Navy Tea Towels on 12 Shafts ~ Part Two

After I finished weaving the 4 tea towels that are fulfilling a commission, these four were woven in golden yellow. I can now turn to the 2/8 cotton stash for the last 2 tea towels on the navy blue warp.  There is so much colour to choose from blues and teals, pinks and purples or the oranges, reds and greens.

I went for the bright red for the last 2 tea towels.  It is a classic colour combination for a reason and deservedly so; its such a lovely combination.

The 6 tea towels are finally off the loom and they make a satisfying pile.  I cut them into pairs and using the sewing machine stabilize the raw edges before tossing them into the washing machine and dryer.  I did put the red tea towels in a separate wash load just in case the red dye decided to run a bit.

I spent all day yesterday ironing!  First I like to press the tea towels in the steam press before cutting them apart and pressing up the hems.

Then I use a metal ruler and an iron to press up the hems, being careful not to burn my fingers on the hot metal of the ruler.  I pin the hem in place and they are ready to be hand sewn.

Here is the stack ready to be sewn.

Final Garden Photo is frost.  Everything this morning looks like it has been flocked with a thick layer of white.  The black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus) in the back is beautifully outlined.

But there are hints that spring is close, the hoop daffodils (Narcissus bulbocodium 'Arctic Bells') in the foreground are almost ready to bloom and in the back in a small pile of crocus that are just peeking out.

The greenhouse is also thickly coated in frost but as the sun climbs in the sky it hits the edge and starts to clear the glass.  There are already seeds started in the greenhouse, sweet peas, primroses and hellebore's.  They like a long and cold start before becoming seedlings.

Navy Blue and Yellow Tea Towels on 12 Shafts

It’s January, so it must be tea towels; that seems to be our slogan here at Dust Bunnies. As I was trying to figure out what tea towel pattern I wanted to do, I got a commission for 4 tea towels.  The colours are navy blue and yellow.  In the picture you can see that the tops of the tubes have been coloured.  When we get a new order of 2/8 cotton, we colour the tubes so that we can keep the different dye lots separated.  The bottom tube of navy is a slightly different colour and in the dark days of winter it could have been hard to notice when pulling the warp, so I'm glad I caught it.

The pattern for the tea towels is a point twill on 12 shafts, the pattern makes lovely shapes in the heddles.  It is one that we’ve done before in 2018 and 2020.

So far the hardest part of these tea towels is the actual weaving, this is the first attempt and I didn’t beat the weft hard enough and the left edge is a mouse nibbled mess; so  I pulled out the 5 inches that I have woven and began again.

The second attempt is much better.  I’m having to do a double beat to pack the weft in nicely and the pattern is showing up much crisper.  I also found that my hanging selvages had uneven weights, I had 7 pennies on the left and 10 pennies on the right and when I added the three extra pennies to the left my mouse nibbled edge magically disappeared.  Who knew it made such a difference?

I’ve finished one towel and I’m starting on the second out of the four yellow tea towels.  I’ve put on enough warp for 6 towels and I’m already thinking about what colours can I use for the last two towels!

We’ve had a very cold spell and then a big dump of snow so the garden is looking a little beat up.  There are no promising hints of green shoots showing today but by next week there could be as we are well above freezing.  Still, I'm longing for days when the sky isn't dull grey and fog isn't our constant companion.

Twill Diamonds Table Runners

I quickly finished weaving the first table runner with the 5/2 white cotton warp using a beautiful denim blue cottolin weft.  The pattern is a charming 8 shaft twill with large diamonds.  I decided that the grist of the 5/2 cotton was too large to make a nice folded hem so I did hem stitching and will be twisting the fringe.  

For the second runner the weft that I went with is a lovely heathered grey silk.  It has white and brown flecks throughout and also has an uneven grist.  It is a finer grist than the warp so it is subtle but still quite lovely.  Sorry about the poor quality of the photo.

The runners have been washed, the fringes twisted and have had their final pressing.  All that is needed is a nice sunny day so that I can take some final photos and put them on Etsy.  As there is no folded hem, both sides of the runners can be used.

