Handwoven · Project PDF + WIF + Lift Plan
| Type | Pattern |
|---|---|
| From | Handwoven |
| Author | Sheila O’Hara |
| Published | November 6, 2025 |
| Format | PDF, WIF |
Add this pair of towels with their engaging tumbling motif and color shifts to your collection.
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The gradual color shifts in these towels will give you something to beautiful to use during your daily kitchen chores. Sheila O’Hara and her weaving partner Jan Eckert wove dozens of versions in a range of colors, and she suggests that you try out your own color combinations.
While looking for project ideas that would use up many bobbins and odd-lot sizes of cotton, Sheila O’Hara and her weaving partner Jan Eckert found an appealing historic point twill draft that looked like tumbling dice. They reduced the 16-shaft point twill to 14 shafts so they could devote shafts 15 and 16 to a plain weave selvedge. Their new version resulted in fewer dots on each die—9 instead of the original 16. It took them a few tries to get the colors right. They wove towels with various solid-color wefts (including some that accidentally used the colors of Neapolitan ice cream) and then moved on to warps using black, grays, and white to accommodate various weft colors so they could tackle all those leftover bobbins.
Structure
Point twill.Equipment
16-shaft dobby or table loom (24 dobby bars for manual dobby loom), 21" weaving width; 10-dent reed; 1 shuttle; 11 bobbins.Yarns
Warp: 10/2 pearl cotton (4,200 yd/lb; UKI/Supreme), #125 Pacific Blue, 216 yd; #116 Black, 504 yd; #01 White, 288 yd. 10/2 mercerized cotton (4,200 yd/lb; Lunatic Fringe Yarns), Very Dark Gray and Middle Gray, 576 yd each; Very Light Gray, 288 yd.
Weft: Blue towel: 10/2 pearl cotton (UKI/Supreme), #48 Dark Turquoise, #109 Bermuda Blue, #18 Copen, #101 Baby Blue, and #1 Light Blue, 120 yd each; #117 Stone, 121 yd. Note: Copen and Baby Blue have been discontinued. #105 Paradise in the same yarn line is a close substitute for Copen. Valley Yarns 10/2 pearl cotton in #2576 Celestial Blue can substitute for Baby Blue. Weft: Gray towel: 10/2 pearl cotton (UKI/Supreme), #116 Black, 45 yd; #01 White, 46 yd. 10/2 mercerized cotton (Lunatic Fringe Yarns), Very Dark Gray, 135 yd; Dark Gray, Middle Gray, and Light Gray, 120 yd each; Very Light Gray, 136 yd.Dimensions
Width in the reed: 204⁄/10".
Woven length: (measured under tension on the loom) 61".
Finished size: (after wet-finishing and hemming): two dish towels, 17¾" × 24" each.
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Warp stripes do most of the work in these towels, and the weaving is easy.
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