Another Set of Bath Towels

Weaving cotton towels has been a longstanding mainstay of my weaving life and now my business. I'm weaving and selling over 200 towels/year, so add up the years and it has to be well over one thousand by now. My towels tended to be sized for the kitchen or bathroom until last year when two friends almost simultaneously asked if I could weave larger towels for bath towels. Hey, great idea!

This was my third or fourth set of bath towels. They finish at about 130 cm x 100 cm, a good size to use, and are also very absorbent and practical like the original ones. I'm selling lots of them and I appreciate all the positive feedback I've received as well as some downright rave reviews.

Three people contacted me about bath towels recently and so I happily embarked on this project. A new weaving friend helped me beam part of the warp and it came out almost perfectly evenly at the end.

Only one section (1 inch wide) came out one turn too long. But this is FINE - my motto is "If in doubt, wind another turn." If that turn was one short instead, the rest of the warp would be that total weavable length and all the other 41 sections would have a wasted turn.

One set of bath towels was to match a set of hand towels. The buyer chose from a December project of hand towels and from there I wove roughly matching bath towels in the warp but matching in the weft. The horizontal stripes will match up after the bath towels are washed, and they will look great together. (Another great idea - thank you!)

Here's the bulked-up front beam towards the end of the warp with 12 towels wound on.

And here's the warp stretched out with parts of two towels on display. The total length is about 18 m. I think non-weavers see the process better this way.

I'm into the hemming now, then washing, pressing, checking over and shipping out.