The weaving study group I belong to chose linen as their topic for the year. Individuals were to weave samples with at least 50% linen. Linen needs to be used in the warp or weft, with no fibers blended with the linen. I have linen in my stash but do not weave with it very often. This is due to how linen gets a bad rap for being difficult to manage in the warp. Linen is also an expensive fiber.
The weave structure used in these towels was a 4 harness canvas weave. The weave structure was simple to weave. By inserting plain weave after weaving four repeats of the canvas weave, open work squares were created. If one just repeated the canvas weave throughout, the fabric has stripes.
To add interest embroidery was added to every other stripe. The blue showing through the center in the photo is from the fabric below which is embroidered.
The towels have a beautiful hand and appearance that only linen can give. Look for additional linen weavings in the future.
Barb-e Designs 
Nice towels! Will one of these go in the CHT linen basket? If so, someone will be extremely happy to win!
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Cheryl, Thank you! No I’m going to contribute something smaller to the CHT basket.
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Very nice towels, Barb.
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Rosemary, Thank you.
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Beautiful. Did you have any problems with the warp tensioning?
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Thank you and No I didn’t have tension problems once I corrected a crossed warp.The towels wove up beautifully. This was a 16/2 linen.
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I love linen but haven’t tried weaving with it yet because I keep hearing how finicky this is. You make it sound like it’s manageable . . .
The towels are lovely!
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Kerry, thank you. Put weaving linen on your list of things you want to try. There are tricks if you start to have issues, like misting the warp in front of the beater to help prevent breakage.(Linen is stronger when wet.)
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