Honeysuckle's Last Blooms

Just as summer was giving way to autumn, I took the last pieces of Honeysuckle Twill variations off my studio loom. I had written about this project in a post early last month. The warp was a lustrous 10/2 Tencel yarn in natural. The neutral base allowed me to play with any color I wanted, but I decided to work with "flowery" colors for the most part.

Three of these pieces were breadcloths, using 5/2 perle cotton as the weft and a pretty straightforward twill treadling. Here are two of them.



One of my favorite weft pairings for Tencel is 8/2 unmercerized cotton. The resulting fabric is a nice blend of the two yarns. The Tencel gives a bit of sheen and a drapey (but not slithery) hand to the cloth. The cotton contributes cushy softness and adds absorbency. This blue towel is woven with the 8/2 unmercerized cotton using a satin tie-up.



For the final piece of this warp, I used a balanced twill tie-up. A balanced tie-up is one in which the number of warp threads rising is equal to the number of warp threads remaining down, so that neither the warp or weft is dominating on the face of the cloth. Again the wefts were 8/2 unmercerized cotton. I used a delicate salmon and light apricot - a final nod to the lighter palette of early summer.



I haven't quite settled on my next project for this loom but weaving these last few Honeysuckle fabrics was a fitting way to bring my summer weaving to a close.