Rayon chenille and I go way back.
All the way to the mid-90's. I wove rayon chenille scarfs for sale at a crafts gallery here in Iowa until last year when I finally decided that, even though they were still selling, I wanted to expand my repertoire. I needed to do new stuff, so I have cut back. I'll still do them from time to time, but only for sale in my Etsy shop.
I subscribe to an email discussion list and recently the topic came up on how to process chenille scarfs after they come off the loom. So I decided to do a little step-by-step tutorial on how I have done it forever. I own a few of my scarfs and wear them and they seem to stand the test of time.
For weaving, I sett 2000 yards per pound chenille at 20 epi and 1450 yards per pound at 16 epi. I weave headers with thick cotton like Lily Sugar 'n Cream, generally 6 or 7 inches at the beginning and end of each scarf. When they come off the loom I put a row of machine stitching (or zigzag) at the very end of the header to keep it in place, then trim any excess off. If I have three or four scarfs on the same warp, I run two rows of stitching and cut them apart between the rows.
If you squint you can see the zigzag stitching right at the bottom...
Next I run the scarfs through a gentle, short, cold water cycle in the washing machine, carefully monitoring while excess water is wrung out. The next step is a trip to the dryer on the hottest setting until the scarfs are thoroughly dry and softened.
Then I begin the process of fringing. First I remove the header. I save as much of the cotton as I can to re-use in future projects.
After the header is removed I tie the fringe at the top in overhand knots. I always put six threads in each knot.
The next step is to twist each fringe group using my Schacht fringe twister. Each bout of six is divided into three and then I let the fringe twister do its magic, then tie another overhand knot at the bottom.
And voila:
When I first did my first ever rayon chenille scarf I tied and twisted the fringe and then washed and put the scarf in the dryer. Parts of the fringe escaped their neat little twisties, and that was it for me. Only post-wash twisting from then on!
Here's a preliminary shot of the finished scarf:
Posted with Blogsy
