Towels

I completed another set of towels over the Christmas holiday.  I wove 4 towels from this warp on a rigid heddle loom, one of them was gifted at Christmas.  All of the yarn comes from yarn that was frogged from a couple of sweaters.  The red yarn is from a cotton sweater of Gary's that had lost it's shape.  He gladly gave it up to the cause.  The yarn in the stripes came from a single sweater that had large blocks of color.  I picked it up at a thrift store in Durham when I was shopping with Judy and Nona.   We were wasting time while waiting for Cathy to get off work so we could drive up to DC to meet Martha for a ladies weekend.  I normally wouldn't have bought it cause it was expensive, $3 for a sweater.  My usual price is 50 cents, so $3 was exorbitant, but still cheaper than the typical price for cotton yarn at $20 per pound, plus shipping.  But we were facing a 4 hour drive and I knew we could get the entire sweater done, especially if I had help from Judy and Nona in the frogging process.  The other benefit of this sweater was that it provided seven different colors, making it a good choice for accent stripes.  The only drawback is that it is a cotton/ramie blend and the ramie is not as absorbent as the cotton for dishtowels.  Using the cotton/ramie blend in small stripes shouldn't effect the feel of the towel.  I put a 20" warp on the loom, because with this yarn set at 12 epi, there is substantial shrinkage.  The finished towels ended up 17" by 24".

My mother also joined into unraveling over the Thanksgiving day holiday.



Beginning the weaving



Date Finished   December 2012

Loom  Schacht rigid heddle

Weave Structure  plain

Reed  12 epi

Warp Fiber   cotton

Source   frogging


Warp Width in Reed  20 inches

Ends  240

Length  4 yds

Weft Fiber  same

Beat 50/50 

Finished size  17" X 24"