A couple of years ago I messed around with waffle weave for towels. (before and after samples above)
Well, I wanted to revisit the towels I designed after doing the above sampling, but it appears that when I upgraded my computer, I 'lost' a bunch of my files. I think I remember shrugging resignedly at the time thinking I would not be wanting any of the files I 'lost', knowing that I could reconfigure anything I truly needed to.
And so I came up with this:
showing the hem and the first band of twill between the waffle areas
So many people get concerned about weaving waffle weave because the plain weave hems they use to finish their towels off flare so extremely in comparison to the body of the towel. To get around this draw in discrepency, I chose to use a 2/2 twill treadled in a point progression, and then inserted bands of the same twill into the towel body.
When the waffle contracts, the bands of twill will 'collapse' so that the hems will not look out of place. The discrepency has now become a design element.
The waffle I'm using on the red warp is a bit smaller from the looks of it, plus the waffle dimples are rectangular, not square. They also change direction so I'm very interested to see how that will affect the textile after wet finishing.
And no, I haven't done a sample. This time I'm winging it and letting the final results be a surprise. Let's hope it's a happy one. :)
4 comments:
Let's hear it for design elements! I've used 5-end satin for hems when the waffle was a 10-end unit, and that took up at a similar rate. There's always some way to adapt, and then say "yes, indeed, I intended it to be that way!"
Good timing Laura,
I just wound a warp to do waffle towels. Will definitely try a twill pattern for the hem.
What - no sampling?! Glad to hear you're taking a chance this time. Sometimes it's good to just see what happens. (Not always, of course.) You'll either like it or you won't, and either way, it's so far from the end of the world....
If you click on the 'waffle' label to the right, you can see the original towels.
I've also just used waffle for the hem and done a rolled hem. No flare, no design element. :)
Sometimes I like surprises. They are what keep me excited about creating textiles. :D
Cheers,
Laura
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