More Twill Towels

This summer I made a run of towels on a 7 yard warp in a straight twill.  I loved the opportunity to try out 7 different tie-ups and treadling.  Using a white warp and different colors of weft and different treadling resulted in very different towels.  I blogged about those towels here in an earlier post.

Fancy Twill
Handweaving.net
Draft 13916

I decided that I wanted to try the same thing with a point twill.  The patterns included some that I found on pinterest, handweaving.net and A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns. The warp is an 8/4 matt cotton available from Earth Guild.  It is a very soft, not highly twisted cotton, that results in a very lush fabric that I hope is absorbent for towels.  However, set at 20 epi, some of the floats were pretty long on the cloth.  A couple of the tie-ups had floats that were 5 pics long. Hopefully, the stickiness of the yarn will keep the warp from snagging.

One of my favorites in this set uses several different weft colors in random patterns and stripes.  It reminds me of a Fair Isle sweater.  The weft for this towel was frogged from thrift store sweaters.

                                             Fancy Twill
A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns
Draft 323-2

Snowflake

Twill Thrills

Page 7

Snowflake Twill Thrills
Page 7

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Point Twill

Reed  12, 20 epi

Warp     Fiber  Matt Cotton

              Count  8/4

              Color  Natural

              Source  Earthguild

Warp     Width in Reed  20 "

              Ends  402

              Length  7 yds

Weft      5/2 and 8/2 cottons and some frogged cottons

Handweaving.net

Draft 61537
Date Finished  December 2013

Beat       50/50  
Size  17 1/2 x 24 1/2

Twill Block Scarves

I have to admit that I am a lurker on the Warped Weavers Group at ravelry.com.  I love looking at the projects posted by members and getting inspiration on projects.  I have wanted to weave a turned twill and thought that pillows using 8/2 or 10/2 cotton would be my first project in this weave structure.  But I saw a set of scarves woven by marydargie woven using 8/2 tencel and loved the draft.  I changed it up a bit and only used one color warp, aquamarine.  I wove two scarves on this warp, one using a hunter green weft and one using a burgundy weft.  The scarves have a wonderful drape to them.

Date Finished  October 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Turned Twill

Reed  20epi - 12

Warp     Fiber  tencel

              Count  8/2

              Color  Turquoise

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Warp     Width in Reed  10"

              Ends  202

              Length  6 yds

Weft      Fiber  tencel

              Count  8/2

              Color  one with hunter green and one with burgundy

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Beat                       50/50                     

Size  8 x 80"

Luggage Rack

Gary is a wonderful wood worker and he has added many fine handmade tools to my weaving studio.  He took up woodturning a couple of years ago and now is the proud owner of 3 lathes.  Earlier this year, he made this luggage rack and all it needed were straps to hold up the suitcases. The luggage rack is made from poplar wood.  The turned center piece came from a poplar tree from our yard.   I had planned to weave a rosepath strap with inlaid plants and vegetables using a draft from Handwoven, but the veggies just didn't look realistic.  With an rosepath threading of 8/2 cotton, I wove a fancy twill using a deep red 5/2 cotton as weft.  The pattern is from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, Draft 323-2.

Date Finished  August, 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Fancy Twill on Rosepath threading

Reed  10, 20 epi

Warp     Fiber  Cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  Natural, with single accent darker green

              Warp     Width in Reed  less tha 3"

              Ends  56

              Length  3 yds

Weft      Fiber  Mercerized cotton

              Count  5/2

              Color  Burgundy

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Beat      Weft dominant                     

Huck Lace Placemats

I completed these placemats several months ago, then got lazy on photographing and writing up the results of my weaving.  The placemats are made using 3/2 mercerized cotton for both the warp and the weft, so they weave up very quickly.  The recipe for these, Elegant Placemats, came from another of the free publications from Handwoven, Free Handweaving Projects for Beginners.  Four placemats could be made with a one pound cone of yarn, but since I wanted to weave up at least 6, I needed to buy 2 cones of yarn.  The only problem with these are the edges tend to pucker in the plain weave sections.