There were two cones of 5/2 cotton in the stash, the second one is a warm cream.  I’m using it to do more table runners and hopefully this set of table runners will go more smoothly.

It has been a cold start to the spring this year but spring is starting to bloom.  The Siberian iris (Iris sibirica, variety unknown) are just about to pop open in the foreground and the mass of bottle brush flowers from the Fothergilla (Fothergilla gardenii 'Mount Airy') are in the background.

Final garden photo is a Geum ‘Tutti Frutti’ with a lovely peach coloured flower.

Try and Try and Try Again

I am still working with the 5/2 white cotton, I’m not going to let it win!  I did a lot of math and according to it I should be able to get a warp of 4 yards off the cone, the width will be a little narrower than I would like but I should have enough to weave two runners.  I pulled the warp and was able to get 272 ends, which sett at 16 epi makes for 17 inches.  I just hope it doesn’t shrink too much when I wash the finished table runners.

I starting weaving using the cream 5/2 cotton and I hate it.  The pattern is M’s and W’s and the 5 thread float looks like a mistake.  I also didn’t really like how the 5/2 bent around the edges, it looked bumpy.

On the computer I tried some different tie up’s and treadling trying to get rid of the five thread float, but with the M’s and W’s threading it was close to impossible.  There were a couple of drafts but I didn’t like them.  So I pulled the warp back and went to another draft.

The pattern is an advancing twill with large diamonds, truly lovely and no more than a three thread float.  I also change the weft to a wonderful blue cottolin.  I am utterly charmed as I am weaving this pattern.

Final garden photo is forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica) it is an early spring flower with very pretty blue and pink flowers.

And Again

I put away the 2/120 silk so I could think about what it wanted to be, if you have any ideas let me know!  I have wanted to do some table runner since January so I dipped into the cotton stash and found some 2/5 mercerized cotton in white and cream.

I like to put on a six yard warp for table runners, it is enough to do three runners at 70, 50 and 35 inches.  I pulled the first 100 threads out of 400 and found that it just ate up the white warp.  A quick trip to the scale and I saw that I didn’t have enough warp left for the runners that I had planned.

I pulled the white warp off the warping board and decided to pull another warp at four yards, it is enough to do two runners at 50 inches each.  I also made the runners a little smaller width wise so I pulled the first 90 threads out of 360 and again it didn’t look like I had enough.  I weighed what was left and nope not enough left.  So I finally did some math!  And there isn’t enough for a warp with just the white and if I use the cream there may not be enough for the weft.  So at this point I’m not sure what I’m going to do.

But onto a bit of a garden update there are signs of Spring everywhere, the strawberries are starting to flower.

The daffodils and the rhubarb are marching along.  The rhubarb is almost big enough to harvest.

The daffodils in the pots outside of the greenhouse seem to be cheering on the seedlings of 72 tomatoes, 4 types of peppers, and eggplants.  There are also some flowers growing in there.

The peas are going outside to start to harden off, there are sweet peas and eating peas.  They are growing up some sticks of corkscrew hazelnut.  Just a couple days until they get planted out into the garden.

The lilac is a haze of lime green of the new leaves and the promising blush of purple flowers.  It seems that Spring is almost here just a couple more warm days that the flowers will be bursting out.

Twice as Nice

Twice as nice is the theme of these table runners, because it seems that I have to do everything twice!  I started these runners back in March and I originally pulled the warp for these runners at 5.5 yards but the warp ended up 100 threads to short.  The warp is made from 2/10 Pima cotton.

So I placed the warp back onto the warping board, it took two of us to stretch it back on, and unwound it.  I had pulled the warp using two cones that were ever so slightly different shades, so I had to carefully pick the warp apart into two balls. 

After more careful math I pulled the warp again at 4.75 yards long.  This time it worked out!  There is enough warp for two runners.

