Damask Tea Towels on Eight Shafts

 I know!  Its’ been forever since my last post, but I promise I’ll do better in the New Year.  The past few weeks have been hectic for me as I accepted a commission to weave 6 tea towels and 12 matching cotton squares.

Naturally, I didn’t have the right colours of cotton in my stash so I placed an order with Maurice Brassard in Quebec.  I was hoping for a quick delivery but it ended up taking 9 days to get here, so then the race was on to weave, hand hem and mail them quickly!

The request was for a variation these ‘Stainless Steel’ tea towels which are woven in a False Damask pattern with stripes of black, grey and white and yellow.  The squares were in the same colours but with a different stripe sequence. 

This is the stripe sequence for the tea towels. I put on a warp of 11 yards so that I had plenty of mistake factors built in.  I could just imagine only putting on for 6 and messing one up…..not a pretty picture, so 10 it was.  I like to weave each tea towel with a different plaid border on the edges so I’ve taken a photo of each sequence I wove while it was on the loom.

I plan 36” for each tea towel and weave a 1-1/2 inch hem turn under and then put in a contrasting coloured thread.  Then I weave 3 inches of pattern in the base colour and then begin the pattern sequence.  I chose to use 9 full pattern repeats for my plaid area and that works out to be about 4 inches.  I then weave 18 inches of base colour and reverse the sequence.  This was so that all the tea towels match if they are sold as pairs.  The final size was 27”x18”. Here is a photo of the finished commission that I sent out.

The matching squares were planned at 14” wide with no plaid borders, so I was able to weave straight through the 7 yards.  After washing they came out to 11 ¾ wide, so I turned under 1 1/2 inch borders and the finished size was 11 ¾ x 11 ¾.

I have just knit this great funky scarf for my sons girlfriend with self striping yarn....amazing shape isn't it, like an Elfs' shoe!  It's just blocked but I'm thrilled with it already... I found the pattern on Ravelry.

 Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a healthy and safe New Year!