Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Twill Towel #1

After a couple days of making progress on drawloom setup, I'm back to weaving today, working on the first of three or four twill towels. Warp is unbleached cottolin at 24 epi, 2 threads per dent in a 12 dent reed, threaded as a straight draw on 10 shafts. I am using 10 shafts for the twill treadling, two shafts, on the right, are for the plain weave hem.


Today I am treadling 1 to 10 and back down to 1, then 10 to 1 to 10, and keep repeating, giving a zig-zag look. Because of frequent interruptions ~ woodburner needing more wood, dogs needing to go out, etc., I have a clipboard next to me so I can check off each repeat. I also have two pins at the right selvedge so I can see where each repeat begins/ends. I just keep moving the pin closest to me, and place the temple right over the pins. This towel will have a sewn hem; the weft is the linen/cotton slub thread, for both hem and body of towel.

I have noticed that despite a 3" plain weave hem and a few inches of twill woven, there is no rippling on this towel as there was on my samples, where I had used cottolin for the hem. I'll assume there is no rippling on the loom because the hem and body of the towel are woven with the same thread. It is the only difference between the current weaving and the samples that were made.

3 comments:

Life Looms Large said...

The towel looks really nice! I like how the zigzags and stripes interact!!

Glad there's no rippling this time!

Sue

Janice Zindel said...

Yes, that was a relief. I may still go back and weave up a towel,
ripples and all, to wet-finish and see the results. Now, while weaving this, I'm considering the treadling for the next towel(s),
and thinking about colors and structure for the next warp. Something with color!

Peg in South Carolina said...

It is looking lovely. I find it is good to have an excuse to get up from the loom so like you I keep track of complex treadlings with a clipboard. But instead of a pin in the fabric, I throw a shot of fine contrasting thread at the beginning of each repeat so that if I get lost I can find my place. Sometimes I also use one of those knitting counters to keep track of rows woven or blocks woven.