I know details about these towels that most casual observers will never see. Every cloth starts with a plan; and, as the weaver, I am intricately involved in every aspect from start to finish. Labels on my handwoven articles identify me as the maker. When you see my label, you know that you can ask me anything about the weaving process for that item.
Stitching the “Handwoven by” label on the towel is the final step in finishing this group of towels. 16/2 cotton, 3-shafttwill with warpfloats.
On a grander scale, you and I have a maker. You don’t have to wonder if your maker knows you. He has known you from the beginning, planning the colors in the warp before it was on the loom, so to speak. You also don’t have to wonder if your maker hears you. Your prayers are heard. Even when no one else around you is listening, the Lord hears your prayer. Everything he has made, including you, bears his label. That makes you beautiful.
When I started weaving these towels my daughter was not yet engaged. I had color and texture in mind, not bridal shower gifts. Now, with the wedding only a few weeks away, I am fortunate to have a set of handwoven towels to give the new bride! As if I had planned it that way. Next up, a shawl for me to wear at the wedding, but that’s a story for another day.
Just off the loom, cotton towels have been cut apart and edges serged, ready for washing. When washed, the texture of the cloth will “bloom,” showing off the distinctive structure, a 3-shaft twill with warpfloats.
There are many things I have given my daughter without trying: my height and stature, similar laugh, interest in world cultures, musical talent, brothers (does that count?)… Melody and I have a lot in common, so I will give her a set of these towels as a symbolic gesture of the threads we already share.
You and I have been given an extraordinary kind of love from our Heavenly Father. The Father has given his kind of love to us, that we should be called his children. Like a daddy, he has passed his traits to his kids. In which case, we like to hear, “You look just like your Daddy.”
May your best traits be found in your children, or in the young people you influence.
All my spools are quills, mostly pre-made cardboard, with a couple of rolled-brown-paper exceptions. I keep a few sizes of quills ready, sorted in little mugs inside a basket. The basket sits on a shelf under the table that holds my bobbin-winder, so I simply reach down and grab the size quill I need at the moment.
One of the mugs says Glimåkra (from Joanne Hall, my Glimåkra friend), another mug is a handle-less one I picked up at Ikea years ago that looks like a little flower pot, one is a baby’s pewter cup (when does a baby use a pewter cup?), but the mug I like best is my husband’s childhood milkglass cup with red two-block twill design (at least that’s what I’m calling it), and a blue “S” for Steve.
This fun idea of weavers sharing pictures of their spools is from Meg over at Unravelling. Thanks, Meg!
I like to use up as much thread as possible as I finish a project. The final towel on this warp has horizontal stripes of varying widths as I empty as many quills as I can.Several sizes of quills ready to be used. I like being able to tell at a glance if I am running short of any size.Quills with thread/yarn left from various projects. Do you see the two-block twill on the “Steve” cup?Everything in place for winding a quill.
May your springtime be memorable with happy surprises.
You will always come back to what you love. I came back to this arrangement of stripes because I love the harmonious way the colors work together. Now used as a weft sequence, this is one of the color wrappings that I did when planning this towel warp. (You can see the rest of the color wrappings HERE.) But really, it’s just towels, it’s just colors, it’s just things that wear out.
Color wrapping for possible warp arrangement is now used as weft sequence. Except, since I ran out of light blue thread (remember THIS?), I am using dark blue in its place.
Everything we can touch and everything we can see is in the process of fading. Physical things deteriorate over time; they just do. The handwoven articles I so carefully make may last a human lifetime, or maybe longer. But eventually they will be no more, and any meaning they have now will be lost. (Even with my grandmother’s quilts and rugs, like THESE, I don’t know what they meant to her, and she’s no longer around to ask.) It doesn’t make sense to love things. Sure, we can touch and see them, and our me-first self wants them. But they are all going away.
It does make sense to investigate the non-physical things that never decay. When we align with the desires of our grand weaver and discover the plans he has had from the beginning of time, we are investing in heavenly pursuits that carry rewards that never fade. Ever.
May the work of your hands outlast you.
101 Thanks! Thank you, dear friend, for coming to my virtual weaving studio again and again. If you are one of the small handful (there are about eight or ten of you) that started with me 101 blog posts ago (HERE is the first post), a BIG thank-you to YOU! If you are one of the more recent guests, helping to grow this space to more than 1,200 guests a month, I am HUGELY grateful to YOU, too! You are welcome here. I am so glad you came!
Every time I use my bobbin winder I am reminded of how fortunate I am. It’s electric. No one has an electric bobbin winder quite like mine, because no one else has my Steve to invent things like he does. He watched me using my nifty hand-turn Swedish bobbin winder many times. Steve decided he could make something better. A motor and an on-off light switch, with a variable-speed foot pedal. It’s perfect! I love it. But mostly, I love Steve.
Electric bobbin winder holds any length of quill. The quill fits tightly onto a tapered dowel that extends from the bobbin winder.
The leather quilting thimble keeps me from burning or cutting my thumb as the thread speeds by while I guide it onto the fast spinning quill on the bobbin winder.
I am on my very last tube of this shade of light blue. Will there be enough on this quill to finish the last blue section of the last of four towels in this color scheme, plus enough for the light blue hem?? Somehow, I think a tightly- and perfectly-shaped quill will be able to weave just a little bit further… (You can see the beginning of this set of four towels HERE.)
Small amount of light blue left on the quill. Maybe I can use the remainder for a couple of small stripes on another towel.
Yes! Finished the hem with a little bit of light blue left to spare. This is a good day!
To request Steve’s parts and source list for the electric bobbin winder, click HERE to send me an email.
