The Red Ones

You may have noticed towels from my fourth adventure in waffle weave in a photo from two posts ago. Take a look at the bottom of the stack and you will see them. They are still waffle weave but slightly different from the first three.

Four Cotton Waffle Weave Hand Towels
They are in order as woven, the red one on the left.

The waffles are actually natural
with a navy blue marl through the centers.

Three previous waffle warps were all my 7-shaft version of Draft #388 from the Carol Strickler  AWeaver’s Book of 8-Shaft Patterns. The resulting towels were satisfying to weave and are pleasant to use. Yet, while weaving them the idea of trying for an even smaller waffle kept coming to me. Here you see my 6-shaft version of the same draft. The waffles are woven on four shafts with plain weave (red ends) on the other two.

Reverse side
The marled yarn is more obvious on this side.

The warp is 16/2 cotton in Natural and Red with 20/2 Navy blue marl. I didn't have a good variegated yarn for the highlights through the waffle cell centers. The marl worked just as well here. At first I chose a sett of 34 e.p.i. After sampling I decided to switch to 36 e.p.i. Weaving “to square” is always my aim and even though the change was slight it did help. Still, it isn't perfectly to square.

It's fun to be able to easily create a border effect by a slight change in weft color orders. I'm sure there are lots of possibilities to be explored for border treatments. Fun to be had!

The red ones are my favorite waffle weave towels so far. They are a slightly finer weave than the previous three versions and are a nice weight for drying hands.

Border effect by changing weft color order

Someone near and dear to me is very ill so weaving and blogging have taken a back seat lately. Warm weather and working outdoors are also keeping me from my loom. My heart is with all three and even though I am not writing as often, the work continues. I will check in here as often as I am able.

It is good to be alive. I wish you all good health, a lovely summer, beautiful gardens, happy weaving and maybe even a bit of fun as well.

Warp On/Weave Off,

RepWeaver