You're a couple days early, Ron :) It's only the 24th over here in
North America--must have something to do with the extra-early time
change back in March, right? Or maybe the funky clock in my computer
that keeps resetting the day, hour, or date?
I have my Spring Tea set done, and really like it, though there were a
couple problems--but what's weaving without problems to solve? :)
It was a 9.5 yard warp of cottolin, 20 epi, 474 ends, about 21" wide
after washing. I wound stripes of peach, vanilla, and offwhite (or
cream, to continue the food names :) for the 'background', and a total
of 6 stripes of green / yellow or rose / green, to be woven in 3/1 twill
with a point in the center of the yellow/rose part, to suggest spring
tulips and daffodils. Those sections were threaded to straight twill on
5-8, while the background was threaded in blocks of 1212 or 3434.
I planned 8 napkins in plain weave, a bread cloth in plaid plain weave,
a dish towel and table runner with the twill stripes and lightly
textured background, and a tea cozy in honeycomb.
I did the tea cozy first, and it was kind of a pain to weave, but looks
very nice. Decided to do the back in plain weave rather than continue
the honeycomb, and that was a wise decision--turned out to be even more
of a pain to sew on my sewing machine! I handquilted the plain weave
back with a large, stylized tulip, and lined it with some quilting
fabric I had on hand that is very similar colors, in a print of teapots
on a light yellow ground. I used 8/2 cotton in 3 colors for the cells,
tripled 8/2 in unbleached for the outline, and a single strand of 8/2
for the weft on the plain weave portion of the cozy.
Next came the bread cloth, which because I had chosen to sett the
cottolin just a little close, to give the planned twill stripes a more
warp-emphasis look, it didn't beat quite square, but it still looks
quite nice. It was the only project I used the cotton for weft in,
because I don't want to waste this precious, expensive stuff. But I
didn't have 8/2 cotton in colors that quite matched the rose or the
vanilla, so went with the cottolin.
I then wove a couple napkins (6000 ypp cotton/linen in pale peach for
the weft--wonder drape and handle!), but plain weave is not a very
interesting weave structure after honeycomb, so I made the mistake of
deciding to do the towel next. Why a mistake? Because I don't have a
second warp beam, and had would the 'flower' stripes at the same tension
as the rest of the warp. Didn't take more than a couple inches of
weaving before a different tension began to manifest, as the
'background' stripes were woven in a combination of plain weave and a
sort of turned M's & O's with only very small floats. So I wedged a
warp stick under the flower stripe part of the warp, thence condemning
myself to having to readjust it every time I advanced the warp--and
since I'm something of a stickler for frequent advances, that was about
every 2 inches (normally I do it more like 1-1.5 inches, but I didn't
feel like getting up quite THAT often :)
The towel, though, came out very nice--only it's too wide to fit where I
normally put my dishtowels! So I will hang it on the handle to the
stove door. I used Web's natural cottolin to weave it, and loved the
texture and color.
Another couple napkins, still adjusting those sticks, then I went to
what was to be the Centerpiece of the Spring Tea Set: The Table Runner!
However, disappointment can lurk just about anywhere :) I devised a
tieup for the 1212 and 3434 sections that looks a lot like lace bronson
without the plain weave dividers in the warp, and of course had the
twill stripes in twill. I used 10/2 unbleached perle cotton for weft.
Looked pretty nice, though off the loom I don't like it quite as well as
the towel. The problem was that with the increasing tension problems, I
didn't weave it as long as I wanted. It's actually shorter than the
dishtowel! <sigh>
And I finished off with the near-futile attempt to do some more napkins,
with 2, and later, 3 warp sticks wedged under the loose flower stripes.
I did get one more napkin, for a total of 5. But they're nice and
large, and perfectly square, and would make wonderful summer blouse
fabric :)
All the hemming was done by hand, using blind hemstitch. It didn't take
as long as I thought, and was enjoyable to do.
I'm debating whether to put a picture on my website--everything there
has been handspun except the reproduction WWII Red Cross Army socks.
But I might have to make an exception, this set is so pretty I want
everyone to see it :)
Holly
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