Finishing the Weaving of my Stash Buster Kitchen Towels
A few weeks ago, I shared with you my Stash Buster Kitchen Towels. In this first video, I talked about the inspiration behind this project, the warp pattern and I wove the first two towels. However, I had to pause this weaving for a few weeks as I was busy with other projects. But then this week, I was caught day dreaming about weaving my next kitchen towels. This is when I knew that I had to be finishing the weaving of my stash buster kitchen towels!
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The Inspiration
The warp pattern of this project is simple, yet timeless. It’s basically made of blocks of colors separated by two inches of natural colored cotton yarn. Each block of color contains three stripes, which are all made of two warp threads. In total, there 5 different colors used in this warp. I alternate them starting from the middle of the warp in order to make an asymmetrical effect. I shared all the details of the warp pattern here.
I really loved this idea of little stripe and this what inspired the weft patterns of the towels that I wove in this blog’s video. In each towels the number of stripes was different, but the idea was the same: a combination of 2 picks of color, 2 picks of natural.
Cotton Bouclé Towel
The Bouclé Yarn
I used cotton bouclé for this towel because I love the texture it gives to a piece. Did you know that “bouclé” means “curly” in French? Maybe this is why I love this yarn so much: it reminds me of my hair! When you look closely at the yarn, you can see that it has a fun twist that gives it the curly look.
I did not have that much color of cotton bouclé in my stash. Still, I had some that were the exact match with the warp! How convenient! So, I used some natural, sierra (brown) and orange brûlé (burnt orange).
This yarn is available through the Woolery’s online shop: https://woolery.com/maurice-brassard-boucle-cotton-yarn.html?aff=214
The Bouclé Pattern
For this towel, I have two different color patterns, one for each color. For the brown, I did the same thing that I had in the warp into the weft. This means that I wove
-2 picks of brown
-2 picks of natural
-2 picks of brown
-2 picks of natural
-2 picks of brown
For the orange stripes, I decided to make them the same thickness as the brown stripes to keep the integrity of the pattern. This means that I made them with two picks or color. Still, I decided to weave five stripes of orange in each color pattern. This means that I wove:
-2 picks of orange
-2 picks of natural
-2 picks of orange
-2 picks of natural
-2 picks of orange
-2 picks of natural
-2 picks of orange
-2 picks of natural
-2 picks of orange
In between each of those color patterns, I wove 3 inches of natural. However, I wove 4” of natural at the beginning and at the end of the towel. This extra inch should allow for the hem. This means that once my towel will be hemmed, I should have about 3” of natural at the beginning and at the end of the towel. It should then look pretty balanced. Here’s the sequence of the weaving
-4” of natural
-*Brown color pattern
-3” of natural
-Orange color pattern
-3” of natural*
-Repeat pattern in between the * until reaching close to 40”
In total, I repeated the sequences 4 times. I just happened to reach my desired length of 40” while completing the fourth sequence of the pattern. Sometimes, I’m not that lucky! If it hadn’t been the case, I would have wove the towel more or less 40” to keep the integrity of the pattern.
Cotton Chenille Towel
The Chenille Yarn
I wanted to complete my set of towels with a thicker towel that would work as a hand towel. This is why I decided to use cotton chenille for the weft. I had some of this yarn left in my stash after weaving my bath towels project. Here’s the video of that project:
Here are the exact name of the colors that I used in this blog’s towel:
-Blanchi (white) (CH101)
-Marine (navy) (C966)
-Blé d’or (orange) (C926)
-Vert foncé (dark green) (C919) *Note: If you cannot find it, Forest (C905) could also work
This cotton chenille is also from Maurice Brassard. Here’s where you can get this yarn: https://woolery.com/maurice-brassard-cotton-chenille-yarn.html?aff=214
The Chenille Pattern
This towel was woven with the same inspiration as the other one! Still, I wanted to have more fun with the stripes. This is why I made a sort of crescendo effect with them. I started with a small amount of stripes and each times that I was weaving a new color pattern, I would add one stripe to the pattern. When I reached the middle of the towel, I did the reverse! Here again for each color pattern, I wove two picks of the color and two picks of white.
Here’s the sequence of the weaving:
-4” of white
-Small green color pattern (3 stripes of green)
-3” of white
-Orange color pattern (4 stripes of orange)
-3” of white
-Blue color pattern (5 stripes of blue)
-3” of white
-Big green color pattern (6 stripes)
This marked the middle of the towel. At this point, I had woven about 20”. For the rest of the towel, I wove the inverse. Here’s the sequence:
-3” of white
-Blue color pattern (5 stripes of blue)
-3” of white
-Orange color pattern (4 stripes of orange)
-3” of white
-Small green color pattern (3 stripes of green)
-4” of white
The Surprise Warp
I may have made a miscalculation somewhere. Or maybe it’s because some of the towels were a little shorter then 40”. But I ended up with a few extra inches of warp at the end of my project. Nevertheless, I was really excited about this surprise warp, because it allowed me to try something new. I decided to use some 8/4 cotton for the weft. My idea was that this extra warp would become rags. I would then have a real complete set of kitchen towels: some dish towels, a hand towel and some rags!
In conclusion
I’m very happy with how all towels turned out. I could I woven them all with 8/2 cotton and still do the same kind of designs. I probably would have had enough of each color. But I just had so much fun playing around with different fibers. And this way, I’m left with some yarn, to do another stash buster project just like this one! I must say, I’m really in love with the warp pattern and the possibilities it has. And I’m happy that I got around to finishing the weaving of my stash buster kitchen towels.
In the next couple of weeks, I will be wet finishing and hemming those towels. I’ll also be working on a video on the subject. Stay tuned!