A Year's Worth of Towels

2014 was the Year of the Towels for me.  Here they all are posing together, one for each month.  The drafts and my notes are in archived posts.  The original article is at the online digital archive of weaving.

I found that making these towels was a fun way to explore different structures.  I also gained confidence in working with linen.  Seeing the designs gave me some ideas for towels I'd like to design myself.

I wonder what 2015 will have in store for my weaving path.  What would you like to see in the coming year?

December's TotM

Merry Christmas!

December's towel in 22/2 cottolin ground with cotton floss pattern weft in miniature overshot.

Final TotM for the year! December miniature overshot

This month's structure is the same as the one used way back in March, but the yarns are different.  The warp and ground weft are 22/2 cottolin, in bright red for Christmas.  For pattern weft, I used cotton embroidery floss (all 6 strands) in white and green.

The center design is formed by a 41-thread repeat in the threading, repeated 9 times, with a 10-end border on each side, for a total of 389 ends.  The sett in the reed for this towel is coarser than all the other towels this year, at 20 epi.  So the width in the reed is just under 19.5".

Below is the draft for this towel.  To understand where to place the borders, you'll need a picture I think, so I've put the fuzzy image from the original article above.  Sorry about the quality, but I think it gives an idea of what you're doing when you weave this.  Weave plain weave with the red 22/2 cottolin, then put a green border using tabby between each pattern pick, then some plain weave, then the wide border using white pattern weft (again using tabby), then more plain weave followed by a second green border.

TotM Update - November crackle weave

No, I haven't abandoned the Towel of the Month (though this month seemed pretty full up with getting ready for the Designing Weavers sale).  Here's a photo of November's towel as it was being woven.  I must say I don't really "get" crackle weave.  It seems to have all the blurriness of overshot and none of the pattern.  I'm not sure it's worth the complicated threading.  I know there are other ways to weave it besides this overshot method using tabby, including polychrome, so I may have to return to it again some day.

I do like the colors in this towel, though!  Here's the finished towel.

Draft for November's towel - Crackle Weave

Crackle weave actually comes to us from Sweden, where it is called Jamtlandsväv.  The term "crackle" was coined by Mary Atwater in the 1920s and 30s when she introduced it to her Shuttle-Craft Guild.  The threading sequences for crackle weave patterns can be very long with no repeats, so be prepared for this if you want to make this towel.

The warp is 40/2 bleached linen, again set at 30 epi, and the ground weft is the same 40/2 bleached linen.  For the pattern weft, I used 22/2 cottolin in autumn colors.

The treadling is shown in this screenshot from the weaving software I use (Fiberworks PCW).  The patterned area is woven "using tabby", that is weave a pattern pick with the pattern colored yarn, then a plain weave pick, then another pattern pick, then the alternate tabby.  Note that the center portion is not exactly symmetrical.

October's Towel

Ms & Os weave, 40/2 linen (bleached & unbleached), 30 epi/ppi.  The photo is of the towel after hemming and wet-finishing and ironing.  I really like this one; I may have to explore this structure further.

October TotM - Ms & Os

I think this is my favorite towel so far of these.  Can you see the resemblance to a stripedy kitty?

October's Puzzler Continues - tie-up and treadling

Okay, so halfway through threading this towel, I realized I should have taken a closer look at the photo in the article.  There are more than 7 repeats across the towel.  In fact it looks like there are eleven.














So the repeat must be six of the threading units from the middle of the profile, with the other 5 at the edges as balance.  6 x 11 + 5 = 71.  Oh, well; I am making a different design!

If you are weaving this project and want it to look like the photo, I think this 11x profile draft to the right here will do it, rather than the 7x one I put in the previous post.  Use the same threading key from the previous post, substituting the 8-thread units for the blocks A and B.

When looking at the treadling sequence, I'm meeting with similar confusion as I had with the threading.  There is no indication of which part to repeat.  Not the whole thing?  It's not symmetrical and doesn't seem to relate to the threading.  The photo shows a design that looks like a "squared" plaid.  The threading has only 24 ends of the bleached linen in a stripe, yet this treadling is showing 44 picks of the bleached.









I've made a treadling sequence that "squares off" the 7x threading that I used.

And if you're using the 11x threading, this sequence should square it off.

