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.
If I show you pictures of the bands and pieces of cloth I have woven, you might think they look perfect. That’s because the photographer (me) stages the photos so you get the best impression of the work. If you look closely enough for imperfections, trust me, you will find them. We all know that only God is perfect, so why are we so consumed with trying to reach perfection?
Nearly five yards of cotton/linen ribbon woven on the Glimåkra band loom. I had to finish this warp so I could start making a band to use for tabs on the towels I recently finished.
We think that if we are good or do enough good things we will make God happy. A lot of people have been practicing; so, if practice makes perfect, why isn’t anyone perfect yet? Most of all, me. How can I stand before my grand weaver and expect him to overlook all my imperfections? My camera tricks are useless.
Warp made with a few colors from the towels, this cotton ribbon will be a good match for making hanging tabs for the towels.Three yards of cotton ribbon, completely in harmony with the towels they will adorn.
Jesus takes my place before God. His perfection covers my imperfect deeds. My simple part is to put my trust in him. His cross took all my failures to the grave. Now, when my grand weaver sees me, he notices the perfection of his original design as seen in Jesus, his son.
New towel with hanging loop on display with Steve’s relief carving and hand-carved marionette. (Seven more towels to hem.)
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.
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!
You have to know what you want before you start. When a handweaver threads the warp, she is deciding in advance what kind of cloth she wants to weave. Your true intentions, like a threaded warp, are revealed in the fabric of your life.
Warp ends at rest behind the reed. Every warp end is carried in the eye of a heddle, which sinks or rises with its shaft (pair of upper and lower shaft bars).
Did you know that your deepest wish shapes your life? When my foot presses a treadle on this Glimåkra countermarch loom, shafts sink and rise, carrying their heddled threads to their proper position for interlacing with the shuttledweft. That’s a fancy way of saying that the way the warp ends were threaded behind the reed becomes evident in the woven cloth in front of the reed.
When our whole-heart desire is to walk as our heavenly king walks, his love is activated in us, and is expressed toward each other. This deep wish to follow his ways forms the intentional threading pattern that makes stunning fabric possible.
(This is still the cotton warp for the rya knots project. HERE is where I threaded these heddles, and HERE is how the rya knots look.)
