Awhile back I reclaimed some yarn from an unfortunate looking but new cotton sweater. I've saved it for the right project, and now that I'm weaving, I decided to use it to make some cotton towels.
I warped the loom with the recycled yarn, intending to weave three towels with new Sugar and Cream cotton yarn as the weft. Towels, place mats, and similar shorter pieces can be woven continuously and then cut apart. It's like weaving one of those old gas station bathroom towels, (except, of course, it's clean).
After I got the first towel woven, I got worried that the new cotton would shrink more than the recycled cotton, which had already been washed, so I wove the other two towels using the recycled yarn for both the warp and the weft.
After I got everything woven, cut off the loom, and machine hemmed, I washed them, and found that the mix of old and new yarns actually came out the best. The towels made solely of the recycled yarn shrank unevenly, perhaps because the yarn had no twist. Recycled yarn, especially cotton, can come untwisted.
But the towels were serviceable nonetheless. The last towel on the warp came out short, as I'm still figuring out how to accurately calculate warp lengths. Michael got the short towel to use as a golf towel. The other two went to my daughter Allie.
The towels are soft and drapey. I'm going to make another batch, this time mixing the new and old yarns.
Recently my son Alex turned 21, and we had a dinner for him at the house. Here he is with Jessica his girlfriend, who is a favorite of my old cat Wee.
Allie and her boyfriend Matt were also at the party. It was a very sweet time. The kids have grown, and now I officially have two adult children.
5 comments:
Love the towels, especially the one with the oranges in it. Sweet pics of the kids =-) Ah, yes, adult children...sigh...mine are both approaching 30, one hits it this year and one's turning 28...frankly, it's freaking me out...
Well, aren't you the clever one to weave towels out of yarn. They're really cool!
And the kids are great. I loved it when we had young people around; they are so wonderful to be with. Nowadays the "kids" live on the other side of the country and have families (and busy careers), so we don't see them very often.
You are so clever, Barbara! I really like the towel with the touch of colors throughout...nice.
Good looking kids, too!
As experiments go, these are coming out wonderfully. The same could be said for the kids too!
Love following your weaving adventures, and congratulations on two wonderful adult children!
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