Wednesday, March 08, 2017

blue handwoven bathroom towels.

I finally finished my first set of handwoven bathroom hand towels.



These towels are super absorbent and fast dry.  They are also very squishy!  A complete delight to use, but I must admit, I was very nervous while making them.

The warp has a random-ish pattern to it.  I wound four colours at once, then threaded them onto the loom as they came to me.  It looked good in the sample facecloths I wove, but I was nervous to see how it would look on a larger scale.


The neat thing about winding four yarns at once on a warp instead of the usual one at a time is that it goes about 20 times faster.  One doesn't have to stop and count so often, and it's just way more fun this way.  So when I had finished my blue warp, I was in the zone.  I quickly wound a second warp but this time, I used up little bits and bobs of yarn I had left over for an even more random effect.


I used 8/2 cotton set at 20epi.  I choose this draft because it has a 1/3 twill - one up, three down - which is very quick and easy on a direct tie up jack loom like mine.   As you can see, the fabric is a different colour on the other side.  I think, if it wasn't for such a colourful warp, the 'back side' would be the main side as it has a much stronger waffle look than the 'front'.



On the whole, very happy.


Wednesday, March 01, 2017

How I use the Ashford raddle

Getting the raddle for my Ashford Table Loom made a huge difference to how well I can warp my loom.  Before, I was having tension issues, not any longer.  It's really fast and I can have the warp spread out and ready to wind on the back beam in less time than it takes to boil the kettle (even including the time it took to take photos).

This is a 25" (on loom) wide warp in 8/2 cotton at 20epi.