Designing simple warp faced bands.

I love designing striped bands to use as hanging tags for towels.  Here are two designs for my latest tea towels. For these simple designs, the colour order of the warp ends determines the pattern. There are a number of pattern effects that can be used for warp faced bands like these.

To design a new stripe, I use the PCW weave program from Fiberworks. This enables me to see how the different colours of the warp threads will look when woven as a warp faced band. I keep records of all the bands that I design.  My book The Art of Simple Band Weaving, has over 150 patterns for narrow warp faced bands.  In the first part of the book, 15 simple pattern effects are illustrated and examples show how these patterns can be adapted.  These two red and white bands are based on the bead motif.

Woven with a red weft

The bands are woven in cottolin, the same thread used for the towels.  There are 33 warp ends for each band. They are warp faced so the weft has to be pulled tight to bring the warp ends together.

Woven with a white weft

There are two designs as the towels are woven with different wefts and may be either predominantly red or white. The single red and white warp spots are made with two warp ends together so that they stand out clearly. This is indicated on the top of the diagram by a thicker rectangle. I like this effect.

I wove the bands on my Swedish band loom. The warp was 63 inches in length which made a band of 43 inches.  There is always some loom waste at the beginning and end of the band.  There would be less loom waste if woven on an inkle loom.

 Here are the finished bands.

Band width: approx 0.5 inches (15 mm)

The red and white tea towels.

The two tea towels are woven in plain weave in cottolin, sett at 20 epi.  Two colours alternate for the warp.
Weave structure: Plain weave
Warp ends: 482
Reed: 10  with  2 ends per dent
Sett: 20 epi

all white weft

2 red then 2 white weft

Dimensions before washing.

Length after hemming:  27 inches (69 cm)                 width: 22.75 inches (58 cm)

Dimensions after washing.

Length after hemming:  25.5 inches (65 cm)              width: 21.25 inches (54 cm)


And here are the tea towels.

Red and white tea towels with contrasting tags.


Happy weaving!

Durham Weaver
June 2014