.... and Yet More Towels..... 😁🎉

I guess you could say that I started my Christmas preparations in July by deciding to weave  kitchen towels to restock my Etsy store  and planned and pre-wound no less than five warps. This is warp number three.   Warp number four is over the half way mark and I just beamed warp number five.    I have no idea what is next after that!   (yet)

The idea is to have some lower price point items as this going to be a tough holiday season for everyone stretched money wise.   If they sell well, I may plan some more for at least one of the two looms....

I have woven this draft before and it's not only a feast for the eyes, it's also a fun easy weave too.  This warp was eight yards and so I got seven towels and some samples for my records. 

The draft is as shown and was modified from #728 from Carol Strickler's "Weavers Book of 8 Shaft Patterns.  I like to browse that classic book every so often.    I took advantage of the striping effect to use up some small part cones of royal and navy blues and even the purple.   Felt real good to empty the cones off and toss them into the recycle bin! 
 

Despite faithfully following the colour winding order, it seem I somehow slipped up and missed winding six ends of white in one section and so had to hang six film canisters that I 'chain ganged' using card board and a hole punch.  It kept them all separate and sort of behaved.   I would show you a picture but I forgot to take one!   I also had two floating selvedges as well. I set up a small stool to sit on behind the loom as when I unwind and reset the threads, it took some time. 

Choosing weft colours was also a challenge as I wanted to keep the fun stripes and bright colours and not swamp it with an over bright weft.   I end up using a colour called stone from Brassards which was the right shade of light grey and wove up three towels in this colour. Next up was an odd cone I found deep in my stash that had a tag that said it was 'clay'.  I call it porcelain clay.   Next to white it looked pinky beige and next to beige it looked white. Strange colour but it worked nicely.    The last towel also was a stash buster too as I found a small part cone of a light turquoise-y green and I had just enough to weave up the last full sized towel.

Serged them apart, soaked and washed, in the dryer and them steam pressed up.   Hems turned and pinned. It's quite the assembly line. 

I do a running blind stitch: through the fold of the hem.....

... then snag a thread or two on the outer layer and back into the fold. I slowly inch my way across while I half watch/ half listen to the TV.   I don't mind having hand work to do and enjoy it.  I like the smooth look it gives the front of the towel and a deep stitch line doesn't break the pattern up.   I have some hand sewn towels that are 20+ years old and hold on to machine washing very well. I've never had to do any repairs.

So there are seven towels but these are the three coloured wefts:

Then more of the individual towels open to show from and back.   They measure 21" x 30" all finished.

Porcelain clay weft (above and below)

Pale turquoise weft (above and below)

... and my favourite, stone  (above and below)

🍁🍁🍁

Here in Canada it's the Thanksgiving weekend and we plan to do up a nice dinner together tomorrow and watch the leaves on our chestnut tree turn gold and fall.    That sure was a long hot and very dry summer.  

We are also planning to get both our flu shot and covid boosters as soon as we can.  It's all part of getting ready for the season to come.    

Here's a favourite picture of a little Japanese maple at our last property. It would turn this bright red in the fall and seem to float in the air!
 

The Ever Popular # 728

 I belong to a weaving group on Facebook called Strickler in Color. Its where weavers share a draft they have woven based on the book and their interpretation and colour choices : The Weaver's Book of 8 Shaft Patterns by Carol Strickler.   

All drafts in this book are shown in black and white, or light, medium, and dark grey tones.   The focus is on the pattern. The focus of the group is show off colour!   How they have interpreted the draft.     By far and away the most popular draft is #728.    The draft just ends its self to so much variety and is just plain fun to weave.

It was actually submitted by Joan McCullough (of Campbellford, Ontario): Rosepath in multiple tabby weave, page 48, from The Rosepath Motif : An Approach to Weaving Design by Margaret Windeknecht. Published in 1987.

I have woven this before and  it seems the right time to do it again..... and in my favourite  colours and weft choice     So six towels all roughly 20" x 30".   8/2 cottons from Brassards, 24 epi, and hems are hand sewn to void the "stitch ditch" line.  

The hem is flipped so you can see the reverse.... its just as pretty on the other side!

