overshot rug free sample

An old pattern in overshot weaving that has had many names over time: Muscadine Hills, Hickory Leaf, Blooming Leaf. The Double Bow Knot name comes from the leaf like square that forms the larger portion of the design. The dark square is called a table. #weaving #overshot #coverlet #history

I have taken the time to record some of the larger coverlet radiating overshot pattern drafts in profile draft form making them more accessible to weavers who use drafting software. From the profile you can try different structures, colors and layouts to find a design that is pleasing to you. I have built instructions that show you how the draft is composed and how it can be modified. I would like to think of it as giving you design components more than a formal project plan. If you want the formal project plan approach use the Woven as Drawn in instructions. My goal in my presentation is to increase your understanding so that you can design your own projects and not not to restrict you to copying standardized patterns.

I added an eBook/PDF and draft package for Radiating Overshot Patterns  – Sunrise, Blooming Leaf, Bow Knot and the Double Bow Knot. These designs include full drafts, profile drafts and woven as drawn-in drafts. This is the link to purchase the draft archive and the instruction ebook: https://historicweaving.com/wordpress/product/radiating-patterns-for-historic-overshot/

Like all new weavers I tried many techniques. One technique, overshot, I have tried only twice. There is a pattern called Norse Kitchen on page 186 in the book. I wove this table runner on a four shaft table loom and only made one mistake! I was so proud of it. It is woven in cottolin.

I signed up for the Discover Color Weave-Along! last week. I am weaving mug mats in overshot on 8 shafts. Five thousand weavers have also joined the workshop which is free. This is a 3-week weave-along delivered via an online course with plenty of information. https://www.warpandweave.com/classes/discover-color/

I’m trying the weft faced rugs from season three using some bulky chenille that I use for Squishy bathroom rugs. Normally in PW I use 12 EPI, but that didn’t work for weft faced designs with  the columns and other designed you created.

If there is one project that fully epitomizes the idea of Earth month in the Fiber Art space – it’s the rag rug. The rag rug is simply a rug that is made from fabric scraps. They are usually colorful and eclectic and great for use pretty much anywhere! They are also often the first project that a lot of weavers take up.

History Lesson: Did you know that rag rugs used to be a sign of great prosperity? In Sweden back in the 18th century when all fabric was hand-woven, even scraps were invaluable. It was mostly unheard of for people to WALK on them. This meant that only the wealthy had rugs made from scraps of fabric! ¹

While there are different types of rags rugs – notably ones that are crocheted and some that are braided in the round. The woven rag rug is usually woven flat as simple plain weave with a strong neutral warp.

For our last post of Earth Month – I decided it would be fun to give the rag rug a little update! So I have compiled 5 variations on the tradition rag rug that you can weave up and walk on in no time!

If you are unaware of overshot – it’s a type of pattern that is characterized by decorative weft floats. These floats are often woven in multiples which requires plain weave between each pick in order to stabilize the fabric. The floats are woven with a thicker yarn than the plain weave so that the pattern is distinctive and the plain weave disappears where it sits between the pattern.

Taking the idea of overshot and applying it to a rag rug makes perfect sense! You can have an elegant geometric rug with the rags used as the thicker float yarns! This will also give you some fun texture under your feet!

The color block rag rug is easy to do on a frame loom because you can weave up 1 color at a time. I recommend at least an 18” x 24” frame or you will have a lot of sewing up to do at the end. If you weave 4 panels on this size frame you will end up with a rug that is either around 24″ x 36″ or 18″ x 48 – depending on if you join them in a “square” or in a line. The larger you want your rag rug to be – the more panels you will need to weave!

Since you are weaving your rug in panels – you also have the option of using different colored warp for each panel. You can use one that either matches or is the opposite of the fabric you are using depending on the outcome you want.

If you have a floor loom, your color block rag rug will be even easier! You will just weave up your rag yarn into large blocks of color – without having to sew it up later.

Don’t forget to always start and end your rya weaving with plain weave as well as using rows of plain weave between your rya to create a foundation for your rug. This will make it sturdier and more stable.

You could even use the panels to your advantage and create color blocked pattern rugs. Each panel would use different colors that all look good together!

I made this piece out of only t-shirt yarn. This can be a really cool material for your rag rug – but it is VERY stretchy and will very easily pull in your selvedges even if you are careful. If you choose to go this route then do some samples to be able to account for the shrinkage that will occur once you let off the tension.

This post is the third in a series introducing you to common weaving structures. We’ve already looked at plain weave and twill, and this time we’re going to dive into the magic of overshot weaves—a structure that’s very fun to make and creates exciting graphic patterns.