Date Finished  June 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Huck

Reed  12, 12 epi

Warp     Fiber  Mercerized cotton

              Count  3/2

              Color  Amber Gold

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Warp     Width in Reed  15"

              Ends  177

              Length  5 yds - made 7 placemats

Weft      Fiber - same as warp

              

Beat 50 - 50          

Size  13 X 18, hemmed

Bags from Bags

I recently had about a yard of rug warp left on my 4 harness loom, without a project in mind.  I had seen several posts about using plastic bags as weft.  Plastic bags cut up into strips and used as the yarn in weaving, knitting or crocheting is called "plarn".  I liked the idea of re-using grocery bags, since they seem to multiply in my house.  Cutting the bags into 1 1/2" strips is a pretty quick and easy process and can be seen on this you tube video here.  I used Ingles Grocery bags which are tan in color with red and black printing, the red and black showing up occasionally as red or black streaks in the cloth. I alternated the plarn with a weft of the same cotton rug yarn used in the warp.  The bag size is approximately 7 1/2" X 7" with a 72 inch strap.  The straps were made from an 8 element Kumihimo braid.  Each element has 2 strands of 8/4 carpet warp in 2 or 3 colors matching the color of the warp.

Many Projects - One Warp

Warping the loom is the part of weaving that I like the least. One of the things I love best about weaving is planning projects and identifying as many projects as possible from a single warp using different weft or different treadlings. Because of this, my recent projects involve putting a 6-7 yard warp on the loom and working on a number of projects.  I recently put on a 7 yard warp of two colors of 8/4 cotton rug yarn, planning to make fabric for a couple of rag rug bags and maybe some placemats.

I ended up making fabric for two bags and not making any placemats.  The bags are lined with fabric and one has cotton webbing straps and the other uses leather belts for handles. The finished size of the bags are 15" X 17" tall.







Fabric to cover the pillow on my weaving bench.

A small rag rug

3 small bags.  More on these bags in a separate post.

Date Finished  October 2013

Loom  Newcomb

Weave Structure  Plain Weave, log cabin thick and thin

Reed  12 epi

Warp     Fiber  Cotton

              Count  8/4

              Color Dusty Rose and Eggplant

              Mfr  Maysville

              Source  Earthguild

Warp     Width in Reed  20"

              Ends  240

              Length  7 yds

Weft      Fiber  blue flowered cotton rags cut in 1 1/2 inch strips and carpet warp alternating

              Count 6 ppi - 3 rags, 3 carpet warp

              Color

              Mfr

              Source  Old Curtains

Beat                       50/50                     

Size

Notes

Huck Lace Bamboo Shawl

Handwoven recently published a pattern for making a shawl with Aunt Lydia's Bamboo.  The big benefit of this yarn is that it is readily available at Michael's and Joann's and many other local craft stores and it is cheap, under $3 per 300 yd ball of yarn.  I purchased 9 balls of white bamboo, hoping to weave two shawls on a single warp.  The bamboo has a wonderful silky feel, however that results in several issues.  The first is that it is hard to beat consistently, because the weft has a tendency to pack down too easily.  The second issue also relates to it's slipperiness.  Even after wet finishing, the warp and weft have a tendency to move around.  This is exacerbated by the Huck Lace weave, which has some longer floats.  And lastly, since the yarn did pack down more than I wanted, I ended up using more in the weft than I had planned.  So when it was time to weave the second shawl, I did not have sufficient white bamboo to complete the shawl.  At that time, I was 70 miles from the closest yarn store, so I used a black 8/2 rayon that I had in my stash for the weft in the second shawl.

The bamboo makes for a wonderfully drape-y fabric, which works as either a shawl or a scarf.  The black and white shawl looks a little like the head gear of Yasser Arafat, a shemagh.

