coat/cloak yardage

Ages ago, sometime last December, I started winding the warp for this project.  It is yardage for a sacque coat, although I have cloak in brackets on my project notes.  I had two bouts wound and tied off.  I set them in a bag and proceeded to get involved in other things.   Right now there are at least a half dozen project for my loom, using new techniques or big things like coverlets.   There are at least another half dozen  of really should do/ want to do projects.   Some of the above dozen even have projects sheets written out, drafts done and fibre collected.   

Sometimes though I get a bit overwhelmed with what to do next.   There are way too many choices and which one do I do next?   So I ran across the warp chains for this project and realized that getting it out of the way would be a good thing.  Plus of course, winter at Westfield does need winter outerwear.  While the costume department is well stocked, having my own is always a nice thing.

The yarn is 100% wool.  It is carpet mill ends from a now out of business high end rug manufacturer.   It is amazingly soft.   They called it a 4 ply crepe yarn, but after looking at it, it is a 4 ply chained yarn.   I've no idea if it is crepe or not, but it is definitely a chained yarn - not chained as in Navajo/chain plying though.

I wasn't sure of the yardage as we bought it by the pound and I have a fair bit of it, 2 cones of the white and one each of the brown and blue.  This meant I had to make an educated guess at how long a warp to make and if I could actually get the project I wanted out of it.   I ended up with a 9.5 yard warp which was 26 inches wide in the loom - sett of 10.  The yarn wpi was 14, 15 if I pushed them close together, so a sett of 10 should work for a twill.  I did a quick test swatch back when I was planning this and it looked okay.

I was lucky that I wrote down the numbers of threads in the colour order on my project notes.  What I didn't write down is that when winding the first 2 chains, I changed the number of white threads in the large section.  So instead of 30 threads, it was 32.   This meant that as I was threading the loom, I had to run back to my warping board and wind off 6 more threads, plus 2 for floating selvedges.   What a pain that was.   None the less, it went on the loom perfectly.  I wound off the remaining 2/3 of the warp, sleyed the reed, threaded the heddles and wound it on on a single day, with the help of a lot of Star Trek - the original series. That evening I wove the first 14 inches :)

Now I'm looking for the sacque coat pattern.  I know that I have a copy someplace.   I remember tracing it off.  I remember folding it up and putting it in a plastic ziplock bag.  I remember putting it away.   It isn't anywhere I can find.   It sure isn't where I thought I'd put it.  It isn't with the rest of my historical patterns - in 3 different bins no less, nor is it with my fabric or even my weaving supplies.   At least I have a bit of time - or I can just make a cloak with the yardage.   However, I do have the yarn already set aside for the actual cloak project....   

I'm taking my time weaving this off.   It requires counting threads as well as treadles.  Luckily with a plain twill, my feet can pretty much go without actual counting.