My First Dishtowel…

Odd title I know, but usually when you drag out the “first” of anything you’ve done, it is something from the archives from when you were say, a teenager?

I’ve mentioned it before in this blog, I first learned to weave in 1974, back when bog jackets were relatively new, and the world was full of rug yarn and macramé.  I’ve never woven a dishtowel.  I know, there are no words.  Somehow weaving a product, meaning something that is finished when it comes off the loom, never really appealed to me.  I weave yardage.  I am a sewer sewist.  I like fabric.  End of story.

Except my guild, Jockey Hollow Weavers is having a dishtowel exchange.  To exchange or not to exchange, that was the question last September when I hesitantly scrawled my signature across the sign up sheet.  Anyway, it is nearly June.  The towels are due.  I won’t even make it to the last meeting, I’ll be somewhere in Oregon teaching at ANWG weaving conference.  So my lovely Brianna will have to take my towels and exchange them for me.

The assignment was simple enough, weave towels using complementary colors.  I pondered this all through the winter.  I pondered it while I sat in my jammies in front of the fireplace.  I pondered my jammies.  I liked the belt on the jammies.  I studied the belt more carefully.  I liked the structure.

I went to my computer and went right to the Webs link, and looked at what colors they had.  What makes a good dishtowel?  Cotlin?  That would be linen and cotton for those not in the know.  The colors were pretty.  I pulled out my color wheel.  Red Violet and Yellow Green.  Opposite on the color wheel.  I really liked the colors of the belt but they didn’t have that particular shade of blue in Cotlin.  So I ordered the yarn after some basic calculations.

Meanwhile, I played around with twill variations with a supplemental warp.  I used weaving software (Fiberworks PCW) to create a draft.

I took my four cones of red violet yarn

And wound a warp

And sleyed the reed

And threaded the loom

And beamed the warp

And started to weave.

They weave like a dream, and I’m already bored.  I wonder if I can make a summer top out of the one I have left after I exchange my towels?  🙂