Respite
Last July, I dyed a ten-yard warp of 10/2 unmercerized cotton in four chains of varying widths, dubbed Feisty Respite.
The plan was to combine it with three additional chains in a solid color for asymmetrical stripes for tea towels, much like these, which came off the smallest Macomber called Meg yesterday.
However, I wanted these to be different and more interesting. Instead of white or cream stripes, I was leaning toward color for the stripes.
Brown is one of my favorite colors, but I did not think there would be enough contrast to make it dramatic.
I opted for the deep purple.
Meg is an 8-shaft loom with a 24-inch weaving width. She has exactly 82 heddles on each of her harnesses.
As I use 10/2 cotton for most of my dyed warps for tea towels, I use a sett of 24.
I like generously sized kitchen towels. My standard is woven 24” wide by 36” long on the loom.
Which means I use every inch of Meg’s available width.
24-inches wide by a sett of 24 is 576 ends.
Point twill is my go-to 75% of the time with tea towels, particularly on Meg. As I have four Macomber floor looms, she is dedicated specifically for tea towels.
Point twill requires fourteen heddles (and threads) per repeat. Each repeat uses one heddle on shafts 1 and 2, as well as two heddles on shafts 2 through 7.
This is a point twill draft I found on Pinterest.
Here is the beauty of point twill on Meg.
576 ends, minus 2 threads for floating selvedges is 574.
574 divided by 14 (the number of threads per point twill repeat) is a smooth 41.
That is correct, 574 can be divided evenly by 14.
The only issue I have when threading the heddles on Meg is what to do with the extra 41 heddles on shafts 1 and 8. There is not enough room on either side of the warp to house them, and I refuse to move heddles.
Instead, each repeat, I move an empty heddle from the first and last harness and scatter the unused heddles evenly throughout the warp.
It works beautifully.
I warp back to front.
When I first taught myself to weave, the books I used illustrated warping front to back; however, once I finally tried to back to front, I was sold.
While I have tied one warp onto another and warped front to back, I had not done it back to front.
While threading heddles is one of my favorite parts of weaving, I had a low grade migraine today, and decided I was happy with how the heddles were threaded for the previous warp and knew there were no errors.
When I cut the prior war off, I preserved what was threaded through the heddles and the reed. I tied knots on either side of the castle.
From there, I loaded the warp onto the back beam as I usually do, although I did utilize two raddles to ensure it was spaced evenly across the back beam. I placed a raddle on the castle and the back beam.
Yeah, I was besotted with this warp and a ton of photos as I was beaming it.
Once that was done, I removed both raddles and began tying the new warp onto what was left of the old warp from the rear of the loom.
While I enjoy threading heddles, with a headache, it was actually nice to do something mindless for a while and listen to music.
It actually did not take long to tie each of the 576 threads.
Once done, I removed the lease sticks and gently pulled the knots and new warp through to the front.
Next, I did my treadle tie ups and lashed on.
Knowing there were no threading errors, I was weaving within fifteen minutes of tying on the last thread.
I actually think this may become the standard method of warping Meg.
For weft, I used the same deep purple as the solid stripes.
Wow!
I love it!
Twenty minutes later, the first yard-long towel was done!
Then, I added brown to my pirn to test it.
Now, I usually love brown, but this did nothing for me. Perhaps, it was the headache.
To amuse myself, I decided to play with a bright blue.
While I like it, and it is fun, I do not think I will weave an entire towel with it. I will use a 3-inch band on either end of a purple towel or two to make an interesting hem.
Before these are done, I anticipate trying out a few more shades of purple.
More to come!
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