miniature overshot patterns for hand weaving price

This 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.

This 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.

About the authors: The Weavers" Guild of Rhode Island was founded in 1947 to promote understanding and the practice of handweaving. It offers monthly programs and workshops, and is an active member of the New England Weavers Seminar.

Weavers will enjoy this book tremendously but I would not consider it something a novice would want to leap into. The warps were once easily acquired but they are not available on spools the way they were when these looms were manufactured. We don"t typically use threads that fine nowadays so one might have to use sewing thread or quilting thread to get the suggested number of threads per inch. However, a different sett can be used without much effort and still use the same threading sequence. The style is a bit different as not all the patterns have the type of treadling sequence designs that we commonly use today. The weaver who provided the subject of this book had an incredible imagination and had some clever ways to invent new patterns. The book is interesting to me just for its historical value and not just the patterns. The use of overshot is not common in today"s clothing, but the designs are still extremely useful in items like dish towels and place mats that have contrasting borders. And, if someone likes to be historically correct in their weaving, there"s always an opportunity to attempt a coverlet. The main thing anyone should remember when beginning to experiment with overshot is that the base weave is done in a finer thread or yarn than the overshot pattern. Otherwise there will be gaps in the pattern or it will be very distorted from what was originally expected. I never really thought about how many options are possible with just 4 shafts. This book was inspiring in that respect.

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.

This 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.

This 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.

After weaving the project samples for my book, I had a bit of an 8/4 cotton warp remaining on the loom. I perused my stack of Handwoven magazines and saved project files for some inspiration and decided upon weaving a little overshot on this remnant.

For the Non-Weavers - Overshot is a weaving technique. If you are familiar with Colonial coverlets, they were traditionally woven in overshot patterns. Here is a link with great photos Woven American Coverlets.

Unlike Krokbragd, a wealth of information exists on how to weave overshot. Just about any weaving book will contain at least a chapter on the topic, as well as there are videos, articles and countless published drafts.

Back to my little overshot project, I found my inspiration in the November/December 2017 issue of Handwovenin an article by Inga Marie Carmel entitled ‘Exploring Overshot’. The author chose a draft called Blossom, a Bertha Gray Hayes miniature overshot pattern.

Bertha Gray Hayes was an early 20th century weaver known for her miniature overshot and name draft designs. Miniature overshot pares down an established overshot pattern to its bare minimum while still maintaining the integrity of the pattern’s character. For more on the subject, check out Weaving Designs By Bertha Gray Hayes: Miniature Overshot Patterns by Norma Smayda, Gretchen White, Jody Brown, and Katharine Schelleng.

In Ms. Carmel’s sampler, she explored six different treadlings of the Blossom pattern. Since I had a much smaller warp, I had to do a bit of reworking in Weaveit (the weaving software program I use). I was only able to weave three of the six variations; the star and rose which are two of the basic overshot treadlings, and a variation referred to as “in the Scandinavian manner”.

Typical of overshot samplers and coverlets, the motifs are framed by a complementary border. If you compare my left selvedge with the right, you will notice that I did not quite work out the correct border. Although I’m not keen to sample, this certainly is a good example where sampling would be beneficial before committing to weaving the edited draft on a much larger project.

An interesting feature of overshot is that the reverse side is generally also equally attractive. I actually chose this reverse side as the “front” of my project.

As I said at the beginning of the post, the warp is 8/4 cotton, as is the tabby weft. The pattern weft is Borg’s 6/2 Tuna wool in the color Denim. I had to add a couple of ends to my warp for a total of 107 ends at 15 EPI (sleyed 2-1 in 10-dent reed). I used my typical method of throwing a few picks of fusible thread (see this post) as I planned to do a hemmed finish. In the end, I hemmed just one end and left the other to fringe. I wet finished the little piece of fabric and when it was almost dry, gave it a hard press.

To make my mini pouch, I folded the fabric and whipstitched the sides (no turned seam). I didn’t like the fringe, so I trimmed close to the fused thread and the cotton fuzzed into a cute edge. The finished size is 6 1/4” x 4 1/2” (folded); the perfect size for my reading glasses or phone. See that little button . . .

This volume is rooted in the weaving explorations of Bertha Gray Hayes, an early 20th century weaver from Providence, Rhode Island. Collected here are her unique miniature 4-shaft overshot patterns with computer-generated drafts. You’ll learn much about the history of American hand weaving, as well as the remarkable work of a single weaver, with her plentiful legacy of overshot patterns.

From heirloom coverlets to dazzling contemporary household textiles and garments, overshot is one of the most handsome of weave structures. Whether woven in miniature on a towel or large-scale in a rug, overshot is striking. In this video, Madelyn van der Hoogt teaches everything you need to know to explore the many faces of overshot.

