Color-and-Weave Towels

They’re all done! I made these using Liz Gipson’s Color-and-Weave Towels pattern on my 15” Cricket rigid heddle loom (10-dent heddle). The yarn is 8/2 cotton from The Woolery in colors Nil Green and Aqua Marine.

Before washing, they were 14.5” wide and the length varied from 21.875 to 22.375”. After washing, they are 13.125” wide and the length varies from 19.125 to 20.125”. If I hadn’t messed up the warping pattern, they would be just an eensy bit wider… but not much. Do you see where I made the mistake? They are actually TWO mistakes near each other:

You can also see a couple of floats in that photo. I was so anxious to wash them after taking them off the loom that I forgot to check for those – OOPS! That was the first towel I made, and I didn’t notice any skips or floats on the subsequent ones. I guess I got my head in the game.

One of the cool things about this pattern is that it has four different patterns for the stripe of the towel that uses two colors. Above is #1, which used a teal/green/green pattern. #2 is similar – it’s a teal/teal/green pattern: #3 is teal/green x4/teal/green x2:

And #4 is a simple alteration of teal/green:

I love this little detail that makes a “family” of towels. I definitely need to work more on changing colors at the edge. The instructions seem clear on paper, yet in practice I struggle. That will come. This is a particularly bad edge:

But my hems… I think they are quite beautiful. I defy you to see where I took the stitches:

I am definitely becoming more comfortable with all the little steps in weaving. I’m not sure what my next project will be. Maybe weaving with handspun? I also have ideas for using the cotton yarns that are left over from my projects so far. One though: I’d like to try mixing a single thread of 8/4 and doubled threads of 8/2 in the same project. I’d also like to use doubled threads of 8/2 in each slot/hole, but use two different colors in the same slot/hole.

But for now… the wheel calls.