Saturday, January 31, 2009

More Tea Towels



This is the second treadling on the current warp. I simplified the sequence somewhat and now have 'strings of pearls'? The red line is a cutting line so that I don't have to guess where to separate the towels when they come off the loom. You should be able to just see that I've woven the hems in a point twill progression. I prefer to do this rather than plain weave as there is less tendency for the hems to be a different width than the towel proper.

Also checked the area I wondered about in terms of a sleying error, but it is, indeed, a section where several of the very fine 40/3 darker threads are grouped. No mistake - this time! :}

Got four towels woven yesterday, and even managed some transcribing. But I'm also very behind on doing WeaveCast - new episode posted today - so I'm hoping to start on the last one before I leave on my next trip. I'm anxious to hear the interview with Tom Beaudet, who has been very kind to me. :)

5 comments:

Life Looms Large said...

Nice towel! From here, it reminds me of that type of Shibori that's supposed to look like tree-bark - I can't remember the name of it.

Also, good tip about the twill hems. I just did crepe weave towels with plain weave hems after a design in Handwoven, and the hems were a little wider than the rest of the fabric.

Anonymous said...

Lovely - I really admire your sense of colour.
Like Sue I've been having hem issues. Don't think the twill will work with the summer and winter I'm using in the body of the towels...

Laura Fry said...

Hems can be a bear due to the higher draw in of a woven pattern over plain weave.

You can look at your threading and try a different weave structure that might work better - half basketweave sometimes works (i.e. two adjacent threads up with the next two down, then alternate).

Depending on your weave structure it may not be a true 2 up 2 down, but so long as your hem structure comes closer to the same draw in as your woven pattern, there will be less difference.

Then there's a simple 2:2 twill - again might not give exact draw in, but better than plain weave.

For Summer and Winter, you *could* just weave S&W in every pattern block making a solid coloured, un-patterned hem area.

That won't make the hem fabric thinner, but the two areas will have much more similar draw in/shrinkage. :)

Sometimes just weaving the hems with a much finer thread will help, too, but not necessarily provide exact draw in/shrinkage to match the body of the towel.

That's something that you just can't tell until after the wet finishing.

Sample, sample, sample! Or tuck as much of the excess into the hems as you can and go with whatever the results may be. :}

You can always claim that ruffled hems was the effect you were after???? :^)

Cheers,

Laura
who actually has a towel where that is true....maybe one of these days I'll post a photo....

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much Laura! I appreciate the advice and will try out your ideas.
Judy

Leigh said...

I imagine that we all struggle with hem weaving. I finally gave up with the plain weave and just leave them in whatever structure I'm doing. Then I figured out that if I did that I could make a matching set of towels from just one long length of fabric. That relieved me of so much measuring and I'm happy with that.

Even so, thanks for the wonderful tips Laura.