Along with Madelyn’s video workshop, this video download gives you a printable booklet on overshot weaving, complete with planning exercises, reference materials, and overshot projects you can learn from and use. Instantly download your copy of Weaving Overshot today!

Pattie Graver"s interest in the miniature overshot drafts of Bertha Gray Hayes began when Amanda Cutler posted a very modern-looking sample on the Weaving Today website. She was intrigued by the modern look, and she was off to my studio. She also found inspiration in the work of Susan Wilson who introduced her to the amazing world of treadling variations. Pattie learned that one could wring a lot out of a 4-shaft loom and that weave structures can be "pushed around."

Pattern Weft: 5/2 pearl cotton (2,100 yd/lb, UKI, Village Spinning and Weaving), #44 Special Turquoise, 150 yd; #106 Persian Green, 192 yd; #2 Light Turquoise, 78 yd; #152 Pistachio, 104 yd

Weaving Designs By Bertha Gray Hayes: Miniature Overshot Patterns: Norma Smayda, Gretchen White, Jody Brown, Katharine Schelleng: 9780764332463: Amazon.com: Books

Weaving Designs By Bertha Gray Hayes: Miniature Overshot Patterns: Norma Smayda, Gretchen White, Jody Brown, Katharine Schelleng: 9780764332463: Amazon.com: Books

Weaving Designs By Bertha Gray Hayes: Miniature Overshot Patterns: Norma Smayda, Gretchen White, Jody Brown, Katharine Schelleng: 9780764332463: Amazon.com: Books

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.

Double Cloth: Usually associated with professional weavers, double cloth is formed from two plain weave fabrics that swap places with one another, interlocking the textile and creating the pattern. Coverlet weavers initially used German, geometric, block-weaving patterns to create decorative coverlets and ingrain carpeting. These coverlets contain twice the yarn and are twice as heavy as other coverlets.

Beiderwand: Weavers in Northern Germany and Southern Denmark first used this structure in the seventeenth century to weave bed curtains and textiles for clothing. Beiderwand is an integrated structure, and the design alternates sections of warp-faced and weft-faced plain weave. Beiderwand coverlets can be either true Beiderwand or the more common tied-Beiderwand. This structure is identifiable by the ribbed appearance of the textile created by the addition of a supplementary binding warp.

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.

The coverlets from New York and New Jersey are among the earliest Figured and Fancy coverlets. NMAH possesses the earliest Figured and Fancy coverlet (dated 1817), made on Long Island by an unknown weaver. These coverlets are associated primarily with Scottish and Scots-Irish immigrant weavers who were recruited from Britain to provide a skilled workforce for America’s earliest woolen textile mills, and then established their own businesses. New York and New Jersey coverlets are primarily blue and white, double cloth and feature refined Neoclassical and Victorian motifs. Long Island and the Finger Lakes region of New York as well as Bergen County, New Jersey were major centers of coverlet production.

Coverlet weavers were among some of the earliest European settler in the Northwest Territories. After helping to clear the land and establish agriculture, these weavers focused their attentions on establishing mills and weaving operations with local supplies, for local markets. This economic pattern helped introduce the American interior to an industrial economy. It also allowed the weaver to free himself and his family from traditional, less-favorable urban factory life. New land in Ohio and Indiana enticed weavers from the New York and Mid-Atlantic traditions to settle in the Northwest Territories. As a result, coverlets from this region hybridized, blending the fondness for color found in Pennsylvania coverlets with the refinement of design and Scottish influence of the New York coverlets.

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.

Because so many coverlets have been passed down as family heirlooms, retaining documentation on their maker or users, they provide a visual catalog of America’s path toward and response to industrialization. Coverlet weavers have sometimes been categorized as artisan weavers fighting to keep a traditional craft alive. New research, however, is showing that many of these weavers were on the forefront of industry in rural America. Many coverlet weavers began their American odyssey as immigrants, recruited from European textile factories—along with their families—to help establish industrial mills in America. Families saved their money, bought cheaper land in America’s rural interior and took their mechanical skills and ideas about industrial organization into the American heartland. Once there, these weavers found options. They could operate as weaver-farmers, own a small workshop, partner with a local carding mill, or open their own small, regional factories. They were quick to embrace new weaving technologies, including power looms, and frequently advertised in local newspapers. Coverlet weavers created small pockets of residentiary industry that relied on a steady flow of European-trained immigrants. These small factories remained successful until after the Civil War when the railroads made mass-produced, industrial goods more readily available nationwide.