Humm…why in the world would anyone weave burp cloths? That’s going to be one spoiled grandchild. It sounds a little crazy, but I decided the best way to sample an upcoming project would be, in fact, to weave burp cloths. At least I know the samples would be put to good use.
My youngest daughter, Lizzie, is expecting our second grandchild in late October and I wanted to weave a special blanket for our little Archie (yes, we all know the gender and the little boy’s name already).
Lizzie graduated with a degree in Fashion Design and has a particular style so I never really make anything for her without her input. Lizzie leans towards simple, down to earth designs and colors and particularly liked the colors of a baby blanket I wove a long time ago. She also liked the log cabin pattern and the feel of the Hygge Blanket Organic Cloud Cotton I wove using a Jane Stafford’s kit.
This was one of my first weaving projects. I used yarn purchased from Hobby Lobby. Although I look at it and see my errors, my girls absolutely love it. I’ve woven so many projects since then using different color combinations and interesting weaving structures, but when it’s time to weave a blanket for a friend, they always come back to this blanket for some sort of inspiration.
At this point in my weaving journey, I tend to design my own projects, but when I came across this kit from the Jane Stafford’s School of Weaving, I decided just to purchase it. It’s a very quick weave and I wanted to try a different cotton. I love this blanket. It’s so soft and squishy and it’s my go to cuddle blanket. So these will be the two inspiration pieces for Archie’s eventual baby blanket.
Lizzie chose to pull out the deep bluish-green color, natural, and gold from the first blanket and to focus on the log cabin pattern from the second. With a little bit of coaxing, we added the bright blue for a “pop” color. Since my focus is on design only, I’m not using the yarn that I will eventually use for the blanket. For the burp cloths, I used 6/2 cotton natural and dyed the yarn in kilt green and butterscotch each with the light dye.
My goal with this project was to test out different designs and to see how the colors played together. It was not to create the most beautiful burp cloths- although, that wouldn’t be horrible if they turned out that fantastic. With that in mind I put on a 260 end warp sett at 16 epi with the following design.
Using this warp, I wove three burp cloths and then laid them out and had a discussion with Lizzie on what she liked most about them and what she didn’t like.
After our discussion, we decided that the gold with the blue in the proportions we had really didn’t work. We also decided that the “pop” bright blue didn’t quite work either. I wound a different warp using the blue and natural only. This time I changed the sett to 15 epi as I thought the first cloths were a tad bit too stiff.
We both preferred the blue and natural only cloth. The design elements seemed to be more prominent. When using the gold, natural, dark and light blue there was just too much competition with the design itself.
So, what did we learn from our experiment that we can apply to the final blanket design?
- Keep the focus on the graphic. Specifically, emphasize the checks and log cabin designs.
- The value of the blue and gold were too close. May want to dye the blue in a darker value and the gold in a lighter value.
- Cut down on the number of colors. Keep the blue and natural as the main colors and maybe use the gold as the “pop” accent color.
- I prefer 15 epi when using 6/2 cotton in plain weave.
I’m finding that weaving samples is critical. Sometimes I weave samples to test out yarn setts and other times to experiment with design elements- often both. It’s alway nice when samples can actually be put to good use. In this case, burp cloths fit the bill. Now I’m looking forward to designing Archie’s very first baby blanket.
