Wet and Dry

towels with chocolate weft

The colour is so dramatically different because the towel on the left is wet while the one on the right is dry.  IOW, before and after wet finishing (although the wet one still needs to be pressed).

Even so, you can easily see how much the wet finishing changes the cloth (click on photo to biggify).  Although I know the colour will go back to its dry state, the reed marks are much less pronounced and to me it looks like whole cloth, not a set of interlaced 3 dimensional 'rods' (threads).

Believe me, cutting and serging this warp was a challenge because it tended to fall apart if you looked at it cross ways!  The brown linen is not tow but probably line linen, therefore very stiff and all too inclined to pop out of the woven web.  Serging at least prevented the part I wanted to keep contained, but the bit that was being cut off?  A mind of its own, to be sure!  I had to keep stopping to tame the wild loose threads, use the tweezers to remove them from the guts of the machine and from hitching themselves onto the part that was being sewn.  Even so, the serger thread broke twice because of those loose threads tangling.

So I was very happy indeed to finish cutting and serging, knowing that that yarn is all used up!

Stash reduction!  Gotta love it.

ps - since these towels are now off the loom and in the process of being wet finished, they qualify for the 'buy two, get free shipping' offer that continues until Dec. 15 - or inventory is sold.  14 towels with the chocolate, 5 with the natural beige tow linen.

Currently reading Enemy in the House by Lindsey Davis.