overshot drafts manufacturer

By Norma Smayda, Gretchen White, Jody Brown, and Katharine Schelleng. These four weavers have assembled the sample collection of miniature overshot patterns for four harness looms created in the early 20th century by Bertha Gray Hayes. The book contains color reproductions and computer-generated drawdowns for 92 designs. These differ from traditional overshot designs in that they are often based on name drafts and many are not woven "as drawn in", giving many of them a dynamic, asymmetrical style.

Woven by Rachel SnackWeave two overshot patterns with the same threading using this downloadable weave draft to guide you. This pattern features the original draft along with one pattern variation. Some yarns shown in the draft are available to purchase in our shop: 8/2 cotton, wool singles, 8/4 cotton (comparable to the 8/4 linen shown).

please note: this .pdf does not explain how to read a weaving draft, how to interpret the draft onto the loom, or the nuances of the overshot structure.

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.

The first thing I wove over 50 years ago was a fingertip towel with an overshot border. That was the moment I not only fell in love with weaving . . . but, with overshot too. There’s so much patterning possible on four shafts. I can cover an entire fabric with an overshot pattern or weave it as a border.

Fortunately for the handweaving community, Josephine Estes’ publication “Original Miniature Patterns for Hand Weaving” is available for viewing and download. There is a total of 48 overshot patterns. They have names like Lover’s Knot, Queen’s Delight, Star of Bethlehem, and more. (Although, I have to admit the pattern named ‘Foursome’ makes me giggle.)

Product InformationThis book features the original sample collection and handwritten drafts of the talented, early 20th century weaver, Bertha Gray Hayes of Providence, Rhode Island. She designed and wove miniature overshot patterns for four-harness looms that are creative and unique. The book contains color reproductions of 72 original sample cards and 20 recently discovered patterns, many shown with a picture of the woven sample, and each with computer-generated drawdowns and drafting patterns. Her designs are unique in their asymmetry and personal in her use of name drafting to create the designs. Bertha Hayes attended the first nine National Conferences of American Handweavers (1938-1946). She learned to weave by herself through the Shuttle-Craft home course and was a charter member of the Shuttle-Craft Guild, and authored articles on weaving.

I had some interesting finds! The "old tie up" shown above does change some things about various drafts, but its actually an improvement in some cases, as you"ll see from the examples below.

Note that these drafts are all "woven as drawn in". There are even more variations possible if you change the treadling and play around with that portion of the draft!

Some of you who like to use recipe drafts? well here"s how to start to modify them. I found a pretty draft in Complex Weavers Greatest Hits book called "1836" and once again I replaced the tie up. I appreciate this is a small image but you get the over all idea of the pattern.

Margaret takes a weaving program, and in this case Fiberworks PCW Silver, and uses the computer program functions to show you how to use them to design and get the most from the program. She emphasizes that these techniques can be used with any of the programs out there on the market, many of which have free demos to try out. It focuses on four shaft and 8 shaft drafts but these can easily be expanded to twelve, sixteen etc. There are tutorials on snowflake twill, polychrome, interleaved, block substitutions- crackle, and more. There are colour pictures and very clear diagrams and screen views. I opened at any page and snapped a picture ( and I hope Margaret doesn"t mind!) I plan to review it again once I"ve had time to work with it.

I was happy it arrived in time for this post on "dancing to a new tune". If this sort of design work interests you, or you want to learn to use your weaving program to its full potential, or maybe simply change up recipe drafts and personalize them then hopefully my post will encourage you!