OH NO! I am out of bobbins.
How many times have you gone to wind a new bobbin only to find all your bobbins are full of yarn from previous projects? You can go to the store and purchase more bobbins, or you can create warps using the yarn you have on the bobbins - my preference.
Here in the studio, I have clear shoe boxes labeled for different weights of yarn. Students put their bobbins with leftover yarn in the shoe boxes. Sometimes, a student checks the box to see if there is a yarn color they would like to try for the weft for their project. For the most part, the boxes fill up every few months.
To create a warp from the yarn on the bobbins, I first sort the yarns by fiber, color, and weight.
Depending on the fiber content, I think about what I could weave. I could do warp emphasis or rep weave mug rugs, fabric to make journal covers, zippered pouches, pincushions, cards, key-rings, scarves, sachets, bookmarks, origami pillows, potholder, and the list can go on and on.
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I often mix the weights of yarns and will blend several thin strands to create a thicker yarn. Or I will take a thinner yarn and wind it together with a thicker yarn just to use up the thinner yarn. It can create a yarn with an accent color or, if the thin and thick are the same color, it just blends in. As one strand runs out, either tie it off to either end of the warp or add another strand of yarn.
Left:
Bambu 7 and Bambu 12 wound together
Right:
6 strands of Bambu 12 wound together
For this warp, I chose to do an ocean color theme using the bamboo yarns. For perle cotton yarns, I usually do mug rug warps.
I generally make a warp 3 yards long. If I have many bobbins with lots of yarn on them, I sometimes do a 5-yard warp.
If many bobbins are wound of one color, I may put them aside to use as the weft.
I line the bobbins up in the color sequence that I want to wind. This generally gets changed as I wind and see how many ends result from the bobbin. Most of the time, I will wind two colors at the same time to create blended stripes.
When I run out of a color, I tie on a new color so the color blending is random. If I have a piece of yarn is not 3 yards long, I cut into 11 inch lengths to use for thrum potholders. I try to waste very little yarn.
I generally use a warp emphasis sett:
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Bambu 7 20 – 24 epi
3/2 and 5/3 cotton ranges from 20 – 40 epi; I tend to mix these two weights together so the 3/2 creates a textured effect
Wools depend on whether I am felting the fabric. If I am felting, I set the epi looser so the fibers have more space to move and felt.
I warp front to back. This allows me to move some ends around if I do not like the stripe pattern I wound.
You can use any weave draft. I keep it simple because there are so many color changes. Plain weave or twill are my favorite. It depends on what the fabric will be made into.
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For weft, I chose a color to emphasize the warp stripe pattern.
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This warp emptied 22 bobbins
288 ends
At 20 epi, width in reed 14.4”
At 24 epi, width in reed 12”
Potholder using thrums on the loom
Warps wound from yarn on bobbins
On the loom
Have fun creating and weaving fabrics from the yarn left on your bobbins!