Waffle Weave

In our guild room, there is a bag of warps, wound off and ready for a project.  While one was a salvaged warp, from a project gone awry, I'm not sure anyone remembers what the project that the other warp was intended for.  I think it is 2/8 cotton and a call went out for possible projects.   I suggested waffle weave wash cloths, and was suddenly expected to put this project on the loom right away!  Yikes!  I have to say that if I'd thought it through and realized that any suggestion would be followed through with the request to put it on the loom immediately, I probably would have kept quiet like the rest of our guild.    It sort of startled me since only one person seemed to consider that the suggestion had any possible merit.

Regardless, having never woven waffle weave of any kind before, I decided that I should try it first, before I dressed the loom for a group project.   Most of our 4 harness looms are counterbalance looms and waffle weave it a bit of an unbalanced weave, so a bit trickier to weave on one of these, though by no means difficult or impossible.  Just have to compensate a bit on some of the picks.  Besides, I'm pretty slow at dressing a loom, tending to work in short sessions, with breaks in between, so if I included travel time, it would take a while and I wanted to be certain that I had it all down pat.

Lessons learned -
First, after doing the math, I realized that in no way would that stray warp be wide enough.  It would need at least another 100 threads or more.

 Second, after checking all sorts of different projects descriptions, I used a sett of 20 for my 2/8 cotton,  but after weaving, I think that a sett of 24 would have made a nicer fabric.  Not that there is anything actually wrong with this cloth, but the waffles would have been tighter and the floats smaller.

Third, machine hems totally rocked on this project.  It saved so much time and looks just fine.

The wash cloth went through the washing machine and came out quite lovely.  It will be very useable.  I'm to to whip up a quick batch of soap and maybe a few candles for a quick gift for the girls in the family.

Fourth, what was I thinking?    I put on 5 1/2 yards of this stuff.  I'm on face cloth number 4 and it looks like there are still miles of warp on the loom.... gah...

Fifth, I really want a loom with more harnesses .   I am hunting around for a reasonably priced 8 or 12 harness loom.  Ya know,  'cause a gazillion yards of repetitive face clothes isn't daunting enough!