Scary Tea Towels

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As I was weaving these, I kept thinking that the further along I got, the more likely it was I would miscalculate and do too few stripe repeats for the size of tea towels I wanted. Turns out the second and third were fine, but I’d made the first one too short. Never mind! I’m calling it a hand towel. Here’s the fabric that came off the loom:

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I used up the last of the weft at the end of the warp, leaving me with a scrap to play with, or a sampler to keep with my project notes.

And these are the finished, hemmed towels.

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As it turned out, this project wasn’t as scary as it initially seemed. The problem was a) not having enough heddles to make something of tea towel width if I wove using 16/2 cotton, b) I assumed the loom would come with enough heddles to make something like this so when there wasn’t enough I figured I had the math wrong, and c) I had the math wrong anyway – but a different part of the equation.

I know now that I can weave tea towels on this loom if I use a 8/2 cotton warp, or I convert the loom to 8 shafts so I can double the heddles without losing a whole lot of weaving width when weaving thicker yarn.

And if I want to weave anything else with yarn thinner than 8/2 cotton and wider than a scarf I’ll have to convert the loom, too.

Converting the loom will mean adding more pedals to our handmade loom table, too, so it’s no easy decision.

And there’s still plenty I on my list of weaving techniques I want to try with 4 shafts before I start exploring the possibilities of 8 shafts. Now now that I’ve woven with 8/2 cotton, I’m looking forward to doing it again. Perhaps waffle weave tea towels next, because these are a bit thin for tea towels.

But not straight away. I’ve cut a warp for a sampler using 4ply Bendigo Classic, to work out what I want and need to do to make some shawls.