Linen Huck Towels Completed

I think I mentioned before that I purchased a couple linen warps last summer at an estate sale.  At the time, I didn't realize they were cut off a loom without preserving the cross.  A few weeks ago, I took the four yard warp and picked the two ply linen out of the bundle and got my loom threaded with a huck pattern.  I finally finished all four towels today.

  I found the directions for these towels in a Handwoven magazine.  I don't recall the issue right now, but I did mention it in a previous post after finishing the lattice design.

After wet finishing the lattice towel, I decided the floats on the back were a bit long, so I only wove one more from that article, since some of the patterns had even longer floats.










The huck spots towel turned out very nicely.  I'm glad I took the time to do the ladder hemstitching.  It really sets the towels off.  And yes, all the hemming is done by machine.

This one, with the horizontal stripes, was not in the article.  All I did was weave a row of spots followed by four tabby rows.  The weave is not as dense as the other towels.

 With the final bit of warp, I combined the horizontal stripes and the huck spots to make a fingertip towel.  The hemming and stripes actually run  down the sides of the towel.

All of the towels were woven with pieces of one ply linen that I pulled from the twenty yard warp.  I think I accomplished enough with those two warps, so I will put the remainders away for a while.

I'm tired of no color, so my next project will probably have some.  I finished winding my green rug warp today.  I'd like to get Bob to help my make a trapeze before I wind that warp on to the beam.  It goes on so much nicer that way, especially with long warps.

I will close with one of my colors of April pictures.  I don't remember planting it, and I don't know what it is, but it has the prettiest blue flowers.  Maybe someone can let me know what it is.

Huck Lattice Towels

The rug warp and the Atwater-Bronson lace warp are at a standstill, with half wound for each of them.  I got a little sidetracked with a linen  warp that I had.  This warp is only about 3 1/2 to 4 yards long, and like the 20 yard warp, it had no cross.  It was a mix of a two ply approximately 20/2 size warp and a tow linen singles.  I laid it out on my carpet with a weight on one end, and pulled out the plyed yarn 10 strands at a time.  Because there was no cross, I threaded the loom front to back.  Once I got it threaded through the heddles and tied onto the back, I draped it over the counterbalance bar on the loom behind  this one and added weight to it.  Once it had the weight added, I was able to treadle two plain weave sheds and add lease sticks.

My chosen pattern came from the Handwoven magazine, March/April of 2002, page 44.  (Check Interweave Press for back-issues.)  The article was for weaving 5 towels, all different weaves.  I started with treadling #5, a huck lattice.


 This design calls for ladder hemstitching and the magazine had the instructions on page 14.  The hemstitching is started from the right (right-handed) and groups 5 warp threads at a time.

This is a close-up of the second half of the hemstitching.  It wraps around the same same threads.  The loop of heavy yarn seen in the photo keeps a gap between the two rows and will be pulled out later.

I got a start on the weaving, completing about 6" of the first towel.  I like the lattice look, and once the towel is wet finished, it will be more prominent.

Now to bed.