Rustic Twill Towel & More Socks

This is the latest towel, woven straight twill treadling 1-10, with a nubby linen/cotton blend weft which gave a very nice rustic, slightly tweedy look to this one. I'm nearing the end of my warp, enough left for one or two more towels or one runner, which is good because I am more than ready for a change.


Over the years I've purchased two or three antique towel drying racks, in anticipation of someday having open studio days and knowing I would need a way to display handwoven towels. This morning, we hung up one of the antique racks as I wanted to see the towels all hanging together.

The antique drying racks are also useful for displaying skeins of handspun yarns as well as various handwovens. I have another rack with longer "arms," so am now looking around for a safe place to hang it where people won't walk into it and poke themselves.

Last night after hemming and pressing the towel, I steamed six more pairs of CSM socks (they had already been handwashed and had dried on a wood rack near the woodstove) for The Studio Gallery, with many more to come. I believe these are new color combinations (I need to check my records), and will need to come up with new names for them.

I know the group at The Studio Gallery would like some new, colorful woven (batik fabric) table runners, like the one above, "Tigers in the Garden" (now in my mother's home), so I will likely warp up the countermarche loom for those next, as I have a lot of fabric strips cut, sewn, pressed, ready to weave.

I'm overdue for getting back to work on the drawloom, but the push is on right now for getting more weaving and socks done for The Studio Gallery, for open studio days here, as well as for the new gallery opening in mid-June. Once I'm a bit more caught up,...

We had a few little snowshowers yesterday in the northwoods, and the woodrange in the kitchen was burning all day. We're usually done with woodheat by the end of April so this is unusual even for here. We had some wood left as a start on the coming winter's wood supply, and hope we won't need to use too much more. I expect we'll be firing up the woodstove again later this evening to warm the house up for overnight colder temps.

Wildlife sightings yesterday included an eagle, a couple deer, and late in the evening, a fox crossing the road. I'm not sure, but I believe the phoebe bird has once again built her nest on the topmost log on the east side of the house. Now, if we can just keep the squirrels out of it! The mob of chickadees, goldfinches, housefinches, nuthatches, and woodpeckers are eating us out of house and home. Two chipmunks (one of the large variety, one of the small), often work their way into the garage and consider the 50 lb. bag of sunflower seeds as their own private stash. Yesterday, we managed to thwart their way in. I really must get those seeds into a metal garbage can!