I managed to hit the dual deadlines of: finishing towels and posting the NZ ones in time for Christmas. The design and weave this year were probably the most simple and easiest but I still received lots of comments about the ‘best yet’. Now that may have been the fact that this year we made them a little larger and will stick with this size from now on.
I decided to avoid my normal ‘balanced’ designs, i.e. equal pattern top to bottom and side to side and have two/one color stripes lengthwise and across, but flipping the colors so technically it is balanced but not in the normal way.
I wound on enough warp for 30 towels and only broke 3 warp threads – typically not paying attention when a bobbin on the rack stops turning (it sticks against the side of the frame – I’ll have to add some sort of washers) and I don’t notice the extra pressure on the winding handle, consequently that thread snaps. Normally I can find both ends and tie a knot and continue. One one occasion the warp thread pulled tightly into the rest of the threads on the beam so I couldn’t find it, but as this was a simple tabby weave without critical warp color stripe order, I just dropped that thread.
It took, on average, 40 minutes to weave a towel. I did 4 most days, but my best was 7 and in all it took just over a week. I quickly took the cloth off the loom, hemmed the ends and gave it a wash and iron, before cutting and individually hemming them.
All gifts were posted and/or delivered in time for Christmas and we have the normal 6 left over and one slightly smaller one (the warp ran out 7 inches short!).
Plans for this year is a more complicated weave or I may even tablet weave something in Christmas colors and make key ring fobs – it would mean nearly doubling the number required, but if I start early enough…