Hello everyone! I've been busy experimenting with double weave, and LOVE my Hannah blanket from Glimakra! If you haven't explored this style, the kit is a great introduction. But getting to my posting.... Oh No! Oh No! I just finished four gorgeous waffle weave towels meant to be Christmas gifts. The draft was from Handwoven's Design Collection 5, and I wove the towels pictured on the cover. Fun to weave, looked JUST like those pictured. After one towel was woven, I switched from the 8/2 in the plain weave hem to white cotton thread. And just as I thought, the thread hems turned up beautifully and fit the size of the towels, but the 8/2 hem was wider than the body of the towel, so I did some "magical" folding to make the hem narrower. OK, all seemed well. Then into the wash....warm wash, cool rinse, and WHAM, when I took them out, the hems, I mean ALL THE HEMS are crummy, wider, ruffled and I am so bummed. As I study the picture of her towels, All the waffle boxes look a bit more square than mine, maybe mine are more rectangle, but I worked so hard to beat firmly because of that. Anyone have light to shed? At worst, I now have four new towels for my kitchen, because I don't consider a ruffled hem towel gift worthy.

Comments

Fri, 12/05/2014 - 23:20

laurafry

Welcome to dimensional loss caused by weave structure.  If you wove plain weave hems, which I'm assuming was the case, the waffle weave will 'shrink' waaaay more than plain weave causing the hems to flare as you experienced.

I find weaving twill rather than plain weave helps to equalize the difference in take up that happens during wet finishing although the twill will still not shrink as much as the waffle.  Sorry this doens't help you with the towels already woven.  :(

Laura

Fri, 12/05/2014 - 23:54

Sue in VT

You know, Laura, I don't mind too much that these towels turned out poorly as long as I understand what went wrong. I am loving the learning process involved in the newness of it all. So now I'm wondering about the author's draft of the towels. Her hems look perfect....but so did mine, before wet finishing! Now I have four new beautifully absorbent towels as a gift to myself and a lesson learned. I will experiment with twill hems with waffle weave, maybe in finer yarn. Thank you for all the help you've given me both in your responses and in articles in Handwoven. I especially enjoyed the article about fiber weights and absorbency. Joyful Holidays, Sue
Sat, 12/06/2014 - 00:02

ingamarie

This is why I hem after washing. I wash the whole length of several towels, then cut apart and hem them when I know what they're going to do. And you have to tweak the hems a bit to keep them from being ruffley. If you can take out the stitching you may be able to re-hem and salvage them.

Thanks Laura for the twill idea, I like!

Sat, 12/06/2014 - 00:16

laurafry

The thing with waffle weave is that it is sneaky.  :^)  The dynamics of the weave structure and the ability of the threads to slip in unforseen ways - until you get to know how they work - means that it sometimes behaves in very unexpected ways.

One way to minimize the dimensional loss is to set the cloth more densely.  Another is to use a tie up that shortens the floats so that they can't slip as far.  

Marie, a 1:3 twill works better than a 2:2 twill as the dimensional loss will be closer to the waffle.

Sue, I really enjoyed doing the article.  It was something I had wanted to do for a long time and finally got to do it at the request of Handwoven.  :)

cheers,

Laura

Sat, 12/06/2014 - 08:36

kerstinfroberg

... or you can refer to a well-known Swedish company: if they can, so can you!

The towel is from IKEA, and I made a stab at analyzing it here.

Sat, 12/06/2014 - 18:01

ingamarie

I have those, they're great. Outlived their appropriateness for the kitchen but still serve as dust and wipe things up 'rags'.  

 

Sat, 12/06/2014 - 20:18

ReedGuy

If you had 8 shafts, you could try a 4 shaft warp cord (no padding, no channel threads) with a 4 shaft waffle. I've seen cord hem towels with fine cotton yarns where the float was desireable and the cord rolled under and sewed. Real soft. :)

Sat, 12/06/2014 - 20:57

Sue in VT

Thank you everyone for so many comments and suggestions. I woke up this morning with new encouragement, and rebooked at the hemmed mess. Then I ran another row of stitching right below the hem, and cut it off! Then I turned the waffle fabric edge into a hem. it's important, I found, to turn the hem after a ridge, so it lies the flattest possible way. That done, I now have towels that have thick hems, but are nice and straight (and about 1 1/2 inches shorter from the cutting. But they're so squishy and nice! I even wove the "leftover" weft that only amounted to about ten inches and trifolded it into a matching pot holder. Will post pix tomorrow. I am very grateful to have fellow weavers who understand and are willing to offer advice. Happy Holidays to all! Packing these towels up for Kuala Lumpur where the family is working....and seeing the grandkids!❤️