We have weaving content!!!

The towels are done (almost)!

I've already measured them, so now I need to put them in a water/vinegar solution to hopefully set the colors, and then a wash in the washing machine to see how they hold up (and how much they shrink).

I don't know what I was thinking when I did this:

Presser feet and blind slats don't agree with each other - the slat gets in the way of the presser foot. For one of the towels I had only used one length of spacer-yarn on each side of the slat; but apparently having weaving on both sides of the spacer helped steady it and I was able to remove the slat and then stitch.

I used the same hemming procedure that I used for the dishcloths.

I discovered I need to make wider hems - these were just a little narrow for easy folding.

Top, thread hem; middle, carpet warp hem; bottom, regular weft hem.

The thread hem was of course easiest to stitch, but I discovered the thinner the thread/yarn, the more it pulls in. Also, it was much harder to weave evenly and spoils the look, if you look close enough, so carpet warp or something just a little bit smaller is probably best with this warp.

The hems look like something is missing.

With a little bit more hem to work with, I think I will try running two lines of stitching along the hem (luckily my machine has a two-needle doo-hickey so I don't have to try to keep them even 'by hand').


I think they are a good size for handtowels in the kitchen - at least until I see how much they shrink. The hand is good too; we'll see how they feel after washing.


On the spinning front, I'm currently spinning this Brown Sheep mill end sample received from The Sheep Shed Studio (kind of reminds me of the Hound):

into this single.

The roving is extremely compacted (or sticky - I'm not sure what is the cause) so I've had to draft both lengthwise and width-wise. It's turning into a very hairy single, which I don't care for, and I was hoping it would show more brown so I could use it as an accent yarn in a sweater I'm planning to knit with the brown/grey/silver BS roving. But since the black is predominating, and the hairiness would probably drive me nuts, I'll have to come up with another use for it after Navajo-plying it.


The chain-plyed (correction: I've just learned that this is called "cable-plying", not "chain-plying) Polwarth came out pretty neat, though a bit fuzzy:


More of a closeup:

I will probably make an earwarmer out of this, though there's not much there so I'll have to cross both my fingers and toes and hope that I have enough. :-D