In an attempt to break myself of my recent addiction to knitting nothing but a succession of quick and simple stockingette socks, I decided to start a new weaving project. It's a set of dish towels in a weaving style called Summer & Winter. The name is reflective of the light and dark contrasts in the cloth - one side of the towel will have a light pattern on a darker background, and the other side of the towel will have the reverse of the same pattern, this time in dark on a light background.
I did a bit of sampling before I started, since there are a few treadling variations in Summer & Winter. I elected to use one of the variations on a so-called X-treadling. The little Xs aren't totally apparent in this design, at the moment, but having done a couple of repeats of this pattern, I'm thinking that maybe I'll do a different treadling for each of the four towels. Once I do another towel in a different treadling, it may be easier to see the differences that different treadlings make in the cloth. Or maybe not.
The weave is a bit open right now, under tension on the loom (that's why the coloured spaces look like little green brick walls) but hopefully once it's not under tension and has been washed, the cotton will shrink a smidge and the weave will close up a bit. Time will tell.
At the bottom of the photo is the original treadling on the first towel - looks like little white Os on a coloured background - and at the top is the new treadling for the second towel - now it looks like little white Xs on a coloured background, and you can see how the little Xs connect together at their legs to make a design more like a lattice. Pretty! You'll have to imagine the back side of the cloth, for now. It will be a light background with green Xs and Os.
