Sunny Day Tea Towels

What does fine weather, sunny days and weaving have in common?  For me, nothing....I just can’t seem to concentrate on difficult weaving when the birds sing.  So, I go to my happy weaving place and put on tea towels.  I find that tea towels lend themselves to a short attention span and right now that is exactly where I am.

I put on a white 2/8 cotton warp that was 7 yards long, this gives me 6 tea towels, each 36 inches long and plenty of loom waste and spacers so that I’m not skunching up at the end.  I really hate trying to weave off that last couple of inches when you can barely open a shed.

I have been using PCW Fiberworks for more years than I can remember.  I purchase my first iteration of the program when my invoice number was in the five digits!  My second upgrade came about five years later and my current update came on a wee thumb drive.  How times have changed!

I knew I wanted to find a pattern that would give me a clear, crisp motif and a pattern I had not seen woven before if possible.  So I started my search at home with this CD called Thrilling Twills that PCW also sells.  These drafts are almost all computer algorithms so all the differences come in the tie up, with straight draw threading and treadling, perfect for summer weaving.

I decided to look at some of the more unusual drafts and since I have 12 shafts I started looking at patterns on 11 shafts, because lets face it, not too many people choose to use 11 shafts! I found the perfect draft, it has a clear motif and is not too busy.

Dressing the loom took a few days as we are still painting our house in between rain showers and cool winds that come barrelling down off the Comox glacier.

This photo was taken in early April, but the mountains are still snow covered today and the wind can be darn cold!

I decided to do a stash reduction ~ and tea towels are perfect for using up that last bit on the tube ~ and use cottolin for my weft.  This is 2/22 cottolin, 60% linen and 40% cotton, and the colour that I chose looks like Sockeye Salmon.

Ngaire had tied up my loom so that the pattern was showing the reverse side and I was absolutely delighted when these lovely circles appeared.

This is the pattern as shown in the draft and frankly I’m happy with it too.  I took this photo by putting the camera lens between the warp threads, so not the best photo, but you can see it looks like the draft.  I really think I like the circles the best!

I planted this Cistus x purpureus (Purple Rockrose) last autumn and this is the first time I’ve seen it flower.  Although it seem to be more pink than purple it is lovely and deer resistant to boot, which is so important here on Vancouver Island because the deer think of my garden as their personal buffet!