The rather satisfying cloth roll before it was taken off the loom. Shown here with black weft for samples

I had a small bit of warp left and I thought I would weave some using the same red as in the warp. The idea was to embellish card inserts and make some Christmas cards.  Add some beads and sparkly bits.   I hand washed this red section and the red bled like a murder scene!   The white is a permanent pink and I have no idea of what to do with it now.   I washed the towels with no less than 8 colour catchers and rinsed until the water was clear.   I'm happy I did the red cloth first and saw the issue ahead of time.     So if you buy Brassards cottons, test them out first to make sure they are dye-fast!

We are enjoying a moment in the sunshine here. Its all about to come to an end and by the weekend we'll be into a large storm coming in off the Pacific with very serious winds and rain. We have done extra tie downs on the patio furniture covers and feel extra snug after our house painting this summer. Hub even made room in the garage for the car! ☔️ 💦 💨 🍂

The budgies are doing just fine and all settled in. I call them the Happy Gang after an old time radio show from the CBC and ran from 1937-1959 and enjoyed two million listeners.  

"The show was known for its "spontaneous humor, music, and corny jokes." 

Well, that describes these four birds completely. You just never know what is coming next as they play.  We have jazzed up the cage with perches,  2 swings, and treats.   Two swings?   well, they all tried to get on the triangle swing and so we got a second one to keep the noise down as they fought over who got the prime seating.

So here's the entire cage set up: 24" x 21" x 54" and on wheels. They are used to going for a ride and the vacuum doesn't phase them anymore.  Below, is Teal and you can see all the toys and swings. Yes, they are spoilt.   😁    

Adding Things Up

When you are weaving away on 9.5 yards, treadling one up to eight and back to one endlessly, you tend to go on autopilot and you can do a lot of singing along to music or simply thinking.   Things like: how many picks to an inch?

How many picks to 36 inches?

Gee... how many in this total project?

... and the big one.... how many miles have I woven in the past 25 years?  

So when I finally finished my 8 towels woven to 36 inches each on the loom and one runner that eeked out the last of the warp at 43 inches, I sat down and crunched some numbers:

• 8 towels and one runner equals 332 inches or  9.2 yards woven on my 9.5 yard warp.
• I averaged 22 ppi - or a total of  8047 pics total.
• physical weight of finished project : 1.334 kg or 2 lbs 15 oz
• That's 537 repeats of treadling the pattern repeat which has a count of 15
• The only unwoven parts of the loom waste was 3 inches plus knots at the start and 13 inches at end, plus 6 inches for part of the fringe on the runner when I started it.   The final  fringe at the end of the runner came out of the loom waste..... so effectively I had only 10 inches of loom waste for the entire project! 😁 I had factored in 3 inches of take up for every yard woven.
• oh, and half a box of Colour Catchers in the wash water as that red (cerise) wanted to run!

8/2 cotton from Brassard's: 6 colours in the warp and  another 4 used as weft.  Sett was 24 epi.

With black weft. (above and below)

With white weft.

Then I used a kaki green weft and loved the effect! It somehow worked with all the colour groups beautifully. I also used a plum colour but didn't get a picture of it on the loom under way.

Here's the end of the warp right up to the back of the heddles. I couldn't get another half inch !

There was a very satisfying "chubby roll" on the cloth beam, as I like to call it,  but it actually only was 1 1/2 inches. Well, it looked good to me!

Here's the loom waste from the start, plus the knots which is minimal.

....And the final loom waste from the end and remember that 6 inches of this will be fringe for the runner.

So the final fringe length on the runner after twisting was 2 inches plus the tassel and looks marvellous on our dining room table. Hubby was so pleased it was staying.  I'm also keeping a black weft towel and a kakhi green one.

Some one jokingly (I hope!) asked me why I had a jelly fish on my table.

Next are the 8 towels, all were woven to 36 inches and after relaxing off tension, washing, pressing and then turning a hem allowance and hand sewing, they are measured up as 20 inches by 30 inches. They all  pressed up nicely on my Singer press.

Three black ones

Then two with kakhi green weft. Its my personal favourite.

Next up are two towels with white weft. They are crisp and clean, with the stripes adding nice punch of colour, but you lose the zig zag pattern stripe.

Then finally the plum weft with is Hubby's favourite. It melded the colour groups too but not quite as effectively as the kaki green did, in my opinion of course.

I have kept fairly decent records of all my woven projects since 1996 and I could sit and work out some rough numbers and get an approximation of my last question which was of how many miles have I woven. Tempting as it is, I'm not going to spend the time doing that.

I'd rather be weaving new projects!