Eight Shaft Twill Tea Towels For A Stainless Steel Kitchen

I enjoyed my last tea towel warp so much that I immediately put on another. I chose a colour sequence that I thought would appeal to people with stainless steel appliances, so black, white, light grey, stone and just a hit of red.I created this draft based upon one of Russell E. Groffs’ patterns called Linen Squares, found in 200 Patterns for Multiple Harness Looms. This is the original draft which I amended quite a bit. I changed the squares to rectangles by cutting out or increasing the number of point twill repeats. I then put my colour sequence onto ½ of the total warp threads necessary and then used PCW to mirror the colour stripe and block placement. I put on 7 yards of 2/8 unmercerized cotton, sett at 24 epi. I will get 6 tea towels 22”x36” plus samples. Above is my first towel using white weft. It’s pretty, but lacks the impact that I was aiming for, but still a nice clean looking towel. On the iPod was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.Now we’re talking….this is the black weft and it is exactly what I was looking for….there will be at least 2 with this weft. On the iPod was ABBA’s Voulez-Vous.Just to make sure I give everything a try this is the light grey weft. It is lacking the impact of the black weft, but nonetheless it looks pretty darn good. On the iPod was Bond – Classified; for those who don’t know of Bond; it is modern light jazzy classical; or classical with a backbeat – just fantastic, rockin' strings!A close up of the centre of the tea towel with the white weft shows the lovely patterns created.

I found a new way to corral all those odd exta threads that happen when I pull stripes with odd numbers. Because of the back to front warp method I use, I like to have a clean fold to attach to the back beam, so I often carry and extra thread back to the beginning when I make stripes with odd numbered threads. These little plastic bobbins really do a nice job holding the extras off the floor so I can use them in the another project.

Weaving Words
Dornick Twill – a 1:3 turned twill which has the diagonals going in two opposite directions which do not meet and do not form a point. The long floats in corners of turning points are thus avoided which may improve the quality of the fabric. When it is broken it may sometimes be called Rough Damask or Damassé or even Broken Herringbone.