The Kitchen/Tea Towels

Eager to get started on the colorful tied weave, i.e. eager to vacate the loom of the cottolin towel warp, at first I was ambitious about making use of the irregular color/strip width in a fancy twill of sorts, but after a few halfhearted tries, I switch to a quick-to-thread track. I had in mind a draft with four twill blocks I made for the 2012 National Guild exhibition in Blenheim, but I couldn't find it. 

I blogged about the piece while making it, but my head back then was all about the upcoming October group exhibition, and I can't find a descent pic posted. Anyway, it's not the first time I lost/misplaced a draft I worked hard to make, (it's the second one,) but you know, out of the ashes may come new, better drafts fit for purpose. This was the piece, and I probably had three or four files because my program allows only 999 picks per file. 

The towels are in Swedish cottolin both ways, (20/2???) at 21EPI on my 6-dent reed, (because I only have one long 10DPI reed, currently stuck on the four-shaft Jack.) Weaving width on paper is 18.66in/46.66cm. The warp is 10m long, so I should get a few decent ones. For today I started weaving without sampling, but it may come mid-warp. In fact, I'd like to audition some colors between the second and third piece. The second is all yellow, the same as the right end in the warp. 

Speaking of the simple threading, this is approximately it. (I adjusted the selvedges.) Since it's a kitchen/tea towel, I want it to be super absorbent, so I'm allowing up to 6 skips either way. This way, the towels may have a shorter life, but it's going to suit our kitchen. Also, it'll be easy to develop half a dozen different drafts with this threading.

All the while, you know what I've been thinking about? Doing the colorful tied weave in merino! I have mill-end super fine merinos in three colors at the moment. They are not interchangeable, so each piece will have to have one color thin tie-down thread, but I have a few colors that would do nicely in the warp and pattern weft. Hee hee.