🎁 Towels for the Times

There is an awful lot going on in the World right now and frankly, not much of it is good. I guess that's why many weavers are doing just that... weaving, or spinning.   

Counting our blessings where we find them.   

In the evenings we find ourselves watching movies and seeing people in them all gathered together for meals,  concerts and wonder at it all.  People hugging one another and walking side by side.  We took such simple things for granted.

Its almost like someone did open up Pandora's Box and let the demons out!

I started winding this warp  in the 'before times'. Ten yards of  soft,  nice quality Egyptian cotton.  It was in my stash as a large three pound cone, along with another three pound cone of black. Not entirely sure where I bought it but its lovely. (I think it was Lone Star Loom Room.)

The idea behind this warp was to simply sit and weave  and enjoy the process. Listen to music or podcasts or just the silence.   Then the pandemic hit and we  stayed inside our homes and the choice to use bright cheerful colours as weft really made sense to me to help lift spirits.   Little dancing boxes. 

I wish I could share the soft lofty feel of these towels. You can see how squishy they are!
Grape, creamsicle, honey, and key lime.

Then there are the blue cool tones: bubblegum, peacock, blueberry and raspberry.

Towel number nine was created from having left over yarn on many pirns. So I created a colour way that worked together to use them up.  I call this one Candy Mix..... but it easily could be called "All colours under the sun matter".   This towel  is winging its way to my daughter as she is trying to work out what colour to paint her kitchen so something in this one will work!  😁  🌈

The 16 shaft draft was sett at 24 epi and they were woven to 35 inches. Width in the reed was 24 inches.  After a small turned hem they measure  21 wide by 28 inches long. So a fair amount of shrinkage.   The threading is a point twill and so is the treadling; all the pattern is in the tie-up.

A couple with the hem flipped to show the other side, which is equally nice. Boxes again, or if you look at them with a tilt of the head, there is almost a Celtic like intertwining.  If I had woven two towels in each colour, I would have turned one towel the opposite way and so they would be a nice set.   Maybe next time....

Here's the draft from Handweaving.net that I used showing two repeats of the treadling.   The draft is our road map to a successful project, along with some 'local knowledge'.

Maybe that's why everyone is feeling so discombobulated right now? There's no clear road map to a goal. Life feels on hold and if things are opening up again, it feels weird.   

So perhaps the little daily personal successes mean so much more right now. 

Some lovely peonies from a friend's garden.... and left on our front doorstep as a gift.   Huge blossoms and so lush.  The white ones were especially fragrant.   Thank you Donna! 💞

One Step at a Time

While I'm embarrassed to say how long this project has been going on, I'm also happy to crow that it's finally  finished now!  Do you ever have a project that you are happy to start but it turns into the longest 'short' warp ever?

So what happened? Well, I love the big loom... my Woolhouse Tools countermarche, but she needs a full leg extension to treadle and that can aggravate a lower back problem. So what happens is that what ever is on the loom must wait until I can treadle again comfortably.

Then add my left knee into the mix and a right foot as well and it complicates the issue.  While I complain about health issues, I rarely go into much depth on this topic but this time I will explain what I do know. I need a left knee replacement and waiting to see a surgeon. Then after that is done and healed, my right foot needs a mid foot bone fusion.  That requires a full three months to heal properly with no weight on the foot.  I drew the short straw when it came to the family's arthritis gene pool! None of this will be happening for at least a year

I share this as I'm not producing as much finished weaving as I used to and so things here at the blog will naturally reflect that. I'm continuing to weave regardless, but just not that fast.  

Baby Boomers are getting older and with that comes health problems such as worn out joints. It makes good sense that loom builders consider some modifications to their looms or at least have them available as options.  The 20+ tie up assist on my Woolhouse was one of those adaptations  and its very name means "twenty plus more years of weaving". I added mine after my hip replacement in 2001. It sure made life easier not having to crawl under the loom for tie up's.

Enough of my woes and lets get on with the towel project...

The draft came from Handweaving.net and is threaded like a turned twill. Its the tie up that adds the twist! The draft above shows the two variations I used separated by a black stripe. More on them later.

I used 22/2  cottolin that I bought way back when from Nordic Studios when it still resided in Canada. (It was later sold and evolved into the Lone Star Loom Room ).  My sett was 24 epi and my warp was 8.06 yards for seven towels. (see what I mean about not that long??) The idea was six towels for sale and one for us. I like large towels and so they were 25"  in the reed and a total of 618 ends. I literally had enough cottolin left for one floating selvedge only and the second had to be 8/2 cotton. The two pound cone was barely enough for the warp. I haven't come quite this close before!

My weft was 8/2 cotton from Brassards that I have on hand so this project was helping with stash reduction. 

I found the treadling of simply going from treadle one to treadle twelve the easiest on my joints. The work was evenly shared by both legs and so after one towel woven  turned twill style, I went back to the simpler version and did the other six towels the same. I made each of them a different colour and once off the loom and edges secured by the serger they looked to be a happy bunch! (see the very top picture)

I enjoy hand sewing the hems. I also find there is no obvious stitch line like a sewing machine produces. It hangs smoothly with no buckling along the hem line. The sewing holds up nicely and I have a combination cottolin and cotton towel that was hand hemmed back in 1998 that is washed regularly and still looks great. Remember that sewing machines are a 'modern' invention and for many hundreds, if not thousands of years it was just the simple needle and thread.

They were washed and hung to dry out doors on my drying rack. I brought them in for ironing while still a touch damp.  The final measurements were 23" by 28" so generously large.

lime

cinnamon

peach

royal blue

bubblegum pink

moss green

plum

I also managed to get an additional square measuring 24" by 24" in plum which I'm turning into a table centre and crocheting an edging. I'll show you that when its all done. Then were even some samples for my records which is always nice.    This project was hard work but I took it one step, literally, at a time....