My Dish Towels 2006

Well my dish towels are all complete for the 2006 Cyber Dish Towel Exchange...all 13 of them!

I apologize for no picture but alas Blogger does not seem to be loading my pictures today. I'll update the page with a photo, if and when it ever works...The towels are all woven, sewn, washed, ironed, pinned, hemmed, ironed and folded all nice.

Six dish towels will be in the mail tomorrow for a trip to Columbus. In October, I will be getting six back from various folks around the continent. What fun! It's always so exciting to get that box of dish towels in the mail.

I have never woven Summer & Winter before. I found this Summer and Winter pattern complex and athletic as well as intellectually challenging. Although it used only six shafts, it did use all ten treadles which made for some fancy footwork. It was polychrome so there were three shuttles of different colors that went back and forth 216 times for each pattern repeat. There were two color changes in each pattern repeat which slowed the progress but provided variety in the finished piece. It became more intellectually challenging by using five variations of summer and winter with the same ribbon pattern. By using 'pair X's' for one pattern repeat, dukagang for another, singles for the next and dukagang - alternative and 'pair O's' I was constantly having to think...no weaving zen state for these dish towels!

I like the result. It is great to have a summer & winter sampler with the five different variations. Some are nearly the same while others are quite different. I will need to keep one for my studio so I can study it in the future. The others will be used for their assigned tasks - - making people smile when opening a present and drying dishes. I ended up with thirteen of them...upon careful inspection I think they all have at least one error...which makes for a great treasure hunt to find the errors and a great mystery story while trying to figure out what I did wrong!

I doubt I would do another towel set in this pattern with five variations but I am going to do a thinner scarf shaped piece that I can use as a lapel on my Christmas jacket. Since I have this complex treading and tie-up done and correct it only seems rational to continue to use it until I need something different.

For those of you who have not followed me on a daily basis through my dish towel journey, here are links to the various days I blogged about my towels. I start with the oldest entry August 14th... and finished with this one; September 13th.

Whew! What a month!


The start of my towels!

Checking for errors.

First view of a Summer & Winter sampler.

Learnings from my sample towel.

My color choices!

Tweaking the loom!

Plodding along!

Warp one off the loom!

Starting to knot!

Tie that the second warp on the loom!

My second warp off the loom.