Simply Happy Towels 😊 🌈

 

Sometimes I go back and revisit a draft and work with it again. Perhaps modify it, sometimes leave it as is.

This is my third time using this simple 6 shaft herringbone twill (four times if you include a scarf some years back too).   I have been asked to make more kitchen towels and when I ask them why, or what it is about the towels, they say "they are fun and colourful and make me happy when I use them".

A kitchen towel..... bringing smiles to household chores.   😁

Shared stories: A husband who asked where his favourite towel was, and going to the dryer to get it.   Two kids arguing about who gets the 'good towel'!

People who now use a clean fresh towel to rest dishes to dry rather than a draining board that gets slimy if not washed every day.... and who washes them every day? 

So I wound up an 8 yard warp and planned on 7 towels woven to 37 inches each and approximately 25 inches in the reed. They end up after wet finishing and hemming as approx 22 1/2 inches wide by 30 inches. 

I've had nice compliments on my colour choices.  I use rich deep colours in the little 2 end stripes and place colours that compliment each other.  A sampling across the rainbow or colourwheel.  The photo above shows the latest grouping.    If I could go back and change one thing, I would use a royal blue and not a navy blue.... but they are done.    The stripes are doubled ends of 8's cotton, treated as though they are one end.   I thought about using 8/4 cottons but I feel the ply would be rounder than two 8/2's and be more of a physical bump in the fabric.   If someone actually tries this, let me know how it went.    

Anyhoo.... I used 8/2 as I have more of it and a greater variety of colours and that was more important to me. 

The neutral in-between in this case is natural undyed 8/2 cotton.   It supports the stripes and let them shine and is the frame work for the 'best supporting actor' or weft yarn.    Also 8/2 cotton and I purposely go looking for medium to neutral shades such as the light grey, taupe and ivory cream.  But then you get braver and play with some  candy or gelato colours / flavours:  pale orange or 'creamsicle'.... light lime or 'limeade'..... or soft turquoise or 'mint'.    I carried on the candy theme and taupe became 'caramel' and ivory became 'Devon Cream'.    Salmon pink became 'bubblegum'.   You help create the fun right there on the loom!

Here's caramel 

Lime-ade was popular on my FB Thrums page. Over 800+ clicks!  😳

It took me  a while to weave off due to Life intervening (Hub was in hospital again) and also my policy of weaving for shorter time periods and stopping before I get tired or start to hurt (lower back etc). Kind of a less is more philosophy.  

But they were soon off, shown here serged apart, washed and steam pressed, waiting for hems to be turned.

Then I hand sewed the hems while we watched the TV. Thank goodness for longer daylight!  A final steam press on the hems to flatten after sewing and they were done. 

Simple and happy!   Can be a towel or a table runner. 

Hub wanted to keep one of us and I said sure! Which one?

While he was making up his mind, 4 sold to one customer..... I told him to hurry up! 😁

Here's the draft and that's a handweaving.net number so you can go there and download the WIF file and then play with colour.    8/2 set for twill is 24 epi.      Show me what you can do with this!

Seeing Stars

Its the Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and I hope my Canadian readers are enjoying family and good food!  Its a busy time of year with getting  the flower beds and gardens cut back for winter and other preparations. We were both inspired to get out and get busy one day and it seems our timing was perfect as its rained ever since!

I have been soldiering on and finally wove off the last of eleven yards of kitchen towels. The first post is here  including the draft and story. Since then that loom has been busy every day with weaving the yardage off and makes for dull reporting! My Louet has been sitting idle and 'naked' (horrors!) but that's changing soon.  More on that another time.   :)

Since this warp was all white with a few stripes, I can recall going through 3-4 cones of 8/2 cotton while winding the warp and about the same again as I wove. Once the warp came off the loom and I carried it all rolled up to the sewing table I was quite taken with the sheer weight of all that effort!

This is nine of the ten towels all rolled up beside the serger, with the first towel stretched across and being trimmed up on the serger. I usually cut and tie onto my new colour of serger thread and pull through. An acceptable cheat I think given the dismal all black and white hand drawn sketch of where the threads go for all four cones! Well, I forgot to take off the tension and some threads broke mid way. Two hours later I finally had it rethreaded and now my machine and sketch are colour coded against future faux paus. Something I should have done years ago! 

So here they are all folded and piled up waiting for the hemming !

I didn't think you'd want to wait another week or so while they are hand hemmed! They'd look like this after anyhow  :)

They are quite different from my other towels I've woven up in the past two years. Simpler pattern, and colours. They were easy to thread and treadle and I wove one up every day at 34 inches (okay most days!)

They are also a bit different in how I placed my pattern stripes. Its hard to show you clearly so I got out our little step ladder and took this picture. Not very artistic but it gets the point across!

(Click to enlarge)  The hems will be a small rolled hem so they are generous sized towels. I'll have to check the shrinkage once wet finished.  There are blue stars on the front and yes, it finally worked out right so they are reversible and have white stars on the back:

Once the holiday weekend is over, all heck is going to break out around here (again) as the work will begin on hooking the newly dug well to the house which is 300 feet away. Our driveway will look a bit rough for a few days. Three days if things go well and five if not! Wish us luck! I am so looking forward to a shower with full normal water pressure again...

Oh, and our new well is  'artesianing'  as we found to our surprise! The water level had filled all 182 feet of the pipe, plus the two feet above ground and has been trickling out the top cap. This caught our plumber by pleasant surprise and apparently its a good thing!  We will have lots of water for all our needs.  

Something to be thankful for....