Next Warp, More Towels

I'm nearly finished weaving off the towel warp of natural 18/2 cotton, and am working on some designs for the next warp, which will have a warp of denim blue 20/2 unmercerized cotton and wefts of various 20/2 cottons. More towels, but in a threading meant for blocks of 5-end satin. This can give me very clear blocks using 1/4 and 4/1 satin, as in the first three examples. The first one shows 2 repeats of the threading; the others just 1 repeat. There are lots of ways to vary the treadling to create different designs on the same threading.







In the drafts above, I'm filling two of the four threading blocks with the same structure, so the effect in some of the designs is almost as if there were only two threading blocks.

However, the threading actually has four blocks, and since 5-end satin has four variations (1/4, 2/3, 3/2, and 4/1), that means I can also weave designs that use all four blocks, and get the effect of more colors in the weave. Each of the four variations has a different ratio of warp to weft, and the visual effect can be very interesting. Here are a few of the designs using all four blocks:







The division between blocks doesn't form as clean a "cut" as the 1/4+4/1 designs, but since these are "inclusive" satins, there are no over-long floats at the division. When woven with a weft of a different value than the warp, the four shades should be visually distinct.

More to come as the project progresses...