As I type, these are in the washing machine going through an almost-hot cycle. I've done five so far; three to go in the exchange, plus my sampler, plus one for me. Since I have my usual eight-meter warp on, I hope to get at least four more, or three towels and some serviettes/napkins.The top one is my first sample piece. Ben always wished I'd make things with samples that we could use, so I sampled 10 draft from Kris Bruland's Handweaving.net in this piece.
Second from the top, the weft is in true orange, and the draft is #57586, and I'm tempted to call it Flora Pacifica because each square looks like a vibrant South Pacific flower. It's the most cheerful towel in the set.
Third from the top is Pacifika Christmas, and is #58168. The colors of my warp in combination with this draft remind me of the Pacific Island tapa (bark) cloth, but using a red-orange weft it feel more like a Cook Island Tivaevae, and in terms of the overall appearance of the towels, I like this best.
Fourth one is mine; it's a wonderful blue-red but I wove it when my body was tired and the beating is very irratic. This is the reverse side of #36039, which I like better than the front.
The fifth one, though it looks blue, is more blue-green, #36180. It's the the most stable, reliable structure for the purpose among my choices. At first I wanted to call this a Christmas Tree something or rather, but it has near-white triangles, brown triangles, and green triangles, and to me it represents the different seasons and climate around the world at Christmas time, though we all tend to go for the white Christmas image. So I'm calling this Round the World Christmas, after a song in a hideous, (according to Ben!) Disney Christmas carol CD.
They will have been machine-hemmed, machine washed, tumble-dried and pressed (if necessary) by tonight when I post the finished pieces in the towel gallery. I feel guilty about cheating the "system", as it were, but there's still a bit of Saturday left on the West Coast of the USA, (OK, mostly Hawaii!) so forgive me.
I love weaving towels. These are true relaxation weaving for me. I never change the yarn source, and I stick with 20EPI (except when I do cram/space weave, which I do a lot with the cottolins,) so only the structures and colors vary. This time I downloaded and did not modify the drafts, so it has been all about colors. I've noticed a few things, especially in the difference in the appearance of the weft colors with the two oranges in the weft, and the two-dimensional vs. three-dimensional appearance of the cloth depending on the values and saturation of the colors, but I decided not even to take notes but just to enjoy the process. And I know in 20 years these are towels are going to be divinely soft and wonderful.
In plan are two or three light browns that are different from either warp colors, plus a indescribable red/pink - the only description I can think of is "pomegranate" but I'm not sure what that means to you.
Thank you to all those who participated, and visited our Towel Exchange. I sure look forward to getting my loot!
PS: Bockens and Holma-Helsinglands AB - are they known as Bockens or by their company name?
8 comments:
I'll answer your PS.
The short answer: Both.
The long answer is that Holma-Helsingland makes you think of Helsingland as a place with long tradition of linen (growing, making and selling successfully).
The short and handy name Bockens (male goat) is another tradition. In the old days (long before my days) it was the evil Julbocken (christmas goat) that brought the presents at christmas eve. He knockes att the door, and throwes in the parcels.
Today a julbock is an common christmas decoration, often made of straw.
Does the gender of the goat have something to do with the yarn they produce? As in, they used to sell goat yarns (???) only from male goats, or some such, or is it just commercial branding?
As far as I know, just branding.
Thank you, KD. I would have never known, you know, and I've been stashing away Cottolins for nearly 10 years now. I love them!! And I've only ever used them for either myself or for gifts and exchanges, but never to sell, so when I weave with them, it means fun and sharing and presents!
Meg, these are absolutely gorgeous - well done!
You're giving me shaft envy again, you know.
Oh, ha ha ha, Geodyne. You know, shaft envy never ends... I'm constantly designing drafts thinking, "If I had three more...", "If I had 24...", and on and on...
these are all gorgeous! I did not realize you had posted the photo. I have been relying on the new blogger updates to tell me when there is a new post to read, and it is obviously not reliable. I am catching up on several of your posts!
Yip, towels, Dana. One more on the loom, and another one or two coming later today. Yay! I love these. As BSpinning said, we make lovely things!!
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