April 2024: Summer and Winter Wine Bottles

Woven by Wilma Boyd

My “full case towel series” was inspired by Sue Anne Sullivan’s modification of Robin Spady’s beer bottle pattern, #72352 from Handweaving.net. 

The few towels I wove on my first attempt were received with great favor and comment.  A subsequent vintage in finer yarns wove well and produced other towels.  There WILL be additional vintages!

The thickness of yarn chosen and desired towel width when finished determines the number of repeats. For example, I had 8 bottles for the sample using 8/4 cotton, and 12 bottles with 20/2 cotton (doubled) with various cotton wefts of similar thickness. I wove the body of the towel in one color, treadling 1-2-3, and the wine bottle border in a different color, beginning and ending the towel with plain weave hems. 

Warp and weft yarns:  20/2 natural cotton doubled and various cotton wefts combined to similar thickness, or 8/4 cotton warp and weft.

Sett: 24 epi and approximately 20 ppi using finer yarns; 15 epi and approximately 15 ppi using 8/4 warp and weft.

Finishing: Warm wash/cool rinse; iron at cotton setting. Shrinkage was approximately 15% in length and 6% in width.

Loom:  LeClerc Nilus 16-shaft jack loom (8 shafts used).

Downloads:
Drawdown (.PDF)
WIF (.wif)

Bio:

Wilma Boyd started weaving in 2015 after taking a class from Layne Goldsmith at the University of Washington School of Art. She acquired a 4-shaft Allen loom about a year later. In 2017 she spotted a 16-shaft 60-inch LeClerc Nilus for sale, assembled a team and drove to Kennewick to bring it home. Wilma says, “I’m still at the “experimenting” stage.  I weave all fibers (haven’t tried silk or Tencel yet), all fiber thicknesses, all structures, all colors, and make any item as long as it is NOT a neck scarf!”