This tea towel was my first linen weaving project. After hemming it, I finished it by washing it and rolling it into a plastic bag. I put it into the freezer for a day. After I slightly thawed the towel, I gave it a very firm ironing pressing as hard as I could. I am pleased with the feel and the sheen of the finished towel. I do have some issues with the weaving part of the project though. The epi/ppi is 12. The yarn by my calculation is approximately 2800 ypp. I feel that the set is too loose. After washing this tea towel I notice that the fabric has quite a bit of lint on it. Is this lint coming from the type of linen, the way I washed it or the way I wove it? There is a lot of draw-in at the hem. I used 2/8 cotton for the first 1/2” of the hem so I am thinking that this cotton has shrunk differently than the linen to cause this draw in problem. Any other suggestions? Should I use finer linen for the first 1/2” of the hem? I would prefer to learn how to weave with linen without using a temple. Do you have any suggestions on how I should be weaving at the selvedges to get a straighter edge and not use a temple?
You are absolutely correct about the sett, it is tooooooo loose. We sett that 14/2 linen at 15 epi for plain weave and 16-18 for twill. On the website under linen, there are 2 weights, 14/2 and 14/4. You used the plain weave sett for 14/4 but your yarn is 14/2. That is why your linen is shedding. Euroflax is wet spun, line linen, but it is spun softly so that you can get exceptional drape, however, if it isn’t sett properly and woven balanced at that sett you have a lot of exposed linen surface that shreds away. That is where your lint is coming from. I can tell that the fabric is more weft predominant than balanced. You did an awesome job weaving it at such an open sett……really you did. If you try it again at the proper sett you won’t have any troubles with your selvedges either. You do not need a temple to weave good selvedges on linen or most anything for that matter. You have also made a good observation on your hems. The cotton shrunk more than the linen. Use the linen next time and if you are weaving the main fabric in twill, use a basket weave for the hem and your draw-in will be the same as your twill. That means you are using the 12 and 34 tie-ups alternately (really it is a 1/2 basket), but who cares :^)
