Continuing with Perugia towels
Having finished the first towel, I took a couple of days to remove the pattern I had picked up on eight half-heddles and pick up a new pattern row to weave a towel for my Husband. I ended up being quite pleased with that pattern. In order to verify the new pattern, I wove one full repeat, which fortunately was still only eight rows tall, so doesn’t waste too much warp.
Then I could go ahead and prepare more of my new pattern weft thread by splitting one more roll of 4-ply into 2-ply. I could also acquire more of this, so the goal, again, was to more accurately re-create the pattern of my inspiration piece from the V&A. The first thing I did was to set up a new measuring tape which I marked up with the different distances.
Weaving, again, was fairly painless, the background twill is quite simple to weave as long as you can keep track of your treadling sequence, and I was able to listen to podcasts while weaving which was nice.
My focus was to get to the pattern row, and make sure the distances were right, so once I finished that second sequence I forgot to stop for the third sequence of the border (double stripes of solid pattern weft) and just powered through to the middle of the towel, where I reversed the measuring tape. That was the point where I realized that I had forgotten the two stripes to complete the pattern.
I don’t think it is going to be a problem, the borders are still symmetrical, but it is also not exactly like my inspiration. Third time lucky, I guess?
Perugia Towel #2
The second towel was finished on Monday. I used up two skeins of the cotton weft, less two small bobbins, which means I should probably use up just over two skeins to weave up a more accurate version of the V&A towel. I went ahead and split one more skein of cotton, and on Tuesday got started on the third iteration. This time stopping to make sure that I got all three sequences of the border before steaming ahead with the diamond twill that fills the centre section of the towel.
I am getting more confident and fluid picking up my pattern, and I am starting to think that I could probably make a more complicated and wider border – as long as I pick up each unit of pattern threads on their own individual heddles. However, it’s the picking up of the pattern that takes the most time out of any of the preparatory steps, so for me to spend that time I will have to make a very useable pattern. Some people have very kindly said they’d love to order some towels off me, also realizing that it would get expensive.
Fringe theory
In the end I managed three full towels at 150 cm long, and one shorter napkin only about 50 cm. As I was nearing the end I also started thinking how I could get the most out of my warp – because there’s no way I can weave the opphämta pattern only 15 cm from the butt end of my warp. I need quite a bit more length of warp behind the half heddles to make a shed which I can transfer to the front of the harnesses.
I started thinking if I should leave enough warp to make a fringe on the last towel, but I had gotten to the point where I could see air between the tie-on stick and warp beam just as I finished the third towel. I feared I would not be able to make up a useable length if I left warp between the third and fourth item for a fringe there, so I just went ahead and made a shorter napkin. By the nature of making the items mirrored, I had to determine at what point I felt confident I could still pick up the pattern without wasting too much of the warp at the end. This led me to a couple of reflections:
- You do see some Perugia towels with tied fringes but most of them do not have it. More are seen in manuscripts and illustrations, than in extant examples.
- Pretty much all fully intact towels start and end with a bit of plain herringbone twill, and often a plain solid pattern weft stripe.
- In a mindset of using every last possible bit of material to make an item that could make a profit, I felt bad about having to stop a towel with patterns so much ahead of the end of the warp. Choosing to make up just a “plain” 3/3 twill towel with the end bit means that that length of warp can not be counted as a product of the extra work it takes to create the pick-up pattern. It’s basically a loss.
- How about if the first and last towel on any length of toweling warp got tied fringes? That would make the loom waste at the front end useful, and enable a weaver to get the most use out of the pattern pick-ups at the end of the warp where you need much more extra length to get the patterned border.
- The starts being plain woven twill also enables a weaver to get the warp under control at the start, and once the final pattern stripe is started you can remove each half-heddle as you are finished with that pattern row, enabling you to continue weaving for as long as possible, using maximal length of warp for a woven product.
I have no particular proof for this theory, but it would be interesting to see if there’s any statistics that could be gathered about it. Depending on how long warps generally were, if two out of every 10 had a knotted fringe? Who knows. I don’t even know where to start finding any written sources about production of cloths like these.
