Weekend Project: Weaving a Log Cabin

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin that he built with his own hands.

- World History according to Student Bloopers
- Richard Lederer

The kit for making my log cabin hand towels and throw rug came, and I couldn't wait to get started! As usual, the "kit" was really just a bunch of yarn and a piece of paper with instructions on it. You can see here my secondary color (rust) and the mop yarn for the rug weft:




These went so much more quickly than the 32 kitchen towels I made for Christmas gifts - mostly because the yarn was fatter and there was less of it. For example, instead of needing 402 warp threads, I only needed 180. And, on the weft, 12 throws of my shuttle yielded an inch of hand towel weaving, as compared to 20 throws for an inch of kitchen towel weaving. (For the rug, 10 throws of that thick mop yarn yielded 3 inches!!)





I did have to use two shuttles (with 2 different colored threaded bobbins) at the same time - that was a new experience. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but once I figured it out, it wasn't difficult.




I think this is the coolest pattern - isn't it neat how it looks like the weaving changes direction between horizontal and vertical? But it doesn't! Even though I've finished the project, I can still just barely wrap my head around how this effect is achieved...




The rug part used two shuttles also - one with the rust colored yarn, alternating with the off-white mop yarn.




Here is a shot of one of the hand towels hanging in the bathroom (sorry for the poor lighting).




And Oliver provides his seal of approval for the new bathroom throw rug!


Talk about instant gratification - this was a very quick and very fun project! Our house has 2 more bathrooms... Hmmm... ;)