Finished Rainbow Stripe Towels

I got into a real "zen" weaving zone with these towels - they were a delight to weave. I never grew tired of seeing the pattern emerge in the slubby textured cotton. My 12 yard warp yielded 13 towels. The finished dimensions are 25"x16", and they're hand-hemmed.  I've machine washed and dried them once. They're so soft and thirsty, and the texture is wonderful. They're available in my shop (or you can follow the link on the right).

Coupon Code, and Towels

Valid for the whole month of December: coupon code FREESHIP for free US shipping on everything in my shop (I'll refund $5 on international sales). Use this link: DebbieBHandspun, Handwoven - or click on the shop in my sidebar.

The blue towels are done, and fresh out of the washer and dryer. I still have lots of teensy thread ends to snip, then the hand-hemming starts. I enjoy hand-hemming, it's good tv-handwork.

More Towels - Blue With Stripes

A Ravelry friend commissioned a set of towels to match her kitchen - she wants cobalt blue, with accents of brown and natural. I'm weaving hers with vertical AND horizontal stripes, and I'll do a few extra with only vertical stripes. I really love this color combo!

Rainbow Candy Towels Finished!

My rainbow candy towels are off the loom, washed and dried, cut apart and hand-hemmed, and pressed. I have 4 navy, 4 burgundy, and 4 teal. They're listed in my shop, the link is in the sidebar, if you're interested in getting one for yourself or a gift.

I love how they came out!

Rainbow Candy - 3rd Color, Navy

... and here's the third weft color, navy. As with the first two colors (burgundy and teal) it picks up different shades in the warp and does interesting things with them. Weaving these colors is endlessly amusing!

Rainbow Candy - 2nd Color, Teal

I love how changing the weft color makes such a difference in the overall look of the cloth. Here's the second color, teal:

Rainbow Candy - 1st Color, Burgundy

I'm planning 3 different sets of 4 towels each from this rainbow warp: 4 burgundy, 4 teal, and 4 navy. Here's the first color - I love how it's weaving up!

Weaving Rainbows Again

I love putting on a long warp and weaving dishtowels. Time for rainbows again! It's so much fun to grab a bunch of colors and toss them onto the warping mill as the mood strikes. I change colors a million times to get these multi-color warps, then weave with a textured pattern (huck) using a solid color weft. I'm thinking burgundy, navy, and teal.

Leaf Peeps!

I finished this fun and happy skein of yarn yesterday - the colorway is called "Leaf Peeps" and it's hand-dyed polwarth wool top from Enchanted Knoll Farm's 'Happy Hooves' club. 250 yards of 2-ply sportweight. It's soft and bouncy and looks like candy!

I also finished hemming the Ocean Towels - They're soft and thirsty and great for not only drying dishes but can be used as placemats or breadcloths. Dimensions are 24" x 16", nice and big. They make great gifts, too.

Both the yarn and the towels are available in my shop, shown in the sidebar.

Ocean Towels Are Done!

I finished weaving the Ocean Towels today. They've been washed and dried, now the hand-hemming process starts. I'm super-pleased with these towels - they're really soft and thirsty. The pattern is a linked birdseye, and I used 6/2 unmercerized cotton sett at 16 ends per inch. I have 10 towels - 1 to keep, 1 for my swap partner, and 2 for gifts. That leaves 6 for the shop.

I'll take more pictures when they're hemmed and pressed, but I couldn't resist showing them off now!

This is fresh off the loom, before washing

After a trip through the washer and dryer - ready to hem!

Ocean Towels

Dishtowels, Linked Birdseye pattern, 6/2 unmercerized cotton, blue and green and very pale blue (looks white in the picture):

I've warped for 8 towels - one for a swap partner, one for me, 6 for the shop. I love this color combination!

Handwoven Rainbow Black Towels

I finished the towels! These may be my favorite so far. The rainbow colors against the black background remind me of stained glass. 10/2 cotton, hand-hemmed, 16"x24".

My only regret is not having wound a longer warp! I was low on the black 10/2 cotton, so I only wound an 8 towel warp. Thankfully, I've restocked, so I can weave some more!

Black Rainbow Towel Warp in progress

I'm winding a warp today for a new set of dishtowels, in a "breaks and recesses" pattern (from Strickler). I'm using 10/2 cotton, setting it at 24 ends per inch. Here's my design plan:

And here's the warp in progress on my warping mill:

All Hemmed Up and Ready To Go!

