Feeling Accomplished!

Over the summer, I prepared a twenty-five yard gradient warp, which I beamed sectionally on Lil' Miss.

It was a task and took a day or two complete, as used a number of different colors; however, I was delighted with the results

I used 8/2 cotton at a sett of 24 with a 24" weaving width.

Originally, I threaded for a Strickler pattern, but found it was lost in the gradient colors, so I cut off the fabric I had woven and rethreaded for a point twill, which allowed me to change the tie ups at will to switch designs. I was very pleased with the results. 

As I had quite a bit of yardage to work with, I played with different colors and weights of weft, including 8/2, 10/2, 5/2, and 3/2.

The towels with 8/2 and 10/2 weft are good tea towels, but the ones using 5/2 and 3/2 are weft are much heavier. Those are destined to be hand towels for guest bathrooms.

All of them are generously sized at 24" wide and 40" long.

This last one I will keep as a sample. It was the last bit at the very end of the warp:

While I had the serger and sewing machine out, I also hemmed a few baby blankets from a warp I pulled off the Beast last month:

My warp was 8/4 cotton rug warp. As I was making rag rugs, my sett was 10.

I overestimated how far my fabric for rugs would take me. Rather than scrap the remaining warp, I decided to make baby blankets.

This one uses 8/4 for warp and weft. The pattern is one I made up. The prior project on this loom was tied up for waffle weave towels. As I only needed plain weave for the rugs, I had not changed them. The threading was different for the waffle weave. The rugs were a simple straight draw, but I used the former tie up and treadling pattern to get a heavily textured fabric. Both sides are completely different.

The results are delightful!

With the cotton chenille, I went back to plain weave. The loose sett shrunk considerably. Thus, there are fairly heavy and warm blankets. They are extremely soft, too!

With Christmas just around the corner, I should kick things into high gear, as I have much to do, but I have decided whatever gets done, gets done. This is supposed to be fun, not stressful.

Right?!