double weave overshot quotation

I am new to doubleweave and have been told that any overshot pattern can be used to weave a doublewide fabric. How do I figure out the treadling, especially when you weave the top layer first with the shuttle, then the bottom twice, and back to the top to finish. Can you please help me understand this?

I’m assuming you have threaded every other thread on the first four shafts following the overshot pattern for the top layer, and you have threaded the alternate threads on shafts 5 to 8 for the bottom layer the same order but in the opposite direction from the first four shafts.

To weave Block A in the top layer, for example, shafts 1 and 2 must be down plus all of the shafts in the bottom layer. To weave Block A in the bottom layer, you’ll raise the Block A shafts for the bottom layer so the pattern weft will be placed correctly when the piece is unfolded. You will therefore raise all of the top-layer shafts plus shaft 5 and 6. (Whenever you weave in the top layer you leave down the shafts where you want the weft to show on the face; whenever you weave in the bottom layer, you raise the shafts where you want the weft to show on the back plus the top-layer shafts.)

For specific information about planning and weaving projects in doublewidth overshot and other structures, you need the Best of Handwoven ebook, Doubleweave, Doublewidth! It is a great resource!

The requirement was to take a "traditional" overshot threading, weave a repeat of that, then weave it in "rose" fashion, then in "monk"s belt" fashion. (There were other options as well, but this is what fit on the scanner flat bed. Besides, it"s the "star" and "rose" fashions I want to talk about here.)

Not every overshot draft can be effectively converted to "rose". If you look at the above photo, the top design has very strong diagonal lines running through the entire motif. The middle sample, has very strong circles in the design - the "rose".

An overshot threading can be woven in other weave structures. If the design has small units/blocks, it can be woven in a 2:2 twill, lacey, honeycomb along with others.

Overshot is characterized by areas of floats (generally considered the design/motif), half-tones and plain weave. Larger sized designs may have very long pattern floats, so sometimes the pattern float is tied down so that there is no plain weave area as such, but only the floats and half-tones.

When going to overshot on eight shafts, it is possible to have no half-tones at all, or weave the overshot motif in double weave so that you don"t have long floats, but still retain the motif. Much like I have been taking overshot motifs and converting them to twill blocks (because I have the 16 shafts needed to do that.)

This post may help explain how my needle pillow cloth was woven. These pieces were made on the same warp. I had made a dozen or so pillow fronts and backs (in plain weave or tabby). Then I got creative and played with ideas of what else could be woven on the same warp. This is a scroll I made. I used the fabric I wove on the needle pillow warp for the background. It measures 7 ¾” x 26” including fringe.

The origin of the technique itself may have started in Persia and spread to other parts of the world, according to the author, Hans E. Wulff, of The Traditional Crafts of Persia. However, it is all relatively obscured by history. In The Key to Weavingby Mary E. Black, she mentioned that one weaver, who was unable to find a legitimate definition of the technique thought that the name “overshot” was a derivative of the idea that “the last thread of one pattern block overshoots the first thread of the next pattern block.” I personally think it is because the pattern weft overshoots the ground warp and weft webbing.

Overshot gained popularity and a place in history during the turn of the 19th century in North America for coverlets. Coverlets are woven bedcovers, often placed as the topmost covering on the bed. A quote that I feel strengthens the craftsmanship and labor that goes into weaving an overshot coverlet is from The National Museum of the American Coverlet:

Though, popular in many states during the early to mid 19th centuries, the extensive development of overshot weaving as a form of design and expression was fostered in rural southern Appalachia. It remained a staple of hand-weavers in the region until the early 20th century. In New England, around 1875, the invention of the Jacquard loom, the success of chemical dyes and the evolution of creating milled yarns, changed the look of coverlets entirely. The designs woven in New England textile mills were predominantly pictorial and curvilinear. So, while the weavers of New England set down their shuttles in favor of complex imagery in their textiles, the weavers of Southern Appalachia continued to weave for at least another hundred years using single strand, hand spun, irregular wool yarn that was dyed with vegetable matter, by choice.

Designs were focused on repeating geometric patterns that were created by using a supplementary weft that was typically a dyed woolen yarn over a cotton plain weave background. The designs expressed were often handed down through family members and shared within communities like a good recipe. And each weaver was able to develop their own voice by adjusting the color ways and the treadling arrangements. Predominately, the homestead weavers that gave life and variations to these feats of excellent craftsmanship were women. However, not every home could afford a loom, so the yarn that was spun would have been sent out to be woven by the professional weavers, who were mostly men.