Date Finished  August, 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Huck Lace

Reed   15 epi, 10 dent reed

Warp     Fiber  bamboo

              Count  Crochet 10

              Color  White

              Mfr  Aunt Lydia's

              Source  Joann's

Warp     Width in Reed  17 1/2"

              Ends  262

              Length  5 yds

Weft  #1 - Same as warp
Weft #2   Fiber  Rayon

              Count 8/2

              Color  Black

              Mfr

              Source  Earth Guild

Beat                       50/50                     

Size  15" X 70" not counting 3" fringe

Notes

Plaited Twill Scarf

Another scarf and another new structure, plaited twill.  I love the look of this, but not sure that I like the way it wove up.  There are really two ways to weave the plaited twill.  The first requires that on some of the picks you lift up 7 shafts at a time.  That makes for a heavy lift.  The way that I wove it is physically much easier, only one shaft lifted on some of the picks.  But the downside is that the best side, is woven facing the floor.  You need to either be a contortionist to watch the cloth develop or keep a mirror handy (and still be a contortionist)  The patterning is not apparent on the top side and so of course, I found a couple of treadling errors after I completed the scarf and got it off the loom.  I guess that means another scarf for me.  Drat.

The pattern comes from Handwoven, 8 Shaft Scarves and called for a sett of 20 epi.  I increased this to 25 but I think next time with the tencel warp I will go back to 20 epi.  Plenty of red and gold tencel for another scarf, also have 8/2 in black.

Date Finished

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure Plaited Twill

Reed 10, 25 epi

Warp     Fiber  tencel

              Count 8/2

              Color  gold

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Warp     Width in Reed  6 1/2

              Ends  168

              Length  3 yds

Weft      Fiber tencel
              Count  8/2

              Color red and variegated red

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Beat                       50/50                     

Size

Notes

A Tower of Twill Towels

Weaving on 8 shafts has given me many more options for pattern and texture than what I had with just 4 shafts.  I have been in a bit of towel rut lately and wanted to see more interesting patterns than just the plain weave on a rigid heddle loom.  Handwoven's publication Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts, gave me lots of options, but how do you pick just one.  So instead I planned a 7 yard warp to get as much variation as possible from using different treadling and different colors of weft, while using the same structure for warp.  I warped the loom with a straight twill using a natural 4/2 cotton.  Each towel utilized a different tie-up, which meant a lot of floor time changing the tie-up.  But this was a small trade-off for warping once and getting 6 very different towels.

After weaving 6 towels, I had enough warp to complete a gamp with all of the tie-ups I used, plus one extra. So if I give them all away, I will still have a reference for future weaving.

The towels came up very thick, due to the 4/2 cotton used for the warp.  I warped it at 20 epi, which seemed about the right set for a twill using this warp.

Shaded Cord

From Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts

 Reflections

From Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts, also found in A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 10

 Interlocking Twill

A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 43

Basketry

From Top Ten Towels on 8 Shafts

 Boulder Octogang Twill

A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 321

ZigZag

A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, draft 314

Date Finished  July 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure Twills

Reed  10, doubled 20epi

Warp     Fiber  cotton, unmercerized

              Count  4/2

              Color  natural

              Mfr  

              Source  Earthguild

Warp     Width in Reed  20"

              Ends  402

              Length  7 yds

Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  several

              Mfr

              Source

Beat                       50/50                     

Size  20 x 30 on the loom, 17.5 X 27 after finishing

SOUTHEAST FIBER FORUM

The Southeast Fiber Forum was held at Arrowmont School of Crafts in Gatlinburg in early April.  I attended and took a weekend class in Turned Beiderwand taught by Karen Donde of Sutherland Studios.  Karen is a great instructor, very well organized with lots of information ranging from fairly straightforward to deviously complicated on this old weaving structure.  By turning the Beiderwand structure, it can be woven with one shuttle, which makes the weaving progress much faster.

However, in weaving turned beiderwand, two different yarns are required for the warp and they are taken up differently during the weaving. The pattern warp has much   longer floats and therefore ends up looser on the warp beam.  So it is necessary to either use a second warp beam or do what most of the class did - jerry rig a secondary warp with a piece of wood pretending to be a secondary back beam and weighting the warp to  provide the tension.  This is a technique that can be used any time a supplementary warp is required.  I have read about supplementary warps for other weaving structures, but wasn't sure how to go about this without a second warp beam.


Attached are some of the other student's samples of work created during the week.  We sampled a wide variety of turned structures, including Turned Beiderwand at 1:4, 1:3, and 1:2. I was using 8/2 cotton for the ground warp and weft and a 5/2 cotton for the weft.  Most of the rest of the class was using a 10/2 yarn for the ground warp and weft.  This meant that my sample had very long warp floats, especially on the 1:4.





