I wove these towels over 3 years ago, but I never got to finish them beyond taking the fabric off the loom.
The towels are separated by stripes of plain weaving - this is were I need to cut and then secure the edges. I never dared to attempt that step until now
The plan: with my straightstich sewing machine secure the cut lines by double lines of straight stitches left and right of the cut line, then cut, fold once, sew down, fold again, secure the hem
Doing the seams went pretty well - and work 4 lines of stitches along each cut I think I'm safe that things won't fray, even without zigzag or using a serger.
They are now washed and dried. The fabric firmed up considerably, which I had expected. It's now very nice towel material (cottoline, a 70/30 cotton / linen blend).
They are wildly different in size because I ran into some trouble during weaving, but I'm proud of them.
The troubles were mostly with the beaming of the warp, which lead to re-beaming after the first towel which took about 1 week dedicating about 2 hours each day. That's all my back and patience would allow me each day.
Pulling off the whole warp, untangling, re-aligning and re-beaming
I learned A LOT during that process. Especially what not to do.
Thank you. I selected them based on the classic miner's towels, used in the coal mines in the Ruhr area in Germany
The complicated thing is setting up the loom. Or not so complicated, more requiring a lot of patience. And planning. Because once you cut the yarn for the wrap you can't undo that.
The rest is following a pattern - which isn't so much different from following a knitting pattern.
@FanCityKnits @maru When I visited the North House Folks School last week and peeked in on the weaving class in progress, everyone was busy weaving except one guy close to the door who was in the middle of an awful lot of warping.
I leaned over to my husband and said something like, "When you're weaving, you spend most of your time doing THAT." I thought it was only loud enough for him to hear, but the guy warping his loom turned his head up and gave me a LOOK. 😅
Yeah, warping is a significant part of weaving - but when you think about it: the warp consists (in a standard weave like tabby or twill) of more than half of the yarn that goes into the project.
@FanCityKnits Nice! Good luck.
Last week when we were in Grand Marais, MN, we stopped in at the North House Folk School and peeked in at the weaving course that was in progress. I hope to try it out one day!
FanCityKnits 🇺🇦🧶
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