Woven Mohair: The Rug is Finished

I am done, and the results are stunning. Mr. IT Guy is going to set his feet on luxury:

I knew that the mohair fibers would lose more vm with the weaving, washing, fulling, and drying process. I was pleasantly surprised when I checked the rug for dryness--essentially all of the vm was gone!

The fulling process allowed the rug to develop some strength. I had originally struggled with weaving the weft too tightly, but this mohair has allowed me to practice beating the weft so it doesn't get too tight (and thus, too firm). When I first took this rug off the loom, it was extremely flexible and perhaps a bit loose. Here is the unfulled version:

Here is the fulled version:

You can see how the weft looks tighter, presumably because the warp shrunk just slightly. The bits of lock which stick out of the novelty mohair yarn have reached across to its neighbors to fill in the gaps, in a dendritic way. This fabric looks and feels more dense than the original rug without losing its supple flexibility. Further, it is obvious from these photos that the shine has not diminished much during this fulling process.

The mohair rug took on a slightly fuzzier appearance after the fulling, but it is more like a halo than an eyelash yarn. Again, is still looks like a Berber rug to me, in color and in texture.

My final thoughts. Weaving with mohair is a grand pleasure to work with. The extra work to remove vm at each stage along the way was worth my effort. This mohair is the opposite of 'less than stellar'--simply, it's stunning.

The next time I buy mohair, I will be discerning, as I always should be, but I won't be so allergic to seeing vm stuck in the locks. A little bit of vm is easily worked out of the locks without destroying its incredible texture and lock formation--mohair seems to naturally curl up together. You can bet that when I get my hands on one or two mohair fleeces, I will definitely make myself a soft blanket.