Next up!

After thinking about my next warp while weaving the last of the red, turning possibilities over and around, much like a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces - I tossed all my plans out when I walked into my storage area and spotted the 4 cones of 2/40's mercerized cotton I'd purchased from Lunatic Fringe, lo these many years ago. :}

There is still a lot of bleached white 2/20's cotton left, so after mulling over what might be the best approach to using up the 2/40's (a fairly 'fragile' yarn), in the end I decided to pair each of the 2/40's with a 2/20's white.

My best guestimate for set is 24 epi with the very fine singles white linen planned for weft on this warp, but until I start weaving I won't know for sure. So I may wind up with some rather narrow (for me) towels if I have to re-sley to a higher epi. Oh well. People tell me my towels are on the generous side, so a smaller size is probably going to be fine.

It's not visible in the picture, but I have a lamp (anglepoint in England, not sure what they are called in NA - swing arm?) that I attach to the loom at the back. Doug mounted a small square block of wood with a hole drilled into it onto the back of the loom that the light fits into. There are two more blocks on the front of the loom for additional supplemental lights for threading.

My studio is in the basement and at this time of year light can be rather dim so the extra light really helps, especially with such fine yarns.

My spool rack is from Leclerc and allows me to work from spools/tubes from the side, or take the yarn off the top of the tubes/cones. Doug modified it with an additional rail along the very top so I can beam from 60 packages of yarn (from the side) or 50 packages (from the top).

For this warp I'm working with 40 packages. I'll wind 25 sections (one inch sections) but sley at a working set of 24 and see how it looks.

There's a rather sweet draft I found for a small floral motif. The threading is just point twill over 16 shafts. Part of this warp will be samples for the Seattle Weavers Guild newsletter for next year so I thought I'd do that for the samples and then play with twills for the towels. The guild samples are just 3 inches, so I wanted a repeat that would fit into that size. I think the small floral will look quite nice in this pastel fabric.