Bonbon towels. First year with Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom 7/9

My loom was unavailable for so long (cotton/linen towels took me more than 5 months to weave), that I managed to weave my next project in two days from warp to wash - 8-9 December 2012.
For four finger tips towels I used Lily's Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn.

Warp: 102 ends, 2 m alternating 2 white and 2 cream ends (did not have enough yarn of either colour). 8" reed.
Weft: Lily's Sugar'n Cream Stripes Blue and Lime
Finished size: 27 x 31 cm

9 December 2012

As I was very pleased both with the process and the result, I ordered more Sugar'n Cream cotton in different colours for a complete set of my bonbon towels. The second batch was woven in February 2013.

Complete set for the bathroom.

23 February 2013

KitchenTowels. First year with Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom 6/9

Finally I did something I could be proud of:
Kitchen towels woven from Valley Yarns 8/2 Cotton/Linen. Free draft was available from WEBS and I followed it with slight modification in size. The fabric is cut crosswise into smaller towels.

It was my longest project on the loom (from 22 June to 4 December 2012), but not because it was very difficult, just busy times.

I took pictures only of the final stage of the project.

 

Five 49 x 30 cm towels and a shorter one (using up warp).

The best part is how they become softer after every wash.

Woven December 2012

Chocolate chip cookies

Warm fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies with walnuts for lunch. What could be better?

Andean Pebbles

Finally I tried warp-faced band weaving.
I went though first two lessons of Andean Pebble Weave e-book by Laverne Waddington as well as studied numerous tutorials on her Backstrap Weaving site.

Although I cannot call my first attempt a success, at least I understood how warp-faced weaving works.

Paper mug rug. First year with Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom 5/9

Another experiment.
I bought some paper twine and tried to weave with it.
It was very stiff and only spraying it with water helped to finish two small mug rugs. Although a lot of warp was wasted, the result was rather cheerful!

5 May 2012

Kitchen towels. First year with Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom 4/9

Next project - more additions: second heddle, thinner yarn, twill.
I used two 10 dent heddles (20 epi) and 16/2 unmercerised natural cotton plus 10/2 cotton for borders, all doubled.

Again it was more of a training than real product weaving.
I wanted to check what kind of twill my rigid heddle loom can produce.

The idea was to weave two small towels alternating 20 picks of plain weave and 20 picks of 1/3 twill.

I love the result, especially softness of the unmercerised cotton.

Finished April 2012

As usual I had some extra warp left, so I decided to weave till the very end with plain weave.

As at that period I was learning Huck embroidery on Monk cloth, and I noticed that doubled ends of the towels produced similar structure.

Huck Embroidery. March-April 2012

Why not check whether it is possible to embroider on my fresh-from-loom towel?

It worked!

Bathroom rug. First year with Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom 3/9

In between some serious weaving I made this simple 50x50 cm bathroom rug using rayon silk from an old crochet sleeveless top for warp and 16/8 cotton mop for weft.

Crochet edging was added to secure warp.

When brand new the rug looked so nice that we used it as table top for some time (it was hard to start walking on it right away).

If I decide to make another rug using the same mop, I may use more colourful warp.

Woven February 2013