Lovely Soft Cotton

The organic cotton warp I was working on in March has come to an end. I managed to weave three long table runners each in a different natural handspun cotton. No dyes used! There is Sarepta Brown cotton on the left, natural Acala cotton on the right, and natural green cotton at the bottom.

After washing, the colour transformation in the green was quite remarkable. The punis and storage bobbin below show the natural green as it looks before washing in hot water or soaking for 30 minutes in ammonia. The runner is an example of the "after" wash colouring. 

The runners are all woven to a generous length for either my kitchen table or a couple of display chests I have in the living room.

I'm very happy with the way they turned out.

When the runners were complete I still had some warp left and played around a bit with other weaving techniques including a pick up lace and traveling inlay. 

Weaving Handspun Cotton

I've spun and I've spun over the past few months, spinning up at least 2 pounds of cotton now, but this is the first time I've actually used my cotton. Now that I've tried weaving handspun cotton I'm definitely hooked. I really love the way it looks and feels.

This is the beginning of my first weaving. I cut it from the loom to use as a wet finishing sample when I spotted a mistake in the threading. It's marked on the right there with a pin. Two threads were in the same heddle. I've since rethreaded and have continued weaving.

I've already woven enough to complete quite a long table runner but I have plenty more warp to work with. This prewound Saori warp was a Christmas gift from a very generous friend.

The warp is organic cotton in varying thicknesses in natural undyed brown, green, and white. The weft is all my own handspun! Such a pleasure to weave with it. The first runner is predominately handspun Acala white with three stripes of Sarepta Brown at each end. I think I'll weave a second runner with the opposite combination.