Slow Cloth--Terry cloth Pile

The November/December 2010 issue of Handwoven Magazine focused on "Slow Cloth" and included a piece by Rita Buchanan on weaving terry cloth. I got bit by the "I wanna try it" bug and decided to give it a go.

To the left is a piece of a sampler that is in progress. The ground warp (light blue) is 10/2 cotton, as is the pile warp (purple). The weft is a 100% cotton sewing thread that I had on hand. My "dowels" that I am using to raise the pile into loops are really bamboo skewers from my kitchen.


It took a bit of sampling to figure out how to get the pile dense enough to feel like a towel. My first few attempts looked like a forest with too few trees!


My husband helped me design and make a second back beam for my Baby Wolf. I wasn't willing to spend a lot of money on the nice second back beams that Schacht makes for this loom just to try terry cloth pile. I run into this fairly regularly...I want to try things, but I'm not sure that I will do them often, so it's hard to spend a lot of money on the equipment to try the technique. This back beam is held on with c-clamps, making it very temporary, and only cost $10 for wood. There is no brake on the beam and I'm using a live weight tension on it. I'm really pleased how it is working!