Fabric finishing
To finish a raw weave off my loom I generally soak it in water, gently folded, for a few hours, then put it in the machine to wash it. Especially a textile like toweling I want to be able to wash once we start using it, so if it would not survive the washing machine it will not get used, and that is a sin in my book.
Once the cloth was cut off, on Thursday the 28th, I took it to the couch and wove in some broken warp ends, and generally checked it over. I had left enough of the warp on to be able to tie a fringe, and I finally decided to tie it before washing, so I would have the option to leave it. Friday I pre-soaked and washed the cloth, and then pressed it mostly dry and hung it to dry in the apartment.
The day after I pressed the length of raw weave again, and also used a lint roller to remove all that fuzz. Then I carefully cut them apart through the 1 cm of tabby I left in between each towel, and ironed up a 1 cm hem on both sides. As I was stitching the hem I turned the tabby picks under so the hems are double folded, but only 4-5 mm wide. The thread I used were taken from the thrums, i.e. the loom waste from the back of the warp. I waxed the 16/1 linen thread and whipstitched my hems invisibly.
And with that, my Perugia towels are done. Amazing feeling to see them and compare to the extant towel from the V&A which I have clipped to the beater bar on my loom.
Another week, another warp
There was the option of me doing a nice supple woolen warp to follow after the Perugia towel – but that would mean changing out the heddles, and possibly having to return the borrowed treadle which I need for tabby, so I let my towels rest for a day, and then I proceeded to warp up another 7 metres of 16/1 linen to make more Perugia towels.
Since I was not 100% happy with the pattern I designed for myself I will make another one for me, incorporating Laurel motifs. I have also drawn out a pattern of an 8 pointed star and squares, which you can find in 16th century pattern books, as well as in the Swedish tradition of weaving opphämta which was alive and well into the 20th century.
This time I decided that I had enough of a clue about the warping and pick-up process to try a mirrored pattern, so that I pick up 8 pattern rows, and mirror it around the centre so the final border height is 15 pixels.
Since I wanted to do two patterns I had to make some more half-heddle sticks, so I did some carpentry: Splitting two old stick heddles and drilling holes on either end of all of my half-heddle sticks and prepping them with a safety string that would be easier to handle than what I had been using.
I put the warp into the loom and proceeded to take two days to pick up 16 half-heddles for two different border patterns. It is certainly true that the second attempt is always better, and I felt more comfortable with the whole process, expending less mental energy figuring out every single step in the process.
When it came to picking up the patterns I had set a new rule for myself to only pick up a maximum of three units on one heddle. I found that when I had four I could easily get them binding up against the next row and missing some on the shed stick if I was not very careful. I do not want to have to be super careful, and I want to try to speed up my weaving if possible.
The quicker I can pick up the new pattern row onto the shed stick the quicker I can get back to throwing weft picks. Doing it all myself makes me realize the usefulness of a young apprentice in the weaving studio to pick up the next row for the weaver.
I designed my pattern on gridded paper, as usual, and recorded myself saying the pick-up sequences. However, it took me a day before getting to use the recordings, and when I was stood at the back of the loom I had to do some figuring out how to proceed with my pick-up as the first pattern is mirrored in the centre of the warp, and I had to do the first pick-up row over twice before I got it right. That slowed me down quite a lot.
The second pattern I picked up however, was much simpler, as I did not design special end caps, and the pattern fit exactly on the warp count.
I was so confident, in fact, that I sat down to start weaving without weaving a test of my patterns at the head of the warp. This was, of course, hubris on my part and when I finally got to the first pattern I discovered a major problem right in the middle, as well as halfway to one edge, which I could only fix by cutting off a total of 6 warp ends and changing their order.
The next update will hopefully have more photos of more Perugia towels. One is definitely going to be for me, but I think I’ll have a few to bring to Double Wars for sale, so I can finance more new warps!
I did also bring some embroidery to Aros Sewing Circle on the weekend. I started embroidering on the square of my shirt linen a while back, and at sewing circle I managed to add more along the edge of my linen. I think it’s veiling. Or a napkin. We’ll see. My fingers were however a little dry and chapped so I kept getting caught up in the filament silk.
Lia de Thornegge
Lia's Continued Crafts 
Leave a comment