Dish towels

I just finished my first dishtowels! They were woven on the same warp but with different weft patterns. I wove the entire width of my loom although I think I read somewhere not to use the outside holes in the reed. I'm not sure why, it seemed to work fine - I'll probably learn someday.  The first towel was woven a bit loose, when I followed the pattern for the second towel - with the green stripes, I realized I was not packing the weft tightly enough, the pattern called for 7 green stripes in 2 inches. My first set was 5, the rest were 6. I don't have the recommended cotton shuttle ( they have a thin edge used for packing the weft tightly) so I packed each row with a metal ruler.  There are several pieces of equipment I have not acquired yet, I'm trying to make some myself or find things that will serve the purpose.

My next project will be another scarf. I'm going to try and document the progress in a sort of stop motion.

Loom

My husband went with me to the Fiber Festival of New England in November since my usual fiber partner couldn't make it. (Very sweet of him, he seems to tolerate yarn stores as well!) We were checking out some spinning wheels when he noticed a loom, after a bit of discussion we came home with an Ashford Rigid Heddle.  I read the book that came with it, watched a video on Ashford's website and threaded on my first warp - with a little "help" from our cat.

I decided to just do random width stripes.

I wove it tight - beginner's mistake - but the scarf still drapes nicely

Last spring I bought some amazing fiber at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool Festival, a luscious grey silk alpaca blend, a purple batt with novelty fiber combed in and brilliant jewel tone tencel!  I used the silk alpaca blend with bits of the tencel to make this simple circle shrug (Threads magazine).

Fiber

Layout

Circle shrug