New Towel for Swimming

 

Three 'foot' towels

Several years ago I wove a towel for my husband to take when he goes swimming.  I used a black weft for the beginning and end of the towel with a light green weft for the centre section. After weekly use for three years the towel started to fray at the selvedges and one hem started to wear.  Cottolin makes an amazingly sturdy fabric but I needed to weave him a new towel. 

The centre of the old towel was not obviously worn. I thought that I would cut down the old towel into three section and hem them all round.  This made three small foot towels for standing on when in the changing room at the swimming baths.

I like the pattern.

I used two shafts for the border selvedge on the first towel. .This time I did not use a them.  The final 2 warp ends were threaded into the same heddle. I did not use a floating selvedge. I only used eight  shafts in all. 

Warp: cottolin in 3 shades of blue ( dark blue, medium blue and light blue) and beige

Weft: beige cottolin 

Sett; 30 epi  10 reed three ends per dent

Pattern repeat is 14 warp ends. 

Border: 4 diagonals Two ends in last heddle. 38 ends in beige.

13 groups stripes

beige border dk blue, light blue, dk blue, med blue.dk blue, beige centre stripe dk blue then reverse colour order finishing with another beige border

Each stripe is 56 ends apart from the border sections. However, you will see from the close up of the finished towel that I made a mistake when making the warp. One of the dark blue stripes did not have enough warp ends. I was annoyed that I did not notice this at the time. It is so easy to make this type of error when making a wide warp. 

Width at reed is 26.25 inches

The towel on the loom

The finished towel

Close up of the front and reverse showing the narrower dark blue stripe

Close up of the pattern.

September 2023

Susan J Foulkes