I have woven this pattern before many times; it is a favourite, so I used the threading chart that I had printed out years ago.  Well, I got about ¾ of the way through threading and I had run out of pre counted heddles on three harnesses.  I went back and looked at the computer, to find out that at some point I had created a second version of this pattern and I had threaded using the first version.  Oops.  So I threaded again using the correct version of threading.

On the home stretch, I finally sleyed the reed and tied on the warp.  I started to weave the hem and I noticed that I had a sleying error right in the middle of the warp so I had to fix the mistake and resley again!

I am finally weaving the first of the two runners; the weft for this one is a lovely lavender 2/8 Orlec.  The runner isn’t weaving up very quickly because between rain showers I’m running outside to work in the garden. 

It has been a very cold and late spring; we are about 3 weeks behind.  But the tulips are up in the spring flower pot, a promising sign of spring.  It is hard to believe that in two weeks, at May long weekend, that the tomatoes will get planted out in the vegetable patch.  The tomatoes that we started in the greenhouse are only about 2 inches high still.  They have some catching up to do!

Tartan Tea Towels on Four

Last week we received a lovely big box of colour from Maurice Brassard et fils.  Opening the box is such an exciting moment.

Once I get the tubes of cotton out of the box, the ideas for weaving projects seem to pop into my head, so many possibilities.

Before I put the new tubes of cotton away, I take the time to use a Sharpie and colour the top of each of the tubes.  I choose a new colour each cotton order.  This allows me to make sure that I’m using the same dye lot when I weave a project.

Why take the time to colour each tube you well may ask.  The marine blue cottons in the photo below are all the same colour, but from different dye lots.  There is a very noticeable difference in them ,sorry if the photo doesn’t show it well, but trust me they are very, very different!  If put side by side in a weave it would be a disaster.  Yup, learned this the hard way!

Now that the cottons are all here I thought I’d make some plaid tea towels.  Well not just plaid, but tartan tea towels.  This is the warp for the Cunningham Blue (Dance) pattern as found in the Scottish Registry.  I chose this particular pattern as one of my husbands great, greats was a Cunningham, so a perfect place to start. 

And the other part of the pattern.

Now that I have one full pattern repeat done, I’m stoked!  It is so very bold and lovely, I can't wait to see the final tea towels.

The garden here in Comox is really slow to start this year, it has been cold and down island from us actually had SNOW yesterday.  Glad we dodged that weather system.  Here is the lovely Violette odorante 'Sweet Violet' just starting to bloom in the wet garden, it is so charming and smells like heaven!

Tea Towels Redo

The 2/8 cotton finally arrived from Quebec so I can get started on the tea towel commission I received.  I originally wove the tea towels in October and I enjoyed weaving them so I’m excited to redo them (here is the blog post).  

The tea towels have seven different colours in the warp and there are a lot of colour changes making the stripes.  So I pulled the warp in four sections to help keep everything in order.  

The tea towels are lime green with wide ribbons of colour running the length of the warp.  The colours in the ribbons are purple, lilac, pink, periwinkle, turquoise and white.  I know, it sounds busy, but this is really a pretty weave.

The pattern is twill and the weft is navy blue cotton.  The colours of the warp really pop against the navy blue weft.  I wove four tea towels in total, all with the navy blue weft.  

For finishing the tea towels I like to use the sewing machine to stabilize the raw hems before placing the tea towels into the washing machine and dryer.  

I clip the weft ends before the first pressing of the tea towels.  I do another final press once the hems are stitched up.  Sorry for the yellow photo, I had to have the lights on because we are having lots of April showers this week; hopefully they will bring lots of May flowers.

The tea towels are almost done, they just need to be hemmed and I can take some photos for the listing.

Final Garden Photo is an update on the spring bulb lasagna pot.  It is absolutely heaving with ‘Tete a Tete’ miniature daffodils and purple violas.  The tulips are almost ready to bloom in a day to two.  Overall the lasagne planting of the spring bulbs has been successful and the pot has been a lovely addition to the garden.  We have it front and centre on the patio and it makes the back garden pop!