PLEASE NOTE NEW
DEADLINE and POSTAGE FEE!!!
RULES FOR THE TOWEL
EXCHANGE -2008
Fiber: cotton, linen, cottolin, rayon, ramie or hemp (no wool)
Size: MINIMUM 18" by 25"* finished (and they could be as large as 22" by 30-32") * Be sure to allow for shrinkage!
Finishing: hemmed or hemstitched, washed and pressed.
Enclosures: For each towel you send, please include copies of
(1) your pattern and drawdown, including the source of the pattern if it's not original.
(2) a short biography, including your name, address, and email
and
(3) a picture of yourself, your studio, or your loom (optional).
Quantity: Six or 12
Under special circumstances, you may submit LESS THAN SIX TOWELS, and you will receive the same number in return.
Fee: $8 for 6 towels, $11.00 for 12 towels for United States participants.
Boxes to Canada cost about $12.00 for 6 towels and $16 for 12 towels. If you're outside of North America, please send a money order or cash for whatever postage it took to send your package to me. I cannot accept checks from outside the U.S. Any excess money will be donated to a charity.
I will take care of boxing and mailing the towels to those who participate. If you want to exchange more than six towels, please indicate with your reply (limit 12 towels).
Deadline for signing up: August 31, 2008. Please don't sign up if there's any doubt that you can deliver. Thanks.
Deadline for towel delivery to me: September 30, 2008. The exchange will take place in October, 2008 and towels will be returned by the end of the month or early in November, depending on how large the exchange is and how busy I am.
How to take part:
E-mail me with your snail mail address.
This is for my records and for mailing back.
Feel free to involve other weaver friends or guild members, as long as one of you has e-mail access. I'll handle most of my correspondence about the exchange through Yahoo group messages. You may sign up for a Yahoo group that I've started for the exchange:
Click to join wovendishtowelsor visit the Yahoo Groups site:
Thank you.
History of the Cyber Dish Towel Exchanges
A little history ...
The idea for this dish towel exchange came from correspondence between Cathi B. and myself in 1995. Cathi had posted a message on the weaving list (weaving@quilt.net) to a new weaver who had just purchased a loom with towel warp on it. The new weaver wanted to cut the warp off, throw it away and put on something more exciting:
"I certainly understand the feeling of wanting to cut off a warp to start something more exciting," Cathi wrote, "but let me stick up for the lonely tea towels! ... Yes, they cost a dollar at Wal-Mart. Yes, no one will ever understand why you would waste the time. Yes, there are many more artistically satisfying, I suppose, items you can weave. But if you weave your dishtowel, every time you reach for it, it will bring a little light into your day that no one else will see. Probably reaching for a dishtowel means that you are doing something that you'd rather not be doing, so an uplift at that time is nice! And for the rest of the family, it is another invisible bit of light that I see every time I use it. So - please think twice before you cut this warp off!"
Cathi and I discussed the possibility of establishing an exchange of handwoven dish towels that other weavers on the list might join if they wanted, so that we could spread this *light* around the world.
And as one weaver noted, "It is better than swatch sample exchanges because you have a useful item."
Dish towels? Why?
Here's what some members of the weaving list have said about weaving dish towels:
I admit to having been a member of the why-would-anyone-bother club. However, I learned that dish towels are a wonderful, unthreatening way to try out new structures and techniques. You can always say to yourself, "It doesn't really matter; it's only a dishtowel." It's amazing how that attitude can set your emotions and creativity free. As to gifts? Get a wonderful loaf of fresh bread (or bake it yourself), wrap it in the dishtowel, and tie it up with some of the fiber you used to weave the towel. This is a guaranteed memorable gift! - Ruth
I wove dishtowels ten years ago, and they are still in use. Reason for weaving them ... I could have the exact color, look and feel I wanted. I've also been in the towel exchange, haven't used those yet, I'm waiting for my ten year old ones to give out, and they are just now showing signs of wear. - Pat
As a beginning and intermediate weaver, I wove a lot of dish towels out of 10/2 unmercerized cotton for about $.50 to $1.00 each. It's nice to have samples that were actual projects at that stage of my weaving. Once I was confident of the structure, then I could go ahead and try it in mercerized cotton, linen, or silk at much higher expense. What else do you use everyday that costs so little in time and effort, and can provide such a good learning experience? - Laurie
If you had handwoven towels, you wouldn't be able to keep your hands off them to just use them on crystal and silver. They would be the first thing you reach for. - Vila
Chris Gustin
6285 Hamilton Creek Road
Columbus, IN 47201
chris@homesteadweaver.com
This page was updated May 21, 2008.
No reproduction without permission.
Copyright ©1998-2008 by Chris Gustin