This was fun to weave because of the color way of stripes, but the weave structure would be lost if just a single color were used.
The 20/2 linen was too fine to use with cottolin and 8/2 cotton.
Purpose: Towels
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I saw this color palette on Pinterest and chose 4 different colors for the warp. (WEBS: Black Forest, Burnt Sienna, Tobacco and Eggplant.) The width of the stripes and colors can be adjusted to whatever you should desire. Each color stripe was 34 end wide on my towel and I just alternated the two twills and arranged the colors symmetrically. I originally had planned to sley at 20 EPI but got carried away with the stripes and would have had a very wide towel. Changing to 24 EPI brought it back to a reasonable width. Either sett would work fine. Use a floating selvage on both sides.
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I used cotton (unmercerized) for both warp and weft. Length shrinkage was close to 20% while width was a more expected 10%. I added a band woven using a tabby treadling at one end of the towel. An easy weave and the design is pleasantly different on each side. My color choice was natural for the warp and a brownish eggplant for the weft. Once woven, the brownish eggplant appears as a dark brown. Not a cheerful color but it won’t show stains easily!
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Using the idea that if six colors is good, 60 would be better, I chose yarns from the blues and greens in my 10/2 stash, included cotton I had hand dyed, and wound various stripes onto the warping board, trying to balance colors and vary width of stripes. Although I warp back to front, I then threaded different designs grouping and separating as I thought looked nice. I varied stripes and complimented plain weave with two-two twill, sometimes rising, sometimes falling.
What has resulted is a one-of-a-kind towel that I couldn’t reproduce if I wanted to!
The towel is machine hemmed, but with a foot peddle powered sewing machine, which I take to be about as hand made as using my loom.
The draft file I have attached is a sample, not the whole towel.
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It was fun to play with color. It was difficult to keep the Monk’s Belt pattern areas from drawing in.
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I learned how to choose 2 block textures for a 4 shaft loom. This was woven on a warp from MAFA 2017 Rosalie Neilson’s class “Color & Design in Huck Lace Towels”
I enjoyed weaving Huck for the first time, and enjoyed learning about motif, design, & texture in the class.