October's Towel - Ms & Os & a Dilemma

October's weave is Ms & Os, which contrasts plain weave areas with areas of fairly long floats in a weft rep, causing side-to-side deflection in the woven fabric.  It uses the now-familiar 40/2 linen set at 30 epi, but this time in contrasting stripes of both the natural unbleached color and the bleached ivory.

But the draft is a puzzler.  I am not sure what Barrett can have meant.  Here's an image of the profile draft she gave.  There is no indication of what portion of this design is to be repeated across the width of the towel.

Each square represents a threading unit that is 8 threads wide.  Here are the thread-by-thread "keys" for the two blocks A & B.  She says there are a total of 71 units across the width, or 568 ends total.  The design shown, though is 11 units wide, which does not divide evenly into 71.  Also, if you repeat the whole draft as shown, you'll have two blocks of B in the unbleached linen together, and I have a feeling that is not what she meant.  So some portion(s) of the profile draft must be for the start and/or end of the design, and the rest is the pattern to repeat. 

If I leave one unit of the profile out of the repeat, that makes ten units per repeat.  If I repeat that 7 times, that's 70 units, plus the one to balance at the end makes the 71. So my profile draft for the threading looks like this.  The only difference is the repeat indicator - it changes everything!


So I measured out my bleached and unbleached linen warp according to my plan here.  What do you think?  How would you interpret Barrett's profile draft?

September's towel in autumn colors

September's towels are woven, hemmed, wet-finished and ready for service.

Unbleached 40/2 linen ground warp and weft, 22/2 cottolin supplementary pattern warp in fall colors.  Turned Monk's Belt.

September weaving - Turned Monk's Belt

In weaving the turned monk's belt, I was having difficulty getting a nice shed to open because the warp is so dense.  The pattern warps also would sometimes sit on the "wrong" side of their companion ground warp which would put a spot of color in a position that I think doesn't look right.

 

I developed a sequence that helped me get through this problem.  Instead of using the tie-up as provided, I tied up the pattern shafts as a direct-tie, and the shafts that weave plain weave separately, plus a treadle to lift all the ground threads together.  So for each change of pattern block the weaving sequence is:

1. With the beater at the fell of the cloth, lift just the pattern shaft for the pattern you need to weave next.  (Opening a sticky shed with the beater at the fell gives the yarns the best chance of opening cleanly since there isn't the extra interference of trying to move through the reed.)

2. Push the beater back.  Clear the shed with a sword, bringing the pattern threads up to the fell so they sit up above the cloth and in between the proper ground threads.

3. With the top pattern threads still raised and the beater again at the fell, with the other foot raise both ground shafts.

4. Push the beater back and repeat the shed-clearing with the pattern threads that are on the reverse of the fabric, so they sit down below the cloth and between their proper ground threads.

5. Lowering the ground threads but leaving the top pattern threads still raised, weave however many picks are required according to the treadling pattern.

This is slow going, but I was such a happier weaver doing it this way!

September TotM - Sett and Yarns - some color for end of summer!

Here are the colors of pattern warp that I picked out based on the color names in the article and yarns available to me.  Don't they make a pretty late-summer-harvest kind of palette?  I got this 22/2 cottolin from Yarn Barn of KS.  The ground warp is a 40/2 linen like the earlier towels, and the Barrett article calls for unbleached.

I was so intent on trying to explain the draft in my last post, I neglected to mention that this towel is set at 30 ends per inch, just like all the previous towels so far this year.  At least, the linen ground warp is at 30 ends per inch, and the total linen ends are 570 ends for an in-reed width of 19".  In the colored pattern stripe areas, the pattern warp is a supplementary warp - that is, it is not a part of the basic plain weave ground cloth that the linen forms - so it goes in right on top of the 30 epi linen, one pattern thread per ground thread.  So in the pattern areas, the sett is actually 60 ends per inch.

I wound and beamed this pattern warp separate from the ground linen.  For most of the colors you'll wind a few ends, then cut and tie off and start the next color.  But if you're using a warping board or pegs, for colors that repeat near each other like all those greens in the center of the main stripe, you can set the yarn package aside while you wind the other colors if you like, then return to the color set aside as you need it again.

