Scrumptious Texture n these 5/2 American Made Cotton Towels!
Made on my sturdy Kessenish 4-shaft Floor Loom
Yes-- this is the 4-shaft pattern.
All straight lines creating lovely circles!
I am in love!
And they are really nice and soft, too.
I had to make a few adjustments from the Lunatic Fringe pattern kit since my weaving width is only 30 inches, not 36.
I changed the pattern to run 29 inches.
On the loom, in formation even with stretcher bars, it shrank down to 26 inches.
After washing and fulling, it narrowed down to just over 23 inches.
That's to be expected.
3 62-inch towels on an 8-yard warp.
Plus an shorter half-size towel with the remainder.
I expected that I would have to bind 2 towels together to make it truly spa size.
Here is a shot comparing the textured pattern weave with the modified plain weave for the hems.
For the washing and fulling, I left some fringe on, knowing it would be cut off when I got around to the hems. I put a piece of the 5/2 cotton along side for comparison, so you can see just how much this yarn puffed up after being washed and fulled. It's quite a lovely transformation.
This is really nice yarn to work with! I didn't break a single warp thread on this project!
Be brave! Weavers are often reluctant to cut their handwoven cloth -- as if it will fall apart!
Here I am cutting the 3-1/2 towels apart. I used a purple contrasting thread to be a divider.
Easier to cut straight too.
Because my weaving width is narrower than the pattern was designed for, I had to make some adjustments. I planned to weave a 30-inch width, that wound up being 29 inches -- rather than the 34-inches in the pattern. By the time it was washed and fulled, that width was down to a little over 23 inches.
The pattern had more than enough cotton yarn for 3 towels, so I took the third towel and split it in half.
Zigzagged down the raw edges with my walking foot.
And then lapped it to the 2 remaining whole towels.
The photo above shows that lapped edge -- it blends so nicely, you can barely see the seams!
In the end, I think my towels are just a little wider than the ones the pattern called for.
The textured part is woven to 62 inches under tension on the loom. I think I'd make them just a little longer next time, too.
On the back side, I covered the "raw" edge with cotton twill tape 1-inch wide.
Yes-- I pre-washed the twill tape so I wouldn't have problems with differential shrinkage.
This also matches well enough.
Here's the top side of the seam.
This one shows the top side of the seam, and the underside with the twill tape.
This worked out better than I thought it would.
Here's I'm trying to show off the scalloped border.
Here you see the plain weave hem at the top of the photo.
Here is is stacked nice and neat.
I wish I would have planned better -- I'd have put on a longer warp to make another towel. I had 1 whole cone leftover (about 1 pound +)
I am so pleased with these, I think I will definitely make more cotton towels.
Maybe even some cotton blankets someday, too?
We'll see ...
Comparing the weave structure before (below) and after (above) washing and fulling.
This is what it looked like fresh off the loom, but before washing and fulling.
It's starting to take shape.
Another one showing it fresh off the loom. The strings are still coming into formation.
Just to refresh your memory, this is what it looked like on the loom, under tension.
The 1-2 sequence in the plain weave for the hems.
The Fiesty Knitter did this project a while back on her 8-shaft loom.
It's a more complicated version, but essentially the same.
See previous posts about this project:
1 comment:
Speechless!
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