Finish Line!

I wound the first Christmas warp on in mid October. They almost sold out before I even finished weaving, so I wound a 26 yard warp and tied it onto the first warp so I’d have enough to add to the shop. I gave myself a goal of having them completely finished by Thanksgiving so we could have our dining room table (aka the hemming/sewing station) back in time for Thanksgiving dinner. I really can’t believe I did it, but I did! That’s 23 towels and two table runners! Whoop!

For my weaving friends:

I’ve been asked a few times about my hemming process, so I took photos while working on this project. I don’t know why I always feel like I have to say this, but here we are…. this is the way *I* do it. I literally have sewn at least a hundred towels like this and I’ve not had one complaint. I also use my towels in my own kitchen, not just because I like them, but I can learn what works best in hemming, sett, threads by actually using them. I can personally report that not one of my towels has fallen apart.

I’ve tried a lot of other ways. For a long time I used steam a seam tape until I ran out one day and didn’t want to stop and wait until I could buy more. I found out I didn’t need it. I also used to serge the ends of my towels. For a while I serged every one apart and then washed. Then, for a while, I serged the two ends of the long length of fabric into a huge tube, washed and then serged apart. Seriously, I’ve tried a lot of ways. As I’ve stated before I’m either lazy or very efficient and if I can find a short-cut, I will. I’m sure there are other things I tried that I’ve forgotten and who knows, maybe I’ll do it another way a few months from now, but I’ve been finishing my towels like this for at least a year now and I’m happy with it. So here goes….

First big helper… I weave my hems in a different color if I’m weaving plain weave or a different treadling pattern if I’m weaving in twill. If you weave plain weave hems on a twill towel, they’ll splay out and you’ll get those annoying little ears that stick out. If I’m doing an all white towel in plain weave (which is almost never, but that was the case with the Christmas overshot towels last year), I throw two picks in the same shed at the hem line. It just makes it easier.

I weave my hems at 1.5″ and I throw two picks of a different color in between towels. I use leftover bobbins for the hems and the separation picks. When I pull the cloth off of the loom I use a rotary cutter and quilter’s ruler on a mat to carefully cut them apart. I fold them so the cut ends meet in the center and then I fold it over one more time so the cut ends are protected until I’m ready to go to the ironing board.

At the ironing board I get the tabs all ready. I have a basket full of inkle woven bands and can almost always find something that matches, but I had to weave bands for the Christmas towels (darn). I cut the tabs at 4″ and press them into shape so they are ready to tuck into the hems.

Now I’m ready for pressing the hems in. You can see how easy it makes it by doing them in another color. I fold at the change of color line first. I open it back up and fold the end up to the color line I just pressed. To avoid any little ends sticking out, I fold the corners in to the middle pressed line and then press it all down. I tuck in the inkle tab and use clips to hold it in. I repeat on the other end of the towel (minus the tab) and then it’s ready for the sewing machine.

I forgot to take pictures at the sewing machine, but I’ll explain. I almost always use grey thread if I’m not sewing black or white hems. The grey magically blends in. I use a slight zig zag. It helps with the tension and does away with that harsh line that hems can have sometimes. It always hides when your hand isn’t perfectly steady, which really? Who’s is?

I always test a bit on scraps of the same weight of handwoven fabric. When I’m ready to begin, I start sewing on a small square of fabric and then go on to the towel without cutting the thread. If you do this you won’t get the little nests of thread at the beginning of your hems. Likewise, when I come to the end of the hem, I flip the end of that same towel around, so that I can go right on sewing the other hem. When I’m done with one towel, I go right on to the next one without cutting them apart until they are off the machine. I do go back and forth a few times at the beginning and end of each hem to lock it in place.

After sewing the hems, it’s to the washing machine they go. I have a front loader so I make sure that I have it on low spin or it creases the fabric. I dry just until they are dry. Then it’s back to the ironing board for a good pressing and the addition of my label. My current labels are from Dutch Label Shop and have the iron-on adhesive on them already.