2017 Christmas Towels - Final Run

For the 4th year in a row we wove Christmas towels to give to the family, and like previous years I hit the deadline to deliver to everyone before Christmas but to do so had to cut off the first run and leave some warp on the loom to finish afterwards.

Final warp ready to be re-tied.

Woven on my 'Pete' loom - the 4 shaft jack loom made of black walnut.  The set-up went pretty well and I was well into my first towel when I noticed the friction brake cable was slipping down between the main brake 'drum' and the outside ridge (made to stop the cable coming off the sides).  In a commercially built loom it would have been made from solid turned piece of wood, but I had to compromise and glue nail my side pieces on.  With the prospect of having to free the cable after nearly every warp advance things were looking grim, and of course, I remember now I had thought about updating the brake after my last project on the loom.  Sigh: memory!!

Luckily I was able to work out a fix for this run of towels by placing some tiny nails into drilled holes around the circumference of the brake on the side where the cable was jamming.  This worked fine and this time I'll make a more permanent fix by replacing the whole wooden brake drum.

All the rest of the weaving went smoothly and the pattern being a simple herringbone I was able to weave fairly fast and eventually was weaving a towel in around an hour and a quarter.  With enough warp on the sectional warp beam for 30 towels there was a little bit of tension unevenness, but not enough to be concerned and it came out with the wet finishing.

Weaving on the loom - with the between towel marker threads visible

I had a total of 23 towels to weave to meet the family requirements and also two for sale to a woman at Anne's work who saw one that Anne had taken in to give to a friend.

Wet finished, ironed and cut up prior to hemming.

 I cut off the whole run and zig-zag stitched the ends and trimmed any cotton ends etc then wet finished by running it through a standard cycle on the washing machine.  After ironing I separated them at the between towel markers and pinned and machine sewed the hems.  The old sewing machine performed well although at times the foot switch behaved erratically by only allowing two speeds - completely off or on at full speed.  I think it happens after use for a while so maybe just needs a good clean-up/dust blow out.

Towels ready for wrapping and the post.

After finishing I wrapped them all and labeled and took a whole batch to the post office to get to both NZ and various US destinations in time.  We also managed to hand deliver a few while we were out and about.

I haven't decided on a design this year, but the 2017 towel was a change from small stripes and a huck lace feature to full colors (and small white stripes).  It is certainly easier than previous years where I have dyed the stripe colors here at home.  It depends entirely on being able to get reasonably priced 8/2 cotton yarn in suitable colors.

As I'm sure I have written in previous years ' I'll have to start earlier...'  We'll see...