Moving along nicely...and planning the next dish towel warp!

I wove another eighteen inches or so on the Screaming Clashy Bollywood Towel warp last night.  It took me all of 40 minutes, but that's the beauty of weaving 20 epi!

I looked around online yesterday for more perle cotton.  I was about to buy it from the place I bought the perle cotton for the project I'm currently weaving off, but I wasn't thrilled by dealing with them (their prices, as it turns out, were much higher than other places, and they omitted several colors from my order, and when I called them to ask them to send the remainder of the order, the guy I spoke with apparently didn't believe me, and gave me heaps of attitude.  And he sounded/behaved very drunk/drunkenly when I called).  So I'm not buying from them anymore...why give business to the mean, rude, or greedy?

So I ordered from the Yarn Barn in Kansas.  Much nicer service.

This time, I have ordered more of the 'pistachio' yarn, and bright jewelly purple.  And I also ordered two 1-pound cones of natural undyed perle cotton, some of which I will dye with indigo, weaving some kitchen towels suggested by the 'Perugia Towels' from the Renaissance period, that is, mostly natural-colored, with a couple of highly-patterned stripes woven with indigo-dyed weft.

Clashy bright perle cotton Bollywoodish dish towels...



I started weaving two nights ago, finally, after whipping through the threading, sleying, tying on, and pegging the dobby (sounds so suggestive!).

 

To my delight, there were no threading or sleying errors whatsoever.  I'm glad I check every sixteen threads for threading mistakes, so that clearly helps.

 

The pattern is quite dramatic to see in person.  It has an embossed aspect to it, and is much more beautiful to see in person than in the photograph of this pattern I had seen (looked like it had been woven very loosely, with little design definition).  But I sett the warp closer, and below is the result:

 

The design is called 'firebird', but it looks to me like a combination of stylized bats and fun stick figures.  Mostly, though, I apprehend this design not as a figurative one but just as it is.

 

The bright colors are cheery and fun to work with.  The pearl cotton has quite a sheen, too.

 

Next time, in the vein of kitchen towels, I'll either use 8/2 or even 20/2, rather than the 5/2, which was a bit too heavy a yarn for kitchen towels.

 



 

 

This afternoon I went down to the studio and transferred all the warp bouts to the lease sticks.  Not everyone uses lease sticks, but I do, and I keep them placed through the cross throughout the whole process of weaving.  I don't remove them until the weaving is finished and the piece comes off the loom.

 

This is my first time weaving perle cotton.  I'm excited!  It's a huge departure from my usual fare of using only pre-1853 dyes - what a rush it was - the cones of yarn come already finished, and ready for warping!  Don't think I'm abandoning my commitment to the old palette, but a fun vacation and the indulgence in something quick and easy to weave.

 

I'll be doing a straight threading on all sixteen harnesses, and trying different peg plans that all work with a straight threading.  Admittedly, it'll be a pain in the neck to change out all the pegs, but it's how it was done for many years.  Soon I'll reattach the Compu-dobby so that I will have greater choices in patterns, as well as being able to make lightning-quick changes in the treadling.  There's some great stuff in the world of advancing twills that I really want to explore next.

 

The other thing is the novelty, again, of weaving 20 epi - what a trip!  The warp is 22 inches in width, but only 440 threads to stick through heddle eyes!!