Weaving an English Garden

We have recently returned from a lovely vacation in England and Scotland, visiting relatives and trying out the Scottish Highlands for the first time.  As a thank you to our various hosts, I decided to send them each a handwoven dishtowel inspired by something I saw on the trip: one of the gardens at Balliol College, Oxford University. It was the perfect spring day and the garden was in full bloom, with highlights of bright yellows and oranges along with the base blues and greens.

Once we returned home, I stared at the photo I had taken to find the colors in my stash to fit. I already had the loom threaded for my previous project (see the special present) so I decided simply to reduce the width and use the leftover warp as a dummy warp for the new project.  I wound the warp in colors, 2 strands at a time where possible.  I made sure to have extra warp ends so that I could design the towel stripes as I went along. The warp itself made me think of the garden!

There are pros and cons to tying on to a dummy warp and this project did a good job of demonstrating them all.  Having woven so much yardage using the treadling pattern before, I had a deep familiarity with how the cloth should look and what to expect from the cottolin in terms of hand and care. The threading had been thoroughly tested. Using a dummy warp meant I could get as much as possible from the 6.5 yards I had put on the loom. However, I did have to tie over 400 knots! It is a matter of personal preference and I am not 100% sure I would make the same decision again.

The stripe pattern in the warp used a “ground” color of green (every other set of 7 strands). Blue was the dominant contrast color, warped in an asymmetrical set of stripe groups. Yellow was the second dominant contrast, followed by various hues of orange and red with some stripes formed from more than one contrast color. Random assortments gave the warp something of the natural chaos of the garden.

For the weft, I chose to vary the colors from towel to towel. This kept me from getting bored as I wove and allowed me to experiment with various color combinations. In the picture on the left, you can see the colors I chose. I didn’t make any towels using the darker oranges or reds – they would over power the warp and I wanted the warp to be front and center. The photo below shows how the warp looked as I switched from one weft color to the next. I inserted a few shots of white to allow me to easily find the place to cut between towels. I do regret that I ran out of warp before I tried white as a weft color as I feel sure that would have been an elegant choice. The pattern made inserting a stripe or two in the towels an easy decision so you can see a few have that additional design element. These towels were over 20 inches wide in the loom so I made them about 32 inches long. After washing and hemming, they are 20 inches by 30 inches.

Now that I have completed the set, I am a little sad to be sending them off but I feel sure they will be appreciated. Our English cousins were all really fun to visit and wonderful hosts. It is nice to be able to send them something useful and personal as a reminder of our visit.