Overshot is a term commonly used to refer to a twill-based type of weaving structure. Perhaps more correctly termed "floatwork" (more on that later), these textiles have a distinctive construction made up of both a plain weave and pattern layer. Requiring two shuttles and at least four shafts, overshot textiles are built using two passes: one weaves a tabby layer and the other weaves a pattern layer, which overshoots or floats, above.

Readers in the United States and Canada may be familiar with overshot textiles through woven coverlets made by early Scottish and English settlers. Using this relatively simple technique, a local professional weaver with a four-shaft loom could easily make a near-infinite variety of equally beautiful and complex patterns. If you’d like to learn more about overshot coverlets and some of the traditions that settlers brought with them, please see my reading list at the bottom of this article!

As it is twill-based, overshot will be very familiar to 4 shaft weavers. It’s made up of a sequence of 2-thread repeats: 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, and 1-4. These sequences can be repeated any number of times to elongate and create lines, curves, and shapes. These 2-thread repeats are often referred to as blocks or threading repeats, IE: 1-2 = block 1/A, 2-3 = block 2/B.

There are three ways weft appears on the face of an overshot cloth: as a solid, half-tone, or blank. In the draft image I’ve shared here, you can see an example of each—the solid is in circled in blue, the half-tone in red, and the blank yellow. Pressing down the first treadle (shafts 1 and 2), for example, creates solid tones everywhere there are threads on shafts 1 and 2, half-tones where there is a 1 or 2 paired with 3 or 4, and nothing on the opposite block, shafts 3 and 4. Of course, there’s not really nothing—the thread is simply traveling on the back of the cloth, creating a reverse of what’s on the face.

Because overshot sequences are always made up of alternating shafts, plain weave can be woven by tying two treadles to lift or lower shafts 1-3 and 2-4. When I weave two-shuttle weaves like overshot, I generally put my tabby treadles to the right and treadle my pattern picks with my left foot and my tabby with my right. In the draft image I’ve shared above, I’ve omitted the tabby picks to make the overarching pattern clearer and easier to read. Below is a draft image that includes the tabby picks to show the structure of the fabric.

Traditional overshot coverlets used cotton or linen for warp and plain weave wefts, and wool pattern wefts—but there’s no rule saying you have to stick to that! In the two overshot patterns I’ve written for Gist, I used both Mallo and Beam as my pattern wefts.

In the Tidal Towels, a very simple overshot threading creates an undulating wave motif across the project. It’s easy and repetitive to thread, and since the overshot section is relatively short, it’s an easy way to get a feel for the technique.

The Bloom Table Squares are designed to introduce you to a slightly more complex threading—but in a short, easy-to-read motif. When I was a new weaver, one of the most challenging things was reading and keeping track of overshot threading and treadling—but I’ve tried to make it easy to practice through this narrow and quick project.

Overshot works best with a pattern weft that 2-4 times larger than your plain weave ground, but I haven’t always followed that rule, and I encourage you to sample and test your own wefts to see how they look! In the samples I wove for this article, I used 8/2 Un-Mercerized Cotton weaving yarn in Beige for my plain weave, and Duet in Rust, Mallo in Brick, and Beam in Blush for my pattern wefts.

The Bloom Table Squares are an excellent example of what weavers usually mean when they talk about traditional overshot or colonial overshot, but I prefer to use the term "floatwork" when talking about overshot. I learned this from the fantastic weaver and textile historian Deborah Livingston-Lowe of Upper Canada Weaving. Having researched the technique thoroughly for her MA thesis, Deborah found that the term "overshot" originated sometime in the 1930s and that historical records variably called these weaves "single coverlets’ or ‘shotover designs.’ Deborah settled on the term "floatwork" to speak about these textiles since it provides a more accurate description of what’s happening in the cloth, and it’s one that I’ve since adopted.

We know that ordering a rug is a very big decision and we want you to be able to see and feel what your rug will look like and help you match your rug to your room. Therefore, we offer FREE samples.

Once you have created your rug on the collection  page, simply click on “Order Sample” and order sample(s) of the rug you just created! You can order a sample of the rug material, the binding or both. You can create multiple rugs with different materials and bindings and order samples of them. Only request one of each material and binding color as we have a limit on the number of free samples.

For example, if you have decided on the rug material but want to see a couple of bindings, just make a new rug with the binding color and click on “Order Sample” and choose the “Binding Sample” only.  See below:

Rug Material samples are approx. 3" x 3" loose pieces cut directly from the same roll as our rugs. Binding samples are approx. 1" loose pieces. The first 6 sample swatches are Free.  Over 6 samples there is a charge of $1.00 per sample.

