More of the Green Towels

I finished weaving the green towels a while ago, and now they are all folded up, sitting and waiting for me to hem and wash them.  In the meantime, I thought I might as well share a few more photos that will show each of them in progress, on the loom.

I wanted to change things up with the second towel, so I did this variation in an X patterning.  I like the way the Xs make a lattice to connect the pattern into a more unified design than the little unconnected Os.  If you refer back to my earlier post, you might be able to see the difference in the overall lattice.

For the third towel, I went back to the Os (even without the lattice that connects the design I prefer their roundness to the thornier Xs) but with yet another variation on the design.  This one made lots of little squares and some cool equal-armed crosses.  I really liked the way this one looked, as I was weaving it, and I was almost sorry to come to the end of it.  I think the negative space is interesting, and I look forward to seeing the reverse side, too.

With the fourth towel I finally did some dukagang.  For some reason I always think I won't weave this structure for the sets I make (probably because it is so different from the others and I worry that it will stand out too much) but then I change my mind and do it.  It always ends up my favourite, in the end.  It has a very different look than the others, with a more vertical direction to the whole design, but I felt like it really worked with the sort of medallion shape that this tie-up variation has in it.

Having finished those four, I pulled out the purple pattern weft and started one for myself.  I used the same tie-up variation that I used for the dukagang, but this time using the Os.  I'm not sure I love the purple as much as I thought I would - the green background gets a bit muddied by using this colour for a pattern weft.  It might actually have been better in dukagang, as well, since the colours would be more isolated.  Live and learn.

One of these days I will get around to washing and ironing them and then you can see what a difference finishing makes!

Weaving Green

There are a lot of fun weaving structures in the world, but having tried Summer & Winter once, I have had a strong urge to keep playing with it.

I used another name draft to come up with this pattern, but then one of my weaving reference books reminded me that I can use different tie-ups with the same threading to make lots of variations on the same design.  Since I am on a table loom, I don't actually use tie-ups at all, but rather make the variations line by line, as I am doing the actual weaving.  This really opens up a myriad of possibilities for me, and as such, I decided to make a bit of a longer warp and do five different towels.

I am about halfway through the first one, and really can't wait to see how the rest turn out!

The Big Reveal

Not much more to say about this project - I finished the dukagang towel (but ran out of warp so it's one repeat shorter than the other towels) and had a minor disaster (or two) with the loom right at the end, while weaving the last hem, but it all turned out ok.  I just have to do a bit of loom maintenance and we're good to go.

I was really feeling a hand-sewing vibe, so rather than machine zig-zagging between towels, I hand stitched a blanket stitch at the end of all the hems, and then turned them twice and hand sewed them all down.  They look super tidy and I am really happy with them.

Then a quick toss in the washer and a few minutes in the dryer, followed by a final ironing to dry them out completely...  and they look great!  The threads all tightened up a bit and made the designs much clearer and they look so lovely.

Now for the weaving porn - showing both the light and dark faces that give the fabric its name.  They're all the same... but so different!

Let Me Rock You, Dukagang

And so today I began the final treadling for the Summer & Winter towels - this one is a Swedish weaving design, called dukagang (doo-kah-gong), which leaves columns of colour, as you can see.

The vertical element of this particular treadling is very strong, since both the green and white blocks have a vertical stripe.  I feel like this takes away a bit from the overall radial symmetry of the design, but I still like it a lot, and I can't wait to see the other side, which will be mostly white with the design in green.

This is the fourth and final towel, so hopefully only a few more days and I'll have these ready for the wash and then we can see what they all really look like once they're finished!

Third Treadling

It's funny that, having done that bit of sampling at the beginning, I chose the pattern I liked best for the first towel.  Funny because I actually liked the pattern in the second towel better than the first, once I started weaving it.  It's even funnier that I like the third treadling (which I assumed would be my least favourite of the four) even more than I liked either of the first two.

I'm not sure if it's because the colours are more distinct (due to the different way the little contrast-colour-dots are laid out) or the way everything is tidy little squares, but I have been enjoying this treadling a lot.  The only unfortunate thing is how blurry it looks because of the alternating threads at the edges of the blocks.  Well, to be fair, the other unfortunate thing is that the picture is also just blurry.

A New Treadling

As I mentioned last time, I decided to try a different treadling for each towel, so it's time to show the beginning of the second towel and see if you can spot the difference that the different treadling order makes in the pattern on the cloth.

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.

It's fun to start the second towel and see how different it looks, but a bit of a challenge to keep the new treadling straight, when the first one is so ingrained already.

Beginning of Summer (& Winter)

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.