Guild: Associate Member

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Each warp stripe is 6 ends wide, alternating black and white except between wider sections where I doubled the black stripe. Weft stripes can repeat as much as you like.

This pattern was inspired by my recent trip to New Zealand and the preponderance of black and white checked fabric I encountered there. White represents good and black represents evil. The red used for the hems represents blood or life force.

I adapted this pattern from an episode of Jane Stafford’s online Weaving School and a pattern she offers entitled “Mocking Around.”

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Wanted to make the towel look like the sunrise I see most mornings from my garden window. It also was a stash buster. I hope when you are stuck drying dishes the towel will make you smile and think about the peace of nature.

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Our weaving study group had a challenge to design and weave something using a given simple profile draft.
I decided to give myself a further challenge by using a weave structure that I had not or had rarely used, and chose turned taqueté.
I used three colours in the warp – white/blue for one block and green/white for the other. I wove three tea towels each using one of the three colours for the weft and chose the one with white weft for this exchange.

The towels seem a little soft to me. So, if I were to weave these again, I might try using a sett of 22 epi and 22 ppi.

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440 ends
This was a really fun project, putting 4 threads through 1 heddle gave a really neat texture to the towel.
Tom had a new to me suggestion for hems. Weave your hem length and then put 2 picks in the same shed to create a fold line between the hem and the body of the towel.
Hems were sewn using a zigzag stitch with mitered corners.
Towels were machine washed and then put through the dryer.

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This design was inspired by 200 Patterns for Multiple Harness Looms by Russell E. Groff (1979).

Calculated as follows:

Weaving width 20″
EPI: 20
400 warp ends, but I calculated 405 warp ends to balance the design. I added 2 floating selvages at each side.

Shrinkage: 15%; used machine wash delicate cycle

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20″ wide, 600 ends plus floating selvages.
Straight draw on 24 shafts so each towel could be different.
I put on a 10 yard warp.
I wove each towel about 37″ on the loom and hand hemmed.
The towels are generously sized; the one for the towel exchange has finished dimensions of 17.75″ by 30.75″.
Relatively lightweight, easy to use towels.

This was inspired by “Santa Cloth” by Becky Hamblin in The Best of Weaver’s: Huck Lace, and she cites Thomas Jackson, Weaver, Shuttle Craft Monograph 13. Originally a 12 shaft pattern, I used 24 shafts and so was able to come up with several variations on the pattern. This one has a huck border around plain weave diamonds.

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A temple is most useful to prevent draw-in. You can make a coordinated set of towels on the same warp, having fun varying weft colors and block sizes.

480 ends
Sett 2 per dent in a 12-dent reed
Wet finished
Hemmed, hand-stitched

Love this cottolin!

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This is a popular draft for kitchen towels with good reason. It is a fun weave and produces a good looking towel. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed weaving it.

The Schacht website describes the “Friendship Towels” pattern: “This is a project originally designed by Mary Ann Geers which we published in the May/June 1985 issue of Handwoven magazine when I was editor. I loved it so much that I included it in A Handwoven Treasury, a collection of articles and projects from the first 10 years of Handwoven magazine. The threading is huck-a-back blocks from Marguerite Davison’s A Handweaver’s Pattern Book.”