Lightweight Lace Scarf

Designed and woven by Gail Matthews


With only a week left before the weaving had to be done, I decided to enter my local weaving guild’s yearly challenge. Lace was the theme, and this scarf was my entry. I looked through my yarn stash and found this baby alpaca and silk laceweight yarn that seemed like a good choice. This scarf is soft and lightweight—and just right to wear on a cool summer evening.


Project Specs

Warp length: 84” long (includes 18” loom waste)

Number of ends: 144

Width in reed: 12”

EPI: 12

PPI: 12

What You'll Need

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    • Knitpicks Shimmer (70% baby alpaca and 30% silk), 440 yards/skein, 2 skeins of Eucalyptus

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    • Flip rigid heddle loom with at least 12" weaving width
    • 12-dent reed
    • one stick shuttle
    • two 16” pick-up sticks
    • extra apron rod or lease stick, 16” or longer

    • string for making heddles

    • masking tape

    Directions

    1. Warping: Warp the loom according to Project Specs above.

    2. Weaving: Weave a header with scrap yarn, making sure to leave about 6” of warp for fringe. Leave a tail of weft about 4 times the width of the warp. Start with the down shed and weave 12 picks of plain weave. Hemstitch the end of the scarf— I hemstitched bundles of four warp ends.

    3. With the heddle in the down position, pick up pattern A following the pattern instructions below. Pattern stick A will remain in place throughout the weaving. You will need to pick up pattern B each time it is needed. Alternately, you can save pattern B on a heddle bar using string heddles.

      Pick-up Pattern A

      Skip 6, (pick up 3, skip 3) 10 times, pick up 3, skip 6 at the end

      Pick-up Pattern B

      Skip 9, (pick up 3, skip 3) 9 times, pick up 3, skip 9 at the end

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    1. Down
    2. Up & pattern stick A

    3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 four times.

    4. Down
    5. Up
    6. Down

    7. Up & pattern stick B

    8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 four times.

    9. Down
    10. Up

    11. Repeat the above pattern for the length of the scarf. End with 12 picks of plain weave. Hemstitch the end of the scarf and remove it from the loom.

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    1. Make a twisted fringe on both ends, using a total of 8 warp ends for each fringe (4 for each group).
    2. Wash by hand in lukewarm water, roll in a towel to press out the water and lay flat to dry.

    © 2010 Schacht Spindle Company