M and W Christmas Towels

Every Christmas, I make Christmas gifts for friends and family and I realized in early December, I didn't have quite enough towels. I usually gift from 8-12 towels.  In thinking about a draft for the towels, I settled on Ms & Ws because the last name of four of the recipients begins with W and it seemed appropriate.  I had plenty of 8/2 cotton in several shades of pink, red and purple that seemed festive for Christmas gifting.

Structure M & W
Source  Strickler
Date Finished  December 2015

Loom  Baby Wolf

Reed  23 epi

Warp     Fiber cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  Deep pink, light pink, purple and red

              Mfr  Webs and UKI

              Source

Warp     Width in Reed  20 inch

              Ends  462

              Length 7 yds

Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  red and light pink

              Mfr  Webs and Uki

              Source

Beat                       50/50                     

Napkin Exchange

The Western North Carolina Handweavers/Fiber Guild is hosting a napkin exchange.  There are three groups of eight weavers participating, with our finished napkins completed by November.  Each weaver selects a draft or pattern and a color for their napkins and then distributes 325 yds of yarn for weft to the other seven members in the group.  I have picked a medium blue with a little turquoise in it called Mediterranean Blue.

All of us will warp our loom with natural 8/2 cotton and thread it based on the pattern we have selected. I will weave up the yarn from each of my group members and return to them finished napkins.  At the end of the exchange in November, I will have eight napkins woven in Mediterranean Blue and natural, in eight different patterns. The napkins should be about 18" square when finished, so they need to be 20" wide on the loom with a woven length of 22" to allow for hemming.

The first challenge was measuring out eight packets of yarn, 325 yards long into a ball.  I don't have a ball winder so I borrowed one from my knitting friend Liz.  I also don't have a yardage counter, so I needed to improvise.  We have a very old skein winder that has been in Gary's family for generations.  I counted out the needed revolutions for each ball on the skein winder and then wound it into individual balls on the ball winder.

The next challenge was selecting a draft that would be interesting yet relatively easy to follow the treadling sequence.  Making eight napkins requires 7 yards of finished cloth.  I had enough warp on the loom when I finished the 7 napkins for the other members of my group to make three napkins for myself in 3 different patterns on the same threading.

Date Finished  Septermber 2014

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  twill

Reed   12, 23 epi

Warp     Fiber   cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  natural

              Mfr  Valley

              Source   WEBS

Warp     Width in Reed  20 inch

              Ends  460

              Length  7 yds

Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  Mediterranean Blue

              Mfr  Valley

              Source  WEBS

Beat                       50/50                     

Size

Christmas Rosepath

Last year I wove an overshot table runner in red and white, that I had hoped to get finished by Christmas.  Well, I didn't get it completed till January, so I called it a Valentine's Day table runner.  I had similar plans this year to weave small figures using an 8 shaft rosepath threading, including Christmas trees, stars, hearts and gingerbread people.  I was not sure exactly what I would do with the cloth, but thought that it could be cut up and made into flat Christmas tree ornaments each about 2 or 3 inches square.  My other plan was to make Christmas cards with a cutout in the front cover peeking through to a woven tree or heart as shown on Amanda Cutler's blogpost here.  I ended up with Christmas trees, stars, and hearts.  I couldn't find a draft for a gingerbread man that would use only 10 treadles and 8 shafts.  I had to change the tie-up for each of these designs.  Tim's Treadle reducer program was helpful to reduce some of the drafts from 12 or 13 treadles to the 10 treadles on my loom.

Date Finished  December 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure Rosepath

Reed  8, 24 epi

Warp     Fiber cotton

              Count  8/2

              Color  natural

              Mfr  Valley Yanr

              Source  Webs

Warp     Width in Reed  6.6"

              Ends  160 plus 2 floating selvedges

              Length  3 yds

Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2 cotton

Pattern Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Frogged cotton in red, green
              5/2 perle cotton in blue
Beat       50/50                     

Size

Notes  The 5/2 was not thick enough to make a good pattern.  3/2 would be a better choice.

Chenille scarves

Do you like my new model? He's not quite a mannequin, but he makes a good prop for scarves.  Last summer, Gary and I were visiting friends and left their house by way of the alley and found a mountain of trash from neighbors cleaning out their garage.  The owners of the house owned a department store that had been a fixture in town for decades.  They sold the real estate and closed the business and had lots of leftovers from the business, including 6 styrofoam heads used to display cowboy hats.  Other scores included rodeo posters from the 80's, old Christmas decorations that were made in Japan (pre-Chinese), and a big roll of store gift wrapping paper.

So back to the scarves, this winter I bought a number of sweaters at the Red Lodge Senior Center Thrift Shop.  One of the sweaters was a red chenille women's sweater which had flecks of blue, yellow and purple.  I thought that the yarn from this would make a great weft in a winter scarf.  The warp yarn was frogged from a cotton sweater of Gary's.  It is a heavy 4 ply cotton with virtually no twist.  What's better than free yarn?  The scarves are woven in an undulating twill, draft #204 from A Weaver's Handbook of 8 Shaft Patterns.

Date Finished         February, 2014

Loom                     Baby Wolf

Weave Structure     Undulating Twill

Reed                       8 epi

Warp     Fiber         Cotton

              Count        Unknown

              Color         Red  

              Mfr           

              Source Frogged      

Warp     Width in Reed   8 in

              Ends                 64        
              Length             6 yd warp for 2 scarves

Weft      Fiber        Rayon chenille

              Count       unknown

              Color       red

              Mfr

              Source     frogged

Size  6: x  72

Notes

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

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                     

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

Ms and Ws

It is pretty apparent why this weave structure, a point twill, is called Ms and Ws from this scarf, but not so apparent from the scarf below.  I wanted to warp the loom once and weave two scarves that were very different in appearance, the purple scarf is much more formal than the red scarf.  The draft is from A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, from the Editors of Handwoven.

Date Finished

Date Finished  November 2012
Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Ms and Ws

Reed  10 20 epi 

Warp     Fiber   rayon

              Count  8/2

              Color  black

              Mfr  Dragon Tail

              Source  Earth Guild

Warp     Width in Reed 6 inches

              Ends  129

              Length  5 yds - 2 scarves

Scarf One Weft      Fiber  Rayon

              Count  8/2
              Color  variegated red

              Mfr  Dragon Tail

              Source  Earth Guild

              Beat                       50/50                     

Scarf Two Weft      Fiber  Tencel

              Count  8/2

              Color  Eggplant

              Mfr

              Source  Cotton Clouds

              Beat                       50/50