And, due to the nature of design, overshot can be woven on simpler four harness looms. This was a means for many weavers to explore this technique who may not have the financial means to a more complicated loom. With this type of patterning a blanket could be woven in narrower strips and then hand sewn together to cover larger beds. This allowed weavers to create complex patterns that spanned the entirety of the bed.

What makes overshot so incredibly interesting that it was fundamentally a development of American weavers looking to express themselves. Many of the traditional patterns have mysterious names such as “Maltese Cross”, “Liley of the West”, “Blooming Leaf of Mexico” and “Lee’s Surrender”. Although the names are curious, the patterns that were developed from the variations of four simple blocks are incredibly intricate and luxurious.

This is only the tip of the iceberg with regard to the history of this woven structure. If you are interested in learning more about the culture and meaning of overshot, check out these resources!

The National Museum of the American Coverlet- a museum located in Bedford, Pennsylvania that has an extensive collection of traditional and jacquard overshot coverlets. Great information online and they have a “Coverlet College” which is a weekend series of lectures to learn everything about the American coverlet. Check out their website - coverletmuseum.org

Textile Art of Southern Appalachia: The Quiet Work of Women – This was an exhibit that traveled from Lowell, Massachusetts, Morehead, Kentucky, Knoxville, Tennessee, Raleigh, North Carolina, and ended at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland. The exhibit contained a large number of overshot coverlets and the personal histories of those who wove them. I learned of this exhibit through an article written by Kathryn Liebowitz for the 2001, June/July edition of the magazine “Art New England”. The book that accompanied the exhibit, written by Kathleen Curtis Wilson, contains some of the rich history of these weavers and the cloth they created. I have not personally read the book, but it is now on the top of my wish list, so when I do, you will be the first to know about it! The book is called Textile Art of Southern Appalachia: The Quiet Work of Women and I look forward to reading it.

In January our Handweavers Hui brought Jennifer Moore to Hawaii for two doubleweave workshops, with support from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Both workshops were based on Moore’s book The Weaver’s Studio: Doubleweave.  The Big Island weavers had the basic workshop which covers the first half of the book with four-harness weaves, while our Honolulu group got the second half, which was mostly eight harness weaves plus a view more complicated four-harness ones. The Honolulu workshop came first, and a couple of the more experienced Big Island weavers flew over to join our workshop.

Moore is an excellent teacher who has thought hard about the logic of doubleweave and has developed various methods to convey it. She uses an original system of drafting and tie-ing up for doubleweave. She presents doubleweave as having dark and light threads to represent the two layers, and organizes the draft and the tie-up to so that you can easily distinguish the dark and light layers and understand what you are doing.

This sample was set up to weave twill in two layers joined at one side so it would open up to double width. The warp was in two made in a very bright contrast between a bright pink and a bright green, so I tried to tone it down with a maroon weft.

We had about a dozen different samples set up on fourteen looms at Linekona Art Center, plus two “extra” ones set up on table looms (because those drafts require such frequent changes that they work best with an 8 harness table loom where you can manually set up each pick). Every draft had 288 ends of 5/2 cotton, but the threading and tie-up were quite complicated and it took longer than people expected to get the looms ready. The workshop was done round-robin style so everyone could weave samples of all the different alternatives.

In short mini-lectures, Moore grouped together a number of samples in order to make particular points and show us how they were related. Then we would go back and work on whichever loom was free. The same samples are in her book, but these are some of the ones I did. These first two were fairly straightforward, and people enjoyed doing them. But some of the others, like doubleweave pickup, were very difficult and people only wove an inch or so before they gave up and moved on to something else.

There were two looms warped with doubleweave overshot, which is quite an interesting innovation. Normally overshot is a four harness weave with a plain weave background and an overshot pattern with longer floats that are often of a heavier yarn. It is the type of weaving you find in colonial coverlets and there are all sorts of books of overshot patterns.

But in doubleweave overshot, you thread one layer for the background and one with the overshot pattern in a contrasting color. You are supposed to weave the pattern and tabby alternately using two shuttles, which makes the two layers completely bind together, but the pattern shows up in the opposite colors on the reverse side. There are no long floats at all. One of our members also figured out that you could use a single shuttle to treadle the pattern and tabby alternately and still get an interesting effect with a lot less mental concentration.

