Weaving with cotton singles

I was excited to get to my loom today as I was going to begin weaving a scarf with my cotton singles spun on my book charkha.  This is natural coloured cotton, not sure of the source.  I got it from KBN.

Yesterday I wound a little warp, only six inches wide and long enough for two scarves, from 2/8 bamboo.  This is not the weight system I am used to for bamboo. Jane Stafford, one of my weaving gurus, lists her Bambu yarn in 7 gauge and 12 gauge.  But I got this from Knotty By Nature (KBN) in Victoria, BC and it is tagged as 2/8.  One more weaving mystery...

By the way, when I looked up Jane's site I found that she is now stocking variagated bamboo in both gauges - very tempting!

Anyway, the lovely woman from KBN said she had used this yarn for the warp when she wove her first scarves with her charkha spun singles, so I got some in two colours.

To get back on track:  I threaded a 4,3,2,1 plain weave on my 4 shaft Baby Wolf and sleyed it at 16 epi.  I am a bad girl who does not always sample.  I chose 16 epi because I wanted a fairly open sett and found 15-22 as a recommended sett for 2/8 cotton.  My first scarf will be my sample (bad weaver; slap those hands!)

So, this morning I was ready to start.  I had already spread the warp with some cotton yarn.  I had decided that I would have fringe with the bamboo warp.  I did not want to try hemstitching with my cotton singles, so wove a pic of bamboo, a pic of cotton and another pic of bamboo.  Then I was ready to hemstitch.  Oh heck!  I forgot to bring an embroidery needle. 

I pawed through the little sewing kit I had made up for Bruce and took the needle with the largest eye.  I was able to thread the bamboo using a needle threader.  Being careful not to split threads with the sharp point of the needle, I did the hemstitching.  Here is a picture of the needle and hemstitching.  Doesn't the colour of the bamboo and the cotton match nicely?

And here is a picture of the lovely shuttle, also from KBN, designed to hold the spindles from the charkha.  I love it!  No steps in between spinning and weaving!

The weaving is slow but steady.  I don't want to beat too hard and I need to angle the weft as I lay it in.  Also, the singles wants to twist a bit.  But I am thrilled with the look of the weaving and that the cotton is holding together (so far - don't want to jinx things).  Here it is after a bit more weaving.

I used a shoelace that Bruce didn't want to lash the warp on, but don't think I did it right.  It is working, so I won't question it too much now.  Will look up someone else's blog for a review before doing it again.  Now I need to get back to weaving.