The other weave structures that we turned were:

• Summer and Winter
• Extended Summer and Winter
• Even Tied Overshot
• Uneven Tied Overshot
• Paired Tie Weave
• Half Dukagang

  The photo to the left is of our class assistant Dana's work.  Dana brought a borrowed Baby Wolf 8- shaft loom to class, just like my loom.  The person she borrowed it from, offered it up for sale and I bought it immediately.  I have been looking for a loom to take to Montana, so I don't have to drive one out and back on every trip. Dana used a pink supplementary warp on a green weft and not only did I get the loom, but she also left her remaining warp on the loom, which I have been weaving off with a burgundy tencel as weft using a Turned Extended Summer and Winter draft.

 It is hard to put an additional warp beam on a Baby Wolf because the back beam is not square - it comes out from the loom at an angle.  This makes it difficult to attach another back beam using clamps.  Once I got back to Brevard, Gary made a creative solution for the Baby Wolf by building a frame with a secondary back beam that slips over the original back beam leaving a space of about an inch between the two warps.  The supplementary warp can be run over this beam and weighted using water bottles and S-hooks.

ARROWMONT SCHOOL OF ARTS AND CRAFTS

I am headed to Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts for the Southeast Fiber Forum - a three day workshop on a variety of weaving, spinning and dyeing topics.   About a year ago I took a week long workshop at John C. Campbell Folk School and I am hooked.  A workshop junkie.  I will be taking Karen Donde's class on Turned Beiderwand.  Karen's weaving studio, Sutherland Studio, is located in the River District of Asheville.

Arrowmont is located in downtown Gatlinburg and was built as one of the settlement schools in the 1920's to educate and provide work skills to theresidents of the rural Tennessee community of Gatlinburg. The craft training has continued and the original school is now a public elementary school.

Emma and Gary are coming along to spend the weekend in Gatlinburg and enjoy the Great Smokies National Park.  It's Emma's spring break and so the three of us will have an adventure in the Smokies.  We have rented a cabin about 10 miles outside of town.  They have plans for hiking, fishing, visiting the aquarium and seeing the sights of Gatlinburg.  We plan to come in the back way via Cosby to avoid Pigeon Forge and Sevierville.  We don't want Emma to see the Goofy Golf, Go Kart Tracks and all of the distractions before getting to the National Park.  Of course Gatlinburg is not free from tourist traps, but they tend to be not as big or as flashy as the ones on the highway into Gatlinburg.

The focus of the workshop is Turned Beiderwand, a very old weave structure comparable to overshot.  A Beiderwand draft typically uses a ground weft and a heavier pattern weft yarn.  This weekend we will turn the draft.  A turned draft is one that uses the weft for the warp and the warp for the weft.  Instead of using 2 shuttles for the weft, the turned structure uses only one and uses the two different yarns as warp.  Because the warp yarns are different sizes and would perform differently under tension, the turned structure uses a second warp beam.  I don't have a second warp beam on either of my looms, so we will be creating an alternate secondary warp beam using a raddle as the warp beam and water bottles as weights.

I will be using a 3 block profile which uses 8 harnesses.  The background warp is an 8/2 variegated cotton in purples and pinks and the pattern warp which will be warped on the "fake" secondary warp beam is a 5/2 white perle cotton.   I will try a variety of wefts, all 8/2 including the same variegated cotton used in the warp, and also a red, black and blue.

Snap, Crackle, Pop

I just tackled another new-to-me weave structure, crackle.  Crackle is also known as Jamtlandvaev in Swedish weaving terminology.  The American name for the weave structure comes from the pottery terminology for a type of glaze.  Some of the colors in the woven cloth just barely peak through, like the crackles on a ceramic pot. And crackle is a whole lot easy to spell and pronounce than Jamtlandvaev.

These towels were woven with a 4 block crackle using 4 colors.  In each single color warp block, there are at least 3 options for color - the warp color, the tabby weft and the pattern weft.  Crackle is similar to overshot because you weave a tabby shot and then a pattern shot.  This gives a huge variety of color options once the loom is warped.  I used 4 colors for the warp: tan, pumpkin and burgundy in 8/2 cotton and a navy blue yarn frogged from a cotton sweater.  The pattern weft floats over up to three warp ends at a time.

