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. 

Work 2 - Houndstooth Check Table Runner

Work 1 - - the primitive childlike weaving of incredible unevenness and unintentional loops - - went much better than expected, actually.  Along the way we discovered that part of my issues with keeping an even tension in my work were because our pawls were on the ratchets backwards so the gears kept slipping.  Good thing to discover on a piece of scrap work.

For work #2 I wanted to try a simple houndstooth check using a 2 x 2 pattern (2 warp threads of each colour and 2 picks of each colour, alternating one after the other).   I also wanted to try getting the tension right this time, so I really took my time setting up my warp.  I switched to a 10-dent heddle because the 8-dent heddle was very very airy using my 3/2 mercerized cotton yarn - - I kept the fiber the same as in work #1 because I liked the colours and thought that the red and garnet combination would still have an adequate contrast for the houndstooth. 

I used the single warping peg again this time to help set up the warp, because I thought that trying to play with tension, colour, and a completely new warping method was one innovation too many. 

I am almost certain that I set up my back end of my warp in the most labour intensive way possible, tying off knots on each end of each colour, all the way along the warp assist dowel.  This took literally hours.  I started on Saturday evening and finished Sunday around lunch time.  At first it just felt like it took forever, and then I started to get into a rhythm and the time seemed to pass faster.  Don't get me wrong - - it still took hours, I just didn't mind it as much.

With the pawls on facing the right way and using warp sticks I was able to maintain a nice tight tension on my warp while I wound the warp onto the back beam.  The next step was figuring out how to tie off my warp threads onto the front warp assist dowel.  The first time I set up my loom I used a giant loose bow because I couldn't figure out the knot that would permit me to adjust the tension. 

This time I watched more Tim Horchler videos on warping my loom and I called in an expert: the Nerd.  He was able to figure out the first knot, and he showed it to me.  It was really head smacking time - - it was so easy, a simple overhand knot!  D'oh!

These half knots permitted me to adjust the tension on my warp across the groups of warp threads, ensuring a much more even tension across the whole width of my warp.  It will come as a shock to no one when I tell you that these little knots have a much lower profile than big loopy bows (!), so they caused less bumpiness when I began winding the work onto the front beam.

Speaking of the bumpiness of winding over the knots on the front beam, this time I actually used warp sticks to help hold the finished weave up over the knots as I wound the fabric around the beam, and it helped keep my work much flatter in the working portion. 

With the warp nicely set up it was time to begin weaving, and this is where the fun began.  I am sure all practiced weavers will nod their heads when I say that it took me as long to set up the warp as it took me to weave the entire work. 

I loved the way that the houndstooth pattern wove up.  Once again the boat shuttles and preloaded bobbins work a treat - - it was so easy to swap out empty bobbins for preloaded bobbins as required. 

I started weaving just after lunch and finished weaving the length of the warp and knotting up the fringes by 10.30 pm.  I set up my warp initially across 12" of the heddle, 6" on either side of center.  Coming off the loom the finished work was about 11.5" wide x 45.25".  After washing the work shrunk up by about 8%, so that the new dimensions were 10.25" x 41.5".   

I wasn't trying to achieve a specific width or length because this was still a test project so it was a bit of a surprise to see the dimensions both when the work came off the loom and after washing.  I am beginning to see why we always need to add inches on the warp and weft to accommodate shrinkage and tightening of the woven fabric.

I am more convinced than ever than my next test work needs to be warped using the warping board rather than a single warping peg, to create a longer work.  I also found this work was still a bit airy so I might use a 12-dent heddle the next time I use the mercerized cotton yarn, or I may change to a different fiber. 

All in all I was extremely pleased with the result for work #2.  For another largely test project I thought it went pretty well.  My selvedges were pretty straight and even, the tension regular, and the pattern showed up nicely.  I wished the finished work had been a little bit longer, but that is the limitation of direct warping the loom.