Silk Hiro

I've gotten all my cotton tea towels off my loom and my next project is going to be a couple scarves made out of silk hiro. It's a beautiful braided fibre with a lot of elasticity. I'm not sure if that's the actual name, or if it's just a new yarn type, because I can't find it anywhere online. But I have 2 skeins of it left over from a sweater that I knit in class last semester, so I figure I should use it.

I've never woven with it before, and I'm worried that the scarves might not end up the actual length I want it to due to the elasticity. So... drum roll please, I'm doing a SAMPLE. My teachers would be so proud.

I'm doing a painted scarf, so I'm going to pretty much do the exact same steps for the sample as I would do for the real thing. The picture doesn't do it justice at all (I really need to work on my photography skills), but I dyed it with acid dyes in Raspberry and Saffron, in a striped pattern, but having the colours slightly overlap. I'm not sure if I'll actually use these colours in the scarves I plan to make.

Anyway, it started out at 50" and after I'd dyed it was 36"! That's a crazy shrink rate! It was definitely dried with a weight on it before it was sold. I'm super happy that I did a sample now because I would have probably only ended up with one full size scarf and a tiny little extra bit.

Once the sample warp is dry, I'm going to put it on the loop and see how it looks. First step is to determine what threading I will use. Any suggestions?

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