Project: Fabulous easy cotton tea towels

Last week's project was taken from Angela Tong's Rigid Heddle Weaving video class on Craftsy.  The class is useful because the instructor breaks everything down, from a worksheet with yardages and ends already calculated, to step by step instructions for finishing including hemstitching.  For  a beginner weaver like me this is very useful.

The tea towel project called for Lily Sugar n' Cream cotton yarn - - one 14 oz cone of white and 2 x 57g balls of Green Twists.  I was initially a little concerned about how this yarn would work up as the white cotton in particular felt a little abrasive on the cone, but my concerns were all for naught - - this yarn worked up a treat, was super easy to work with, had only manageable tangles, and is very absorbent as it turns out - - perfect for towels.  My only complaint is the rather limited colourways available in the Twists line of yarns - - I would love to repeat this same pattern with blues or purples, but the Twists line favours more of the red and brown shades. I ended up with about 1/3 of a ball of the green and a decent portion of the white cone leftover after I finished the project, so I was pleased not to have run out of yarn at any point. 

The video instructions were very clear and the pattern was quick to set up using my warping board built into the Kromski Harp.  I made a minor mistake transferring my first warp to my heddle (I built the warp in two sections) - - I inadvertently started at the wrong side so I had an extra pair of ends on one side that I had to move to the other to get the pattern to work out.  All in all I have made more catastrophic mistakes and this one was comparatively minor and it didn't slow me down too much.

All ready to weave

The instructions for these towels call for alternating 3" sections of white with 1.5" sections of green, with the ends hemstitched.  This was my first attempt at hemstitching, and it was a little - er - rugged on my first edge.  By the second towel, however, I was beginning to get the hang of it and the edges looked much cleaner and more consistent.  I really like the look of the hemstitched edge and will likely incorporate this into more of my projects. 

I love the simple clean lines of these towels.  The pattern is perfect for a kitchen towel - - not too fussy. 

The pattern called for setting up a 2.5 yard warp and weaving both towels on the same warp using waste yarn in between to separate the towels.  It worked perfectly, and I was delighted with how quick and easy it was to weave up two towels once the hard work of warping the loom was done. 

Fresh off the loom, before washing and trimming

The selvedges on my second towel were much cleaner because in part my leftmost warp thread was lying more flush with the other warp threads - - I think given the length of warp wound around at the beginning the warp threads may have rolled over or been otherwise separated somehow, which made for one messy edge on that first towel. 

Tea towels before washing

On my first towel I simply changed bobbins on my boat shuttles when the yarn ran out, which led to some sections having multiple yarn ends woven in.  Although this is not really a problem, I don't like the effect that the woven in ends has on my pattern, and I think moving forward I will switch to fresh bobbins to avoid running out in the middle of a colour block.  I did this for the second towel and liked the result much better. 

I also learned about running out of thread when the finishing edge of the first towel.  Because I had not started with a fresh shuttle before weaving my last section of white. by the time I reached the end of the towel there was comparatively little yarn left available for hemstitching the far edge.  In fact, I ran out halfway through hemstitching that edge, which meant that I had to tie in a new thread (and weave in extra ends as a result).  It was not a fatal error, but it was a useful reminder why it is helpful to have a fresh bobbin for that final section.  Because I had a fresh bobbin before starting the final section of the second towel I did not run out and in fact had lots of yarn to spare for hemstitching. 

I really really enjoyed this project.  The finished towels came off the loom at 25.5" x 14.5" and they were both essentially identical in size, which I really liked.  After washing and drying the towels shrunk down to about 21.75" x 13" - - as with the houndstooth runner I am seeing much more shrinkage on the length than the width of my finished projects.

Finished towel action shot - after washing and trimming

I am keeping these towels for us to use in our kitchen because even though they look pretty good, they are still liberally sprinkled with enough errors (aka "character") that I am uncomfortable gifting these to anyone.  But I really want to do this pattern again because I am sure the second time around will be that much better.