twill

These were designed to make the most of the "bumpy" transition between blocks in the 8H twill. This design is purposely asymmetric. Although the outcome is pleasing, I plan to tweak the draft a bit for the next threading. The colors and the borders make me especially happy.

This project is an experiment in several ways.  First, the heddles used (three of them!) are prototypes of a wider semi-rigid heddle than the "normal" ones -- these are two inches wider than standard -- and I wanted to see how they'd behave weaving a "cloth" rather than a warp-faced weave.  Second, the 2.5 meter warp isn't longer than any I've woven with these heddles, but this is the first time I've woven a non-warp-faced weave with the warp stretched full-length and the heddles suspended on the warp.

The first experiment (trying the wider heddles for weaving "cloth") is a success!  The heddles behave beautifully, and using a lightweight temple, it's easy to maintain an even width in the web.

The second experiment (weaving non-warp-faced on a long warp stretched full-length) is less happy.  It's not bad maintaining warp tension over this length, but the warp sways while I'm weaving (in fact, it sways a lot) -- and even though that doesn't pose a major problem for the weaving itself, it's unnerving!

It's also not a lot of fun -- which is why it's been a work-in-progress for so long.  This week I'll roll the warp and cloth onto sticks and finish weaving it with a backstrap.  That should wrap things up nicely!

Postscript:

Moving the scarf to a backstrap setup was a great idea!  The balance of the weaving was comfortable and pleasant, and the awkward feeling that I was weaving on a tightrope disappeared.  Unfortunately, the "transition" between one way of weaving and the other showed in the final scarf -- but it was an experimental scarf, just for me, so it didn't matter!

There's quite a bit of yarn left over, so I may wind another warp like this one -- but this time weave the entire thing on the backstrap.  It's not too early to think about Christmas, is it?

4 colors I am rotating the colors in the weft for each towel

This is the second warp in this series. In the previous towel warp the block pattern did not weave to square. So for this one I re-sleyed the warp from 40 e.p.i. to 37.5 e.p.i. The change did the trick.

The warp yarn was a mill end from WEBS, a 20/2 two-color ply. It was rather fuzzy and a bit of trouble to beam. I like the interesting color effect of this warp. It was worth the extra effort.

This warp yielded 8 very nice towels. After hemming and washing they each measure 20 x 28".