I followed one of HW patterns for exchange towel. For others on warp I randomized- using 3 colors, adding alternating stripes etc. Made towels more fun in my opinion.
Weave Category: Twill Compound elements
MAFA2019-048
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.
MAFA2019-047
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!
MAFA2019-044
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.
MAFA2019-024
It was fun to play with color. It was difficult to keep the Monk’s Belt pattern areas from drawing in.