Researching crackle, the set up sounded complex, but it's actually easier to weave than it is to read the instructions.  It's a block weave, with the rule that at the end of each group of the same blocks, you need to add another warp thread called an "incidental".

A  is threaded: 1, 2, 3, 2
B is threaded:  2, 3, 4, 3
C is threaded: 1, 4, 3, 4
D is threaded: 1, 4, 1, 2

A = 1
B = 2
C = 3

D = 4

In one of the towels, I used the same tabby throughout.  The other three, I just selected colors randomly.  On some, I was consistent in the number of picks per block - 16 tabby and 16 pattern.  On the other towels, I mixed it up, which resulted in thick and thin rectangles in a wide variety of color combinations.  The other benefit is the front and back sides of the cloth can end up with different color variations.

The starting point for these towels came from Country Rustic Towels, Best of Handwoven, A Dozen Projects Using 8/2 Cotton.

Date Finished  March 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Crackle

Reed  12, 16 epi

Warp     Fiber  cotton

              Count  mostly 8/2

              Color tan, burgundy, pumpkin, navy

              Mfr  Dragon Tail

              Source  Earth Guild

Warp     Width in Reed  22 in

              Ends  354

              Length  4 yds

Weft      Same

Beat        More   Weft Faced        

Size  Finished 19 x 24

Notes  - These towels are wider than a typical dish towel.  Next time, I'll narrow the warp.  Ended up with 3 towels and a small handtowel.

Weaving Tools - Handmade

Weaving takes an incredible amount of stuff to get to the point that you can put a warp on a loom and weave it off.  Warping board, cone holder, heddle hook, reed hook, temple, bobbins, bobbin winder, fringe twister, boat shuttle, ski shuttle, stick shuttle,,,,, The list goes on and on and on.  Then there is the yarn, different colors, different sizes, different fibers.  All of this is to say is that it takes serious coin to be a weaver.  It is very different than knitting a sweater where you need knitting needles, yarn and a pattern and you are ready to go.  I was lucky enough to have started weaving over 40 years ago and accumulated a fair number of weaving tools at that time, when costs were pretty low.  My 45" 4 harness loom cost $350 new in 1972, today that loom would run over $2,000.  But instead of going broke buying tools, I have a DH who is a superb wood worker and he has made me quite a variety of tools, some patterned after the standards and some of his own invention.

For Christmas this year, he made the beautiful boat shuttle to the left.  It has an open bottom and holds the Schacht size bobbins and feeds easily through the shed.  It came from a dead dogwood tree that DH  cut down at a house he was remodeling in Brevard.  Since I weave in two locations that are 2000 miles apart, I can never have enough boat shuttles.  I am currently weaving crackle towels that have 4 color changes and so I am using every one of my 4 boat shuttles in Montana.



Late last year, I was working on a project that required a double yarn for the pattern weft and winding two threads on a bobbin does not always lead to both yarns pulling evenly out of the shuttle.  The double boat shuttle solves this problem by winding two separate bobbins.  This shuttle is also made of dogwood, which has been used for making weaving tools for ages because of it's hardness and close grain.


Wolf Trap Snuggy

 This ingenious little piece of wood snugs up my Wolf Trap on the Schacht Baby Wolf Loom.  Without it the Wolf Trap was always falling off the front beam.

Reed Holder

The reed holder arrived unanounced in my studio, I think because I was always borrowing DH's clamps whenever I wanted to sley the reed.  As a front to back warper, I usually sley the reed on a table, instead of on the loom.  I have used clamps, soup cans or whatever was on hand to hold the reed in an upright position.

Cross Holder

Another tool for warping, just a small block of wood with 4 nails to hold the cross.  I can walk away from warping and not loose the cross.  This little invention came from Barbara Miller of the Western North Carolina Fiber/Handweavers Guild.

Nostepinne

Scandinavian tool for winding balls.  I have used this for unwinding sweaters purchased from thrift stores.

Inkle Loom

Gary made this inkle loom in a day, when I thought I would be taking an inkle weaving class.  Unfortunately the class was full, but fortunately I got a great little loom for making bands.