Up To My Eyeballs In Thrums

Day 108: Weaving of almost any sort generates an incredible amount of waste in the form of warp at both ends of the cloth. On average, I allow for five or six feet of waste on the floor loom (when you're talking about 400 threads, that adds up!), three feet on the table loom, two feet or slightly more on the rigid heddle. Waste in bandweaving or inkle is negligible by comparison. These waste ends are called thrums, and my Scottish heritage will not allow me to throw them away.

And now that I've explained the usual way thrums come about, I have a confession to make. Yesterday, I was working on developing a new krokbragd pattern and when I thought I had it to a point where it would at least yield something useful even if it wasn't perfect, I warped it up on the inkle (the bonker being occupied by a very substantial herd of sheep currently). I began weaving it about half an hour before bedtime, and hadn't done more than five repeats of the feature character before I realized that it was not going to work. Nor was there any way I could redeem my design error. Fortunately, I had only hung the minimum warp (a little over three feet), but it was more waste than I could countenance. In a perfect fit of pique, I cut the threads and consigned the now-dead warp to my thrum bag which, considering the amount of weaving I've been doing lately, was beginning to bulge.

Now there are a number of uses for thrums, but I was up to my eyeballs in them. I needed a project which would use up a lot of them in fairly short order. I'd already tried spool-knitting them and wasn't happy with the results, and the call for finger-woven cords is rather minor. Crocheting cute little animals didn't appeal, and would have only used up some of the colours. I decided I'd try crocheting a pot holder with a double strand, tying on new colours randomly as each one runs out. So there you have it: I'm tying up all my loose ends! And yes, I've resolved the issue with my new krokbragd design.