towel — Play — Lauren Gust

Pattern/Technique: Followed warping instructions from Gist Beginner Cotton Towels by Sara Resnick, then improvised on the weft.

Warp: 8/4 Brassard Cotton; using the number of ends specified in the Beginner Cotton Towels patter, alternated Peacock, Denim, Peacock, Denim, Peacock

Weft: Used combination of peacock, sage, denim in various patterns. Wove each towel to 26” on loom. Wove 2 picks of contrast color between towels.

Materials: Maurice Brassard 8/4 Cotton in Peacock, Sage, Denim

12 dent reed

Stick Shuttle

Lessons/Notes: After weaving to desired length on loom, I zigzag stitched the front and back end of the cloth on a sewing machine, washed the cloth in the washing machine, then zig zag stitched 2x at the split between towels.

I folded each end under 2x and straight stitched to secure the hem.

Care: Machine wash, tumble dry

Pattern/Technique: Self drafted. The goal was to make a bath sheet sized towel (i.e. 40 x 72 inches) but I really like the look of the selvedges on this linen, and 100% linen can be shifty as all hell to cut, so I folded over a 1 inch seam at the selvedge and sewed 1 pin width away. Voila. Extra wide bath sheet. (Beach towel? Picnic Blanket? Summer weight throw?)

For the cut ends, I folded a 1/2” hem, then folded a 1” hem and sewed 1 pin width away from the folded edge.

Materials: Purl Soho Watercolor Linen in Rose/Grey and Rose/Navy, 2.25 yds of each color.

New skills: n/a

Lessons: I noticed the linen stretches a bit while sewing along the cut edge, so I reduced the presser foot pressure to 5.0 to alleviate this.

Wash linen & tumble try on high heat to get soft rumpled fabric and prevent hard creasing.

Linen is apparently super absorbent (comparable to terry cloth) & I’m excited to try these towels out.

What I'd do differently: Hemming looks deceptively simple (fold over fabric, press, sew) but it’s the perfect storm of mind numbingly boring while also triggering my perfectionist tendencies. I already learned my lesson with the essex placemats, so I’m going to say it out loud again for Future Lauren: think twice before sewing home goods.

Care: Machine wash, tumble dry high heat.