards of rose, and 945 yards of rust.

They are all 8 wraps/inch, but because I want the shawl to drape nicely, I think I’m going to weave at a sett of 4 ends/inch, remembering that double-woven fabric cuts its warp sett in half…

Maybe I want a 36" wide shawl.  In that case, I need to warp 18" of the loom at 8 ends per inch.  A shawl should be at least 2.5 yards long, or 90" long.  At a beat of 4 throws/inch, that’s 360 picks, or rows.  (2.5 x 36" x 4 = 360) 360 yards of weft.  I have 945 yards of rust.  That’s lots extra.  Good.

What if I wanted a 48" wide shawl?  That would be 24" warped at 8 ends per inch.  2.5 yards long at 4 picks/inch (90"x 4/inch = 360 rows, but x 48" for the 48" wide = 17280 inches /36)= 480 yards of warp.  Still good, and leaves me 465 yards to put in the warp.

Warp:  Minimum length of warp is 2 yards + 24" for loom waste/fringe.  My new warping board will measure 4.5 yards.  Let’s think 3 yards for a few inches of sample.  So testing 3 yards:

408/3 = 136 ends of taupe.  I have eight in that sample weaving.
322/3 = 107 ends of lavender.  Again eight.
364/3 = 121 ends of rose.  Again eight.
and a few ends of rust.

The sample weaving has some teal alpaca in it, but I’m still not sure about it.

36 inches of width, x 4 ends per inch = 144 ends.  Again, I’m fine on the warp.  Great.  What about a 4.5 yard warp?

408/4.5 = 90 ends taupe
322/4.5 = 71 ends lavender
364/4.5 = 80 ends rose
405/4.5 = 90 ends rust

I’d really like to use up all the lavender and rose on this project, and have them be really wide stripes.

71 + 80 = 151 ends.  I could have a wider shawl.  I’m not going to use up all the lavender and rose, am I?  I may leave out the lavender altogether – it contrasts with the rose/rust/taupe monochrome, but not in the same way as the teal, which is a perfect counterpoint.

A 48" shawl: 48" x 4 ends per inch = 192 ends

That leaves me with:
80 ends rose
80 ends taupe
20 ends rust
12 ends teal

and enough extra warp to beat twice as tight if I discover the drape is okay.

I should redo my color test.

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