Design Challenge: Coordinating Dishtowels on a Napkin Warp

What do you do when you weave napkins—and love them so much you want to keep going on the same warp with a set of towels or other linens? That's the question designer Malynda Allen took on after she wove a set of floral-inspired napkins. Here's how she experimented with options for her coordinating towels idea, and how you can weave these gorgeous towels yourself. Please enjoy this subscriber bonus project from Handwoven Summer 2025.—Handwoven editors

About the Floral Bouquet Towels

After designing my Floral Bouquet Napkins for the Summer 2025 issue of Handwoven, I decided to weave some towels on the same warp. My goal was to weave towels that coordinated with the napkins rather than matching them—I wanted to try options for patterning, borders, colors, and fibers. [PAYWALL] But rather than planning everything out before I started, I decided to make adjustments as I wove.

My first concern was size. For the towels, I knew I wanted seven repeats in the length to go along with the napkins’ five repeats across the width. However, seven repeats wouldn’t quite make my towels long enough, so I decided to create an additional border. I experimented with the design in my weaving software and developed a version that sandwiched a small variation of the pattern around a row of Brooks bouquet.

After weaving the border of the first towel, I thought it might look nice all by itself, so I wove the second towel with a plain-weave center. I also chose a small section of the overshot pattern—one row of stars—to weave as part of the border and was very pleased with the results.

The Floral Bouquet Towels, designed by Malynda Allen, have an additional border using Brooks bouquet. She liked that border so much, she wove versions of the towels using it along with a row of overshot stars and a plain-weave center.

As I wove each towel, I made small changes in the colors and the border. This is where the fun of playing at the loom comes in! I encourage you to design your own borders for these towels—for a start, change up the colors, or use more or fewer rows of Brooks bouquet.

Not all of my experiments worked. I changed my tabby weft to colored 40/2 linen on one towel but decided I didn’t like how it looked after only an inch or two, so I unwove it. I also worried that Brooks bouquet wraps in rough linen weft on the fine cotton warp might abrade and break warp ends. Although that experiment didn’t work out, it gave me ideas to explore in the future.

Weave it Yourself: Project Overview

STRUCTURE
Overshot, Brooks bouquet, and plain weave.

EQUIPMENT
4-shaft loom, 19" weaving width; 15- or 10-dent reed; 4 shuttles.

YARNS
Warp: 20/2 unmercerized cotton (8,453 yd/lb; Bockens), Unbleached, 3,556 yd.
Weft: 20/2 cotton, Unbleached, 2,587 yd. 40/2 linen (7,000 yd/lb; Jane Stafford Textiles), #059 Olive, 460 yd; #802 Denim, 207 yd; #401 English Rose, 126 yd; #320 Lavender, 124 yd; #801 Wine, 133 yd.

WARP LENGTH
547 ends 6½ yd long (includes floating selvedges; allows 18" for take-up, 33" for loom waste; allow 34" for each additional towel).

SETTS
Warp: 30 epi (2/dent in a 15-dent reed or 3/dent in a 10-dent reed).
Weft: 46 ppi (tabby, 23 ppi; pattern, 23 ppi); hems and towel centers in plain weave, 27–28 ppi.

DIMENSIONS
Width in the reed: 18⁵⁄₁₅" or 18⁴⁄₁₀".
Woven length: (measured under tension on the loom) 183" (about 30½" per towel).
Finished size: (after wet-finishing and hemming) six towels, about 16" × 25½" each.

Weave it Yourself: Project PDF + WIF Link

• Visit the Handwoven library to get the PDF and WIFs for the Floral Bouquet Towels.

• Would you like to weave Malynda’s original Floral Bouquet Napkins design? You’ll find it in the Summer 2025 issue of Handwoven.