One of the (many) joys of visiting my adult children is the opportunity to see old weaving projects in a fresh light. Our kids have always been enthusiastic recipients of textiles from my studio - they adopt rugs, towels, wallhangings, bathrobes, whatever I am willing to let go to the plaintive question, "Mom, can I take this home?" Long after I've forgotten these textiles, they are used, reused, and worn out in places far away from their state of origin. This week I was happy to see the following three old friends. The first one is a kimono/bathrobe woven approximately 30 years ago. I think it was the first project on my first AVL, a mechanical dobby loom which was later converted to Compudobby I (I no longer own the loom, but it did go to a good home, and the present owner is weaving on it). I can't imagine why I chose to weave plain weave on this dobby loom, but this is a heck of a nice bathrobe. The warp was 20/2 cotton at 30 epi (the things we remember!), the reddish stripes a commercially space-dyed yarn, and the weft a fine bouclé.
The second textile is a linen/cotton bath towel in M's & O's. It's gotten at least 20 years of hard use and is faded and worn thin but still being used.
The third textile is a wallhanging in a stuffed double weave - a weave I encountered at my first
Convergence , in Toronto (1986?), in a workshop taught by Naomi Whiting Towner. The warp in this picture runs horizontally, so turn your head a quarter turn to the left to see the actual weaving orientation. It's a block weave, and four shafts are required for each block. Four wefts are used: one to weave on the face, one on the back, and the other two float in between the two layers. Every inch or so, a few shots of plain weave are thrown, to seal the tubes and equalize the tensions. If all four wefts are different colors, there are four different possibilities for color in the face cloth. It's a really interesting structure, and I wove 7 or 8 hangings with it, but this is my favorite.