Swing Coat 400 pattern from Daryl Lancaster

Samples-details in binder

Warp
10 yards
45” on loom (not including 5/8” 10/2 cotton selvedges on each side)
Epi 36
1620 ends
15,309 yards of 10/2 cotton (navy) and 10/2 Tencel (black) alternating cotton/Tencel threads
2lbs Tencel, 2 lbs cotton

Weft
Lace weight Mokka (35% alpaca, 35% mohair, 30% silk) from Colourmart, black
1000 meters per 100g
4920 yards per pound

Selvedges: 10/2 cotton, 5/8” each side (to be cut off)

Weaving Details
I wound four bouts, with a cross on both ends. However, I lost one of the crosses. I decided to try using the counting string as a raddle cross, and experimented with a raddle fixed on the back beam. This was a failure, even with the trapeze. Because I didn’t use lease sticks in addition to the raddle, the yarn beamed on all bunched up, like a sectional beam without the protective sides of the dowels. Warp was slipping and uneven, and I couldn’t get good tension or shed. So, I wove a small sample, cut it off, and rebeamed the warp.
The rebeaming process was horrible. Yarn was handcuffing and getting caught constantly. I slowly wound the warp through the heddles and reed onto the front beam. It took a day and a half, extremely slow. A few broken ends.
Once the warp was on the front beam, with the help of my most patient husband, we rebeamed it onto the back beam. He turned the wheel and inserted sticks. I evened the warp out in front of the loom and held it with my hands as evenly as possible, pulling the warp to tighten after each turn of the wheel. This took 4 hours. But it worked. However, I lost two yards in the process. I cut and tied the warp onto the back beam (because it was too uneven for loops) which created large bumps that had to be covered with sticks. Ughhh.
Finally, I wove 7 yards, 33” on the loom. Off loom, 7 yards, 21”.
45” off loom, including cotton. 43 3/4” wide off loom measured without cotton selvedges.

Samples
Samples indicate very little shrinkage in width and 8% in height (length) with hand washing and air drying.

With machine washing (cold or warm) in regular laundry detergent and hot machine dryer, 8% shrinkage in both width and length.

Fabric should be around 7 yards long and 40” wide when finished. The pattern calls for 6.5 yards of 45” fabric with shawl collar. I should have enough fabric.

Saga of the supplemental warp:
I first wound small bouts of lurex (some bouts black, some blues and purples) to add to the plain weave sections of the draft. There were 13 repeats of the draft, so I needed 26 small 10-yard bouts for the two colors. However, I wound several bigger bouts of 2 or 3 repeats. Little tiny bouts of 11 threads was so tedious, I thought I could save time. I rigged up my Angel wings as a supplemental “beam” and threaded one repeat. It became apparent that this would not work. Way too many bouts with weights and tangly lurex. After I wove the sample, I cut the tangly mess off.
I despaired of never having lurex in the cloth. I tried putting it in the weft, and realized this would create weftwise stripes that would need to be matched in coat. No bueno. So, I wove a few inches without any lurex. I kept thinking, “shroud.”
So, I tried again. This time, I only wound colors, 3 strands together of blues and purples, into 2 bouts. I threaded the lurex into the large plain weave section of each repeat (the threads on shafts 7&8). I only threaded every 4th heddle; each section had 9 threads. I tensioned the bouts with s-hooks over the lease sticks, keeping the cross. Once I got even tension on the lurex, this worked perfectly. No shroud. Or perhaps, please bury me in sparkly lurex.

Wet finishing
I secured the edges with zig zag stitch on my trusty Kenmore. I washed the whole 7 yards in the machine, normal cycle, warm water. It washed beautifully, nice bloom. I dried it in a medium hot dryer for 15 min. It came out damp, but beautiful. I ironed it lightly and laid it out on the bed (folded) to dry overnight.

Sewing
Wish me luck!