Woven Cotton Towels

I love cotton. Love, love, love it. It's my absolute favorite fiber for knitting, crocheting and weaving. Strong, easy on the hands and machine washable and dryable are just some of cottons' many virtues. 

I made cotton towels as one of my 1st weaving projects. Since I only had a 10 inch loom, my finished waffle weave towels looked more like washcloths. 

Here is towel weaving project #2. I warped my 15 inch loom with two heddles and 8/8 unmercerized cotton. 

I played around with the 1st few inches of warp to figure out how dense the fabric would be.

Then I wove a few inches of double layer doubleweave with a purple weft on the upper layer and pink on the bottom layer. 

Then I made a towel with "ribbing" using a black weft ....

This pattern always gives me selvedge issues.

Then I decided to give twill a try. For this I needed to make a heddle rod. The yarn was quite sticky and it was hard to get a clean shed, but I persevered.

That mistake is really bothering me ;) 

Again, the twill pattern left me with major selvedge issues. 

I then made a towel in plain weave with white weft. 

 

Finally I went back to the twill but used 3/2 cotton as the weft. 

More of a square than a towel...I ran out of warp :(

Overall, I'm happy with the results. I especially like how the rib pattern and the twill pattern produce a different design on the reverse. I need do some selvedge assistance with these patterns though.