Hello there and happy Monday. Thanks to all of my fellow weavers who have expressed an interest in my latest weaving pattern and for so many kind and generous comments about the design. If you haven’t seen the design yet, here is a look at the finished placemats:
This warp rep pattern may be woven on a 4 shaft loom and uses a 15 dent reed. I factored in a generous warp allowance so that weavers new to warp rep can sample and still end up with 4 finished placemats. A complete list of supplies and suggested yarns are detailed in the Etsy listing: click here.
Like many warp faced weaving designs, the warp takes some time to prepare but the weaving is relatively uncomplicated. And the mats feel great. I hope you’ll give this pattern a try. Here are the placemats in blue and ivory:
And yes! These placemats are reversible. I love a reversible placemat, don’t you? 🙂
I’m onto weaving more diamond twill kitchen towels after a busy holiday season. Here is a photo of the first few kitchen towels in English lavender colors on the loom today:
I weave a lot of kitchen towels, and it is important to be able to generate finished items that are consistent in length and width. I’ve learned this the hard way, by mistakenly measuring the length of woven fabric on the loom and ending up with little stumpy pieces of cloth or disproportionately long towels that look strange. There are many ways to measure woven cloth on the loom, but I thought I’d share what works for me.
Yep! I label sewing pins with a permanent marker. These are long quilter’s pins with flat heads which can be found at sewing supply and craft stores. For these towels, I measure 12″ of cloth, stick in 12″ pin, continue until I weave another 12″ and then stick in a 24″ pin:
This measuring cheat works for me, so if you haven’t found a good system for yourself yet, give it a try!
Happy weaving and stay well,
Kate K.
Kate Kilgus 