I have hand hemmed these two, but I’m leaving for France in two days and these four will just have to wait until October when I come home! 
This pattern really allows me to play around with warp colours the stripe placement. I pulled the warp with stripes in three different shades of grey, black, mauve and white as the divider threads. I used black weft on all six tea towels but every tea towel has a unique weft stripe sequence. These colours just look amazing with stainless steel appliances.
I thought I’d share my way of ensuring that all the stripes begin and end at the same place, so that when the tea towels are displayed they look their best.I like to weave 4 inches of pattern before beginning a stripe sequence. I never just weave tabby for hems unless the pattern is tabby, I’ve found that tabby often weaves up wider than patterns. The 4 inches allows me a 1 inch hem (1/2 inch turned under twice) and about 2 inches before the stripe begins.
I like to weave my tea towels 36 inches long and generally end up with about 28 inches when hemmed.
I have a non stretchy piece of trim that is 36 inches long and that I’ve marked off with a line 4 inches from one end. I pin this to my woven cloth after a few picks and weave to the marker.
I then begin to weave any stripe sequence I feel like; when I’m happy with the result I pull the other end of the trim forward and match it up with the piece pinned to my fabric. I then insert a straight pin to mark where my stripes end. 
I can then forget about measuring my woven cloth, I just pin the tape to the cloth as I go along. I ‘frog leap’ two pins as I go along so that there is never a time when the tape isn’t attached to the cloth. 
When I reach my straight pin I start the stripe sequence I’ve chosen and weave it in reverse. This ensures that both ends match perfectly. 
I thought I’d share this photo….I feel like a proud mama with my first really ripe Meyer Lemon! I got one lemon last year that I had to remove when still under ripe; but this year I have 10 on my wee tree and one just about ready to eat!
3 comments:
Your towels are wonderful, the once from the other post too.
And thanks for the tip about the tape.
These are great towels, Lynnette! I was trying to enlarge to get a closer look at the structure, but I think my computer may be too ornery to do that today. I also use the bias tape to mark my spot in weaving, but hadn't yet made it to figuring out how to have even spacing on either end beyond weft stripes. Your system is perfect! I only figured out on my last warp how much a difference it made to loosen the warp when moving the measuring tape/pin. With 1/2" blocks of color on my last warp, and the same sequence of color, I should have ended up at the same spot every time for 10 towels; but I don't think I came up with the same color at the same spot but maybe twice. So I learned to loosen my warp when moving my measuring tape. I'm sure there are additional variables, like variations of tension during the weaving; but I would have thought there would be more consistency across towels. It's amazing, all of the things we continually learn with every warp! I love to see what you're weaving! Have a fabulous trip to France!!
Lovely set of towels!
Interesting to see so many lemons on your tree!
Have a great time in France.
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