Thursday, July 9, 2015

Red/Natural Striped Kitchen Towels


I have finished my red and natural striped kitchen towels, and am ready to share!

This set is a study on twills.  I picked four designs to try, and switched with each towel.  The four designs were:
  1. Horizontal herringbone
  2. Mini herringbone
  3. 2/2 point twill
  4. 1/3 and 3/1 hopsack
I once again used 8/2 unmercerized cotton, in colorways dark red and natural, obtained from Yarn Barn of Kansas.  I used a 24 sett in a 12 dent reed, which I am still very pleased with this setting for all the towels I have done so far.  I decided to do a single-color weft this time, and make vertical stripes in the warp.

Here are some pictures of my work in progress:

Warp completed

Hopsack on bottom, point twill on top.  The pink line is my cutting line.

Mini herringbone
Horizontal herringbone

After completing, I used my sewing machine to zig zag stitch on either side of my cut lines, then cut them apart.

Towels just off the loom

Zig zagging the ends

I decided I had had enough of hand hemming towels, so I pressed and pinned a double roll hem, then machine stitched.  This worked surprisingly well, and although the hem isn't perfectly straight, it works well and was SO MUCH FASTER!  I'll be doing this all the time now, and I'm sure I'll get better and better at it!

Hems pinned and ready to sew
My hemming

And the finished products!  I love the designs, particularly the horizontal herringbone!



My critiques: for whatever reason, I only wove to 30" on each towel, completely disregarding the extra for take up and shrinkage I allowed for on my warp calculations.  So they are short.  Finished dimensions: 22" long and 25" wide.  But all in all, a successful weave.  New towels are on the loom now, so stay tuned!

For those interested, here are the links to my weaving record sheet, which has instructions and drafts that I followed to make these towels:

PAGE 1
PAGE 2
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 10, 2015 at 4:42 AM

    These turned out so well! I, too, am trying to decide between hand hemming or doing it on the machine. I need to figure out something that works--unfinished towels are starting to pile up!

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    1. UnknownJuly 10, 2015 at 9:13 AM

      Thanks. Let me encourage you - hemming on the machine was a breeze once I experimented with machine settings and found the right combo. I did rip out many attempts, mostly because I'm inexperienced on a sewing machine. But give it a try, and write down what settings work. That way, on the next set, you can just start right in!

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