Adding a quarter inch of plain weave at each selvage makes weaving this a lot easier. you don’t have to worry about floating selvages and oddness at the edge because of floats. Same goes for the plain weave at the ends. It’s much easier to hem a plain weave towel on the sewing machine. I have also found that adding some fray check in addition to zig-zagging the raw edge of the finished towel, makes it easier to hem the corners. Also, do not attempt to machine hem this towel unless your sewing machine has a heavy duty motor.
MAFA2025-3748
This towel was adapted from a Colour-and-Weave Baby Blanket that I designed for a study group project.
It is log cabin colour-and-weave overlaid on broken twill blocks – with the colour order of the blocks being LDLD DLDL.
I wove three towels – one tromp-as-writ; one using natural weft; and one using rose weft. Each of the single weft colour towels was woven with a straight twill treadling.
I chose the tromp-as-writ towel for the exchange.
Towel uses two colours – one dark and one light – for this towel I chose rose and natural.
408 ends plus 1 floating selvedge each side = 410 ends total
Finished size: 17″x26″
MAFA2023-044
The threading is called huck variation by Russell E. Groff. I experimented with twill tie ups, but treadled as drawn, 121, 343, 121, 565, 787, 565.
Weaving in the reed was 20.5, “ and the shrinkage was 15%.
Total warp ends: 414 plus 1 floating selvage on each side.
Towel was hand hemmed.
MAFA2023-042
This wove up very easily. I like both the straight treadling, and the reversing.
I used organic cotton, natural, for the light weft. I find it softer than regular unmercerized, and more linty to weave. Perhaps more absorbent.
MAFA2023-040
Towel uses 2 variations of treadling with a traditional M & W twill pattern. Vary treadling and colors as desired. Floating selvedges are incorporated. Hems are woven with plain weave, folded and machine stitched. WIF file shows 2 options for colors and treadling. There are many more options.
MAFA2023-038
This Handweaving.net draft was enhanced with the use of color warp stripes and can then be woven in a number of complementary weft colors. I found some errors in the original draft which I corrected and changed the widths of the straight twill, braided twill and half-basket elements and half-basket weave sections.
I used Bluegrass Mills 6/2 cotton for both warp and weft. There were 410 ends sett at 20 epi. Towels were finished with a handsewn hem then machine washed and dried.
MAFA2023-030
This basic design was on the Handwoven Magazine website but woven in huck lace on 8 shafts. I liked the design and wanted to try some Swedish lace on 4 shafts so I modified the design and moved blocks around using weaving software. When I found a threading I liked, I could weave different towels by altering the treadling blocks and adding or deleting horizontal color stripes.
MAFA2023-024
Woven with 8/2 hemp (40%)/organic cotton (60%) yarn in both the warp and weft, ordered from Gather Textiles.
444 ends at 20 epi for a little over 22 inches in the reed (10 dent, 2 ends/dent). About 19 inches finished width.
Length was about 36″ under tension on the loom including hem. Finished length ~25 inches.
Hems were woven in pattern with 16/2 cotton, machine sewn.
Woven on a Macomber B5A 24″ floor loom (“Joanie”).
MAFA2023-021
This towel is 3/1 twill stripes of hand dyed yarn alternating with plain weave stripes. The plain weave stripes are sett at 20 epi and threaded straight draw on shafts 1-4. The twill stripes are sett at 30 epi and threaded straight draw on shafts 5-8. The warp had 340 ends of natural color for the plain weave stripes and 192 ends of hand dyed yarn for the twill stripes. The repeat shown in the draft was repeated 16 times and balanced with an end strip of natural. The treading in the draft weaves the wrong side of the towel up because that’s a simpler treadling for the 3/1 twill. The right side will have warp floats of the hand dyed yarn in the twill stripes.