Saturday, February 7, 2009

More Wet Finishing



Visited Puff today and got a bunch of tea towels and other stuff pressed.

It was hard to get a good photo of these very pale tea towels, but I think this photo looks pretty good. It mainly shows the most complex of the treadlings I did using the 1:3:2:2:3:1 tie up. The next batch woven with twill blocks should show up much better.

The quality of the cloth is not as heavy as most commercially made tea towels, but should be a nice towel nevertheless for fine china and crystal. The cloth can also be used as a table runner, or whatever else someone would like to use it for. I try not to label my textiles too firmly as people have bought my towels to make a skirt, tea towels to use as vest fronts, an afghan became a well loved shawl.

The difference before and after finishing is always fun to see and feel. The reed marks did not go away entirely, but that was partly due to the fibre (stiff linen) and the weave structure.

In the end, I'm pleased with this batch of towels. The colours are subtle, the patterning pleasing - to my eye - and the cloth feels crisp and functional.

Currently reading Why Mermaids Sing by C. S. Harris

2 comments:

Sharon Schulze said...

You mentioned that the reed marks didn't go away because you were using stiff linen. Will they maybe go away with laundering, since linen gets softer over time?

Laura Fry said...

They may do - but I'm not sure since they have been hard pressed and pretty much set in place.