There were 14 towels altogether in this last batch - from a 13 yard warp. Each towel is 16"x24" and handhemmed. My daughter insisted that we keep one for our kitchen. :) The other 13 are ready for their new homes. This was a fun project, and now I'm ready for the next one!

Fresh off the loom!

The latest batch of rainbow dishtowels is done! I've cut the whole batch off the loom, and now it's in the washing machine. Next it goes in the dryer, until only slightly damp, then I'll cut them apart, press, and hem. Yay!

Fotography Friday

Forgive the spelling - I couldn't resist. :)

I've got such a backlog of weaving and spinning to photograph - I'm trying to play a little catch-up here!

I've got 2 scarves and a table runner to show you - they've all been finished for awhile, but haven't had their beauty shots until now...

Handwoven Purple Illusion - this is a shadow weave scarf, woven with 10/2 in two different shades of purple:

Handwoven Northern Lights Scarf, woven in a faux-faux-ikat style - the warp is "fairy dust" yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farm, with a lovely subtle sparkle, and the weft is tencel:

Handwoven Overshot Runner, in 10/2 cotton and 5/2 cotton:

And for reading this far, your reward is a sneak peak of the warp I'm winding for the NEXT batch of random rainbow towels:

This is 1/5 of the warp - with a 13 yard warp, I can only fit so many threads (110) on the warping mill before it cries "I'm full, I'm full!" So I chain it off, set it aside, and start a new bout. This warp will be 5 chains, since I need 550 threads for these towels.

Handwoven Huck Rainbow Towels, Finished!

I finally got them all hand-hemmed and photographed! I must confess, the picture-taking is my least favorite thing in the entire process... I'd much rather be weaving! I ended up with 14 towels altogether - 2 of them are reserved for my kitchen, the other 12 went right into the Etsy shop (and as of this afternoon, 8 are already gone - Edit: oh, my! All 12 towels are gone!!!). I wove pairs - 2 pink, 2 purple, 2 navy, 2 teal, 2 burgundy, and 2 black. They're 16" x 24" and nicely textured with the huck structure.

Fun to weave, fun to use! I only have handwoven towels in my kitchen now, in all sorts of colors and structures. They add whimsy and pleasure to the otherwise joyless job of doing the dishes. :)

I may have to wind another dishtowel warp soon... I miss throwing that shuttle! (Edit: since they're all gone so fast, I've started winding a new rainbow warp tonight!)

Rainbow Towels in Progress...

I spent the weekend in the company of wonderful friends, the Weavin' Chicks - learning to weave Advancing Twill. We wove a scarf from bamboo, and learned that "Advancing Twill" means "a zillion picks per repeat"! We managed to get some lovely scarves woven - here's mine, before fringe-twisting and washing (I promise a better picture when it's done):

Happy to be able to report some progress on the Rainbow towel warp. Since I have 12 towels on this warp, I decided to weave 6 pairs of weft colors. The first two towels are PINK:

The second set of two towels is PURPLE:

And the third set is BURGUNDY:

I'll weave more tomorrow - I'm hoping to finish the whole warp tomorrow and Wednesday, so I can bring it to show off at the Saori retreat this weekend. A group of us are meeting at my friend Cheryl's Weavin' Place Saori-Style studio-in-the-woods for a Saori "Kai" ("sharing time") retreat, and as a special treat, my dearest friend Sherie is coming from Amarillo for the weekend! I can't wait to see her again.

I've also made great progress on my husband's sweater yarn - I've got two 4-ounce bobbins spun, and am working on the third (of four). This will be my first 4-ply yarn, and I can't wait to start plying, because the colors are gorgeous (pictures tomorrow, I hope!)

Warped Rainbow

The warp is on the loom, and I love the look of it.

I've started weaving the first towel - pictures tomorrow when I've made some progress.

Never Enough Rainbows!

I enjoyed weaving those rainbow dishtowels a lot! So yesterday I wound another rainbow warp. I'll weave this on my Baby Wolf, in a huck lace, like the last set of towels. Like that last warp, this is a randomized rainbow, designed as I selected threads to wind on the mill. I'm spending today threading the heddles and tying on the warp:

I wound the warp in 5 bouts, because it's a 13 yard warp (for 12 towels) and I couldn't fit more than 110 threads at a time on my warping mill.

Editing to add the draft info: It's from the July/July 2000 issue of Weaver's Craft, #3 - I used the draft from the "Carribean Plaid Huck Towels", but converted it to use 10/2 cotton and a 19.75" weaving width. More details in my Ravelry project page.

It's cool here today - temps in the upper 50's F.  Such a lovely fresh breath of air - it finally feels like Fall!