Handtowel in M's and O's

Handtowels on the loom

I wove some of these handtowels in 2017 ( see my blog for 15th June 2017)  I decided to weave another set and used the same pattern. However, I realised that I had not threaded the coloured warp ends correctly. I wove one handtowel and then corrected the threading. I had not realised this mistake when I wove the previous set so it was interesting to see if a revised threading would make a noticeable difference. 

The warp sett is 24 epi.  It is important to weave each block as a square.

M and O pattern with stripes - corrected threading

Mistake

Previously I had not recorded the pattern colours correctly for threading and I made an error.  M & O is a block pattern with two blocks. Each block had 8 warp threads. One block is threaded: 4,3 - 4,3 - 2,1 - 2,1 and the second block is threaded: 4,2 - 4,2 - 3,1 - 3,1 . The threading has three blocks with a stripe of 2 warp ends dividing the the pattern for the next three blocks. My threading mistake was to have the two coloured threads as the first two warp ends of a block.  

Threading error for the two coloured warp ends

Corrected mistake

I think that the correct colour order should have one coloured thread as the final warp end of one block and the first warp end of the next. Here is the correct warp plan.

Corrected warp colour error. 

I wove the first towel before I realised that this could be a mistake. Fortunately I did not have to rethreaded the entire warp. I rethreaded the two coloured warp ends and one of the background warp ends. 

Does this make a difference? The dividing warp ends form a wavy line down the cloth when it is washed. In the first handtowel when the two coloured ends are in one block the stripe is flattened although when washed it does appear wavy. 

Here I have overlaid two handtowels.  In the pictures, the towels on the right have the corrected threading.  The towel on the left has the incorrect threading.

Two handtowels: incorrect and correct warp threading for the coloured ends.

The warp line of blue threads has some wavy qualities in both threadings but I prefer the corrected version. 

There is always something to learn.

Susan J Foulkes  July 1st 2022