We are in the last push to get items ready for the Contemporary Handweavers of Houston Fall Sale. I have linen face cloths on one loom that need to be woven off and a lovely orange and tan wrap on my Saori loom that also needs to be woven off. Last night I finished up fairly early in the studio and headed back to the house for dinner and to get my last four kitchen towels hemmed.
Notice these towels have surged ends. They need to be ironed and hemmed with the appropriate tags added along the way. Ironing is a big part of weaving, certainly a bigger part than I initially recognized. When a run of fabric comes off the loom the two ends are surged and the fabric is washed. For kitchen towels, which in the end will be machine washed and machine dried, the 10 or 12 or 15 yards of fabric are tossed in the washer and then into the dryer. The fabric is cut into towel sized sections and all the ends are surged. The stack of individual towels is then washed and dried again. The towels are then ironed, including ironing the hems and then finally hemmed. The general convention is to hand hem items that are hand woven. The exception for me is dish cloths and face cloths which will see more use and therefore be washed more often. These I will machine hem for extra strength.
I have four towels left from my last run of kitchen towels that need to be hemmed. I pulled out the ironing board and set it up next to the kitchen counter. I grabbed my tags so I'd be ready to hem. Then I went to find the iron.
Nope. The iron was not on the shelf in the laundry room where it normally lives. Well, rats. Where could it have gotten to? Wait. Now I remember. The last time my daughter was out here we worked on some of the baby quilts she makes so beautifully and the iron had a major meltdown. I don't remember exactly what the problem was but I clearly remember waiting for it to cool down and dumping it into the trash.
OK. So I put the ironing board back in the laundry room and added "iron" to the shopping list on the counter. This morning my wonderful husband went into town and along with the liquid soap and cucumbers, picked up a new iron for me. Yea! Now I can get working on those towels.