Overshot: The earliest coverlets were woven using an overshot weave. There is a ground cloth of plain weave linen or cotton with a supplementary pattern weft, usually of dyed wool, added to create a geometric pattern based on simple combinations of blocks. The weaver creates the pattern by raising and lowering the pattern weft with treadles to create vibrant, reversible geometric patterns. Overshot coverlets could be woven domestically by men or women on simple four-shaft looms, and the craft persists to this day.

Summer-and-Winter: This structure is a type of overshot with strict rules about supplementary pattern weft float distances. The weft yarns float over no more than two warp yarns. This creates a denser fabric with a tighter weave. Summer-and-Winter is so named because one side of the coverlet features more wool than the other, thus giving the coverlet a summer side and a winter side. This structure may be an American invention. Its origins are somewhat mysterious, but it seems to have evolved out of a British weaving tradition.

Multi-harness/Star and Diamond: This group of coverlets is characterized not by the structure but by the intricacy of patterning. Usually executed in overshot, Beiderwand, or geometric double cloth, these coverlets were made almost all made in Eastern Pennsylvania by professional weavers on looms with between twelve and twenty-six shafts.

America’s earliest coverlets were woven in New England, usually in overshot patterns and by women working collectively to produce textiles for their own homes and for sale locally. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book, Age of Homespun examines this pre-Revolutionary economy in which women shared labor, raw materials, and textile equipment to supplement family incomes. As the nineteenth century approached and textile mills emerged first in New England, new groups of European immigrant weavers would arrive in New England before moving westward to cheaper available land and spread industrialization to America’s rural interior.

Southern coverlets almost always tended to be woven in overshot patterns. Traditional hand-weaving also survived longest in the South. Southern Appalachian women were still weaving overshot coverlets at the turn of the twentieth century. These women and their coverlets helped in inspire a wave of Settlement Schools and mail-order cottage industries throughout the Southern Appalachian region, inspiring and contributing to Colonial Revival design and the Handicraft Revival. Before the Civil War, enslaved labor was often used in the production of Southern coverlets, both to grow and process the raw materials, and to transform those materials into a finished product.

These week long classes are designed for the students who have taken our Foundations class or are long term alumni. For the Foundations students the warping and loom set up process with be gone over again in detail and the project choices in this class will include rag or weft faced rugs, simple overshot, checked fabric in cotton or linen and wool blanketing. For our long term alumni their projects choices can include fine silk, warp faced carpeting, fine worsted fabric and singles linen - to name a few options. This class is a great way to take the techniques learned in Foundations to a new level.

Imagine a warm, soft rug with strong squares of color... that you made! This class, centered on a simple technique for making reversible weft-faced rugs, is suitable for beginner and more experienced weavers alike. Receiving guidance through the entire process, students will weave a rug in either a checkerboard or windowpane pattern. We"ll unlock creative design possibilities that expand this structure, showcasing the power of color and pickup work. By the end of the week, you"ll have an understanding of profile drafts, ski shuttle usage, rug finishing, as well as a beautiful usable textile.

This two day class will help weavers understand how to identify blocks in historic textiles and to write drafts for any weave structure in block form. The first day will explain and identify blocks and allow students to create drafts in any of the block weave structures. The structures we will include will be -M’s and O’s, traditional spot weave, twill blocks, double cloth blocks, summer and winter blocks, float work (overshot) blocks and damask blocks plus the ability to combine blocks and structures. Students will have the opportunity to weave on several of these structures on small sample looms so that the correlation between theory and practice is clear. Students will also be encouraged to design using block theory for their own future work. Day two we will examine historic textiles and identify weave structures and blocks and write drafts fromhistoric textiles.

In this five day class students will be exploring some of the many possible ways to use the simple rag rug concept to weave amazing rugs. Each day the student will work on a pre-warped loom to weave a useable sized rug and then move on to another style the next day. We will work with cotton, wool, linen and even silk fabrics to show how each different fabric creates a very different rug.

We refer to constructed textiles as weavings that resemble cloth — home goods (napkins, table runners, blankets, curtains), wearables (scarves, tunics, yardage for sewing), rugs, tapestries and production textiles. They are structurally sound and can be worn, washed, touched and moved without unraveling or losing their shape.

We have a 14 day exchange and return policy on standard size rugs and tapestry from the date that you have received the delivery. If you want to exchange or return the order, please contact us within 14 days! Please do not return any order before contacting us.

We do not offer returns on samples or custom size orders. Custom size orders where a rug is specially manufactured for you, are all final sale and cannot be exchanged or returned. The customer has 3 days from purchase to cancel the order before production starts.