September's Towel - Turned Monk's Belt

The weave for the Towel of the Month for September is another "turned" structure: that is, it's woven with the patterning in the warp, whereas the "normal" way to weave it is with the pattern formed in the weft.  This design also has some color in it ("yay - finally!" say the color-lovers, after looking at all those natural-colored linen lace weaves).  The ground warp and the weft are unbleached linen, and I am using 22/2 cottolin as the colored pattern warp.

The draft looks a little complicated, but I've tried to add a few labels to fill in the blanks.  Start by looking at the center of the diagram, where there is a sketch of the width of the towel.  From right to left, there will be 74 ends of linen threaded on shafts 1 and 2 to weave plain weave, then a stripe of the pattern, then a central area of linen plain weave, another stripe, and finally 76 ends of plain weave.

The profile draft for the stripes is at the top of the diagram.  Each square represents a sequence of 4 threads, two linen and two pattern.  From right to left, thread two units of block A, then one of B and so on.  The threading for the two blocks A and B are at the left in the diagram.  When you are sleying the reed, the pattern stripes will be sleyed double the density of the plain weave portions: if you are using a 15-dent reed, all 4 threads go in one dent.

The colors of the cottolin are indicated at the bottom.  I wasn't sure what color "bittersweet" was, so I looked it up and it seems to be a salmony orange.  Notice that although the threading of the stripe is symmetrical, the color order is not, so reverse the order for the second stripe.   Since this is a supplementary warp, you may want to beam the cottolin separately from the linen if you have a second warp beam.

August TotM - Huck

The latest in the Towel of the Month series was in a huck threading, 40/2 linen warp set at 30 epi.  The weft is 40/2 linen as well.

I wove two towels, one using the huck lace tie-up and treadling (on the right in the photo), and one in huck spot (left).  I think the huck spot is more practical as a towel, so that one has gone off to its new home.


For the threading, tie-up and treadlings to make this towel yourself, see the draft in this post.

August TotM - More Lace Weaving

Summer is flying by, isn't it?

The Towel of the Month for August uses a huck threading in blocks, surrounded by plain weave.  Here are the stats:

Warp: unbleached 40/2 linen
Weft: same as warp
Total number of warp ends: 564
Warp setting: 30 ends per inch (epi)
Width in reed: 18.8"

Thread according to the draft shown here.

There are two different treadlings for this towel.  You can make huck lace using the first tie-up and treadling, or you can make huck "spots" with the other combination.  Make one towel using each!

July's towel completed

A shot of the finished July towel with its stars and stripes.  There's something nice about the wet-finished, ironed linen, the way it drapes.  It's soft, yet at the same time it has a lot of body and crispness, with a bit of sheen.  It's hard to capture in a static photo.

July TotM - 4th of July Weaving

Happy Independence Day!

On the loom: 40/2 linen warp at 30 epi in rosepath threading, 20/1 linen ground weft, 5/2 cotton pattern weft.

July TotM - The Draft

July's Towel of the Month is on the same threading as April's towel, a rosepath threading, but it uses a different tie-up.  It makes a design meant to look like tiny "stars and stripes" reminiscent of the US flag, just in time for our Independence Day.

The warp is again bleached 40/2 linen, 569 ends total.  The "tabby" weft is the bleached 20/1 linen.  The pattern weft called for is the "5-strand floss" which I don't find available, so you can substitute 5/2 cotton in red and blue.

To weave this one, weave 8" plain weave with the tabby linen, then follow the draft to weave the pattern, throwing the red and blue pattern yarns where indicated, and the tabby weft in between as shown.  On one end of the towel, repeat the "stars and stripes" three times total, weaving 26 picks of tabby between each one.  On the other end of the towel, just make one repeat, reversing (do the stars first, then the stripes).

Happy summer weaving!

Cool Linen Lace in the Light - June TotM Completed

June's Towel of the Month is in Lace Bronson (aka Atwater-Bronson lace).  In this photo it is backlit against an open window in the breeze.  I think it would make some pretty curtains, don't you?

And here's the finished hemmed towel, ready to go to another test kitchen.










How's your summer weaving going?  Do you have a project you want to get done in the long summer days?

June TotM Weaving

Here is the June Towel of the Month on the loom.  The Barrett article said to put 30 picks of plain weave between the lace-woven blocks, but 10 picks might look more square if you like that better.