Handwoven White Towels
For whatever reason, I happen to
really like lozenge (or diaper) patterned white towels. This page
describes four of my white towel projects. A different style of white
towel with brocade work can be found here.
All of the drawdowns
for these towels were charted by Carolyn Priest-Dorman in Medieval Textiles issues 30 and 31.
The first is a six shaft lozenge twill based on the Vatican Museo Sacro
T-27 fragment (dated 'medieval'). It is 22/2 cottolin set at 30
epi.
The second towel is the same pattern as above, worked in 40/2 linen at
30 epi for Master
Geoffrey Bourette's elevation to the Laurel. The cottolin
towel shown above is a bit tightly set, so the linen towel is much
lighter in weight despite having the same number of threads per
inch. The whitework Laurel wreath (which is a bit difficult to
see) was worked by Mistress
Martelle von Charlottenburg.
The third is a 12 shaft pavy gebrochene pattern based on the Godehard
Chausuble (14th century). This is also 22/2 cottolin, this time
at 24 epi. The pattern should be 14 shafts, but I made a mistake
and threaded only 12. Since this was a throwaway project designed
to test a new loom and use up the leftover yarn from the first towel, I
modified the draft to have 3 threads between main design elements
instead of 4 (preventing me from having to rethread the darn thing!).
The last example is an 8 shaft pavy liseré handwashing towel
woven for Mistress
Belphoebe de Givet's elevation to the Laurel. This is 40/2
linen set at 30 epi. It is very challenging to photograph because
the pattern is extremely subtle and washes out in direct
lighting. Tangential lighting is necessary to really appreciate
the pattern.
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Last updated September 14, 2008