Bath Towels and More

Ages ago, I began thinking about weaving bath towels. 

I scoured the webs and searched for projects, patterns, and drafts, but there were few to study. 

Lunatic Fringe Yarns has a kit for In the Buff Bath Towels, and I ended up purchasing it and ordering additional 3/2 unmercerized cotton to make a long run of them. 

While I had used 3/2 mercerized cotton before as weft with 8/2 cottolin warp for a bed coverlet, I had only marginal confidence in actual bath towels using it for both warp and weft.

The original plan was to have these on the loom by June first and spend the summer kicking these out, as well as a run of 4/2 Spa Towels and 8/2 waffle weave towels. The thought was to compare which we liked best and weave off a bunch of the favorites for Christmas gifts.

Life got in the way, and I decided to finish a manuscript I had been working on.

I love writing. I have always loved writing.

In fact, writing has always come easily to me; however, finishing has been the difficult part.

As of the beginning of the summer, I had dozens and dozens of unfinished manuscripts lying about and languishing, none of them done.

So, when the muse struck, I abandoned all other pursuits and dedicated myself to finishing the current manuscript.

And, I did!

Oh!

It was an indescribably wondrous feeling to have one complete from beginning to end. 

It was not perfect or even well edited at that point, but I shared it with a handful of good friends. 

In large part because they love me, the reviews and critique were favorable, generous, and supportive. 

While still in edit, the plan is to self-publish on Amazon by the end of the year. 

The sequel is well underway, as well. 

All that means, I did not spend a great deal of time weaving. 

The first batch of bath towels only came off the loom a week or so ago; however, they are glorious!

There was a huge difference in them on the loom and washed.

Half of the towels had 3/2 unmercerized cotton as warp and weft.

After:

A fifth towel also sported 3/2 unmercerized cotton, but I dyed it blue before weaving with it.

For another one, I used sport weight hemp. The hemp did not shrink or soften up as much as the cotton. I am actually keeping this one for myself to see how it performs. 

The last two featured cotton chenille in plain weave. 

Overall, I am delighted with the results. I am not sure how thirsty the chenille towels will be, but we shall see. I have no doubt the other ones will perform brilliantly, as long as their users understand these are not terry cloth towels. In my mind, these are how towels are meant to be. 

I believe I now understand why there are not more of these projects around. They are expensive. The original kit was roughly $100 and made four in the 3/2 cotton. I bought more 3/2 and still did not have enough to make eight towels, which is another reason I substituted hemp for one and cotton chenille for two others. 

More towels are planned, but I took a break from them, they are huge and require a great deal of weaving. Off the loom, they were approximately 36” wide and 60” long. They shrank to 31” wide by 50” long after washing and hemming. It was a 14-yard warp for eight towels. 

Instead of dressing the loom for more towels, I opted to put on a warp for sarong fabric with 10/2 unmercerized cotton with hand dyed 10/2 mercerized cotton as weft. 

This warp is comprised of 800 threads with a sett of 20 and 40” wide. I am employing a loose beat to create a fabric with tons of drape. 

The mid-size loom at 32” has a thirty-one-yard warp for baby wraps.

The small loom at 24” wide has a ten-yard run of hand dyed tea towels. 

If that were not enough, I also had a wild hair to knit a Fair Isle sweater...

In all, life has been very good!

I have two runs of hand dyed tea towels off the looms, as well. I shall finish hemming them later today, but will leave them for another post. 

Hope everyone is well and fine.