This sample was stitched cloth, which wasn’t on the list, but Moore created it by changing the tie-up and treadling of the double-width twill sample, which the under-layer was stitched together with the top layer by periodically switching the layers.

When the class began a couple of weeks after the workshop, several people tried out the doubleweave warps. One person who had not attended the workshop finished off a doubleweave overshot warp. She had bought some 10/2 tencel to make a navy and white scarf with a different pattern, but with a little encouragement from other class members she ended up typing on her warp to the doubleweave overshot pattern. Her yarn was finer than the 5/2 used in the workshop and it produced a really beautiful scarf.

Others played with a log cabin warp that could be used for tubular or stuffed doubleweave.The most warp was left on the two double-weave pickup warps, but they are so difficult and frustrating that people would try doing it for an inch and then give up. We are all in awe of Jennifer Moore’s own accomplishment of having spent a year weaving a spectacular wall hanging showing all the phases of the moon over a year. I has been featured in Shuttle, Spindle, and Dyepot and is also on her website.

There were still other impacts of the doubleweave workshops. The Big Island group started a doubleweave study group that I believe is still continuing. I was inspired to weave the double width doubleweave herringbone twill blanket that is in Moore’s book. That turned into a much longer saga than I had expected, and is the subject of some other posts. I apologize for posting these blogs out of sequence!

If you"ve always wanted to learn to weave, but didn"t know where to begin, this is the video for you. This course is designed to acquaint you with the basics and help you choose a direction in which to begin. It starts with an overview of what handweaving is, what can be woven, plus a look at several types of looms and how they work. You will become acquainted with a number of small tools used by weavers, as well as the vocabulary of weaving terms needed to understand the process. You"ll learn about warp and weft yarns, and how their size, weight, elasticity and fibre content relates to specific projects and fabrics. The detailed exercise in figuring out how much warp and weft is needed for a project will become a valuable resource as you continue with future weaving projects. You will also learn how to prepare (measure) the warp using a warping board. This course is recommended as a prerequisite to other video weaving courses for those who are new to weaving. An exciting new hobby awaits you!

Then reality returns. I have just completed a studio class in Doubleweave. There were three wonderful students: Jan, Barbara and Karen, who accepted the challenge of drafting, theory and completed some great work. A wide variety of techniques were explored. Even small samples have the potential to be turned into drink coasters. The following are images from the class.

Sometimes in a studio class, a student will come with an idea to explore. Karen brought one such project. She wanted to weave a dishcloth…. Yes a dish cloth! She wondered if her Vavbo Lin dish cloth from Sweden could be interpreted into double weave.  It is marketed as a very hygienic way to wash up with the natural qualities of linen meaning that they can be laundered over and over again, becoming softer and more supple with age. And when they eventually wear out, they can be compostable. She has acquired several but as a weaver thought it would be nice if she could weave her own version.

Update: Charlene has requested details of the draft. I believe that this is such a great thing for the environment that I am happy to share. If you share it please acknowledge the fact that it is my draft. Here is the basic draft. Shafts 7&8 are for the selvedge. Repeat the rest of the draft as required for your width, sett and yarn. Weave plain weave for the hems.

Next month’s studio class: Colour in Weaving. We’ll be exploring colour theory, colour and weave effects including log cabin and shadow weave amongst other structures. There’ll also be the opportunity to explore dyeing techniques such as painted warps or skeins, ikat and how to use these. And perhaps we’ll even get to use the newly acquired fan reed. There is currently 2 places left. 1-5 October.

I had the privilege of teaching in Washington state for 8 days in March this year. I found out how to pronounce names like Skagitt and Whatcom. I enjoyed meeting some fascinating weavers. I also experienced the wonderful community of weavers in the Puget Sound area, and of course I saw some lovely scenery.

My first teaching assignment was a lecture to the Whidbey Weavers Guild. During this time of emerging corona virus activity, the guild was well attended. My lecture on Overshot: Past and Present was a warm-up for the three-day workshop I would begin the following day.

We had an eager 15 attendees in the overshot workshop. The work was very creative. I send out instructions for preparing the looms ahead of time. In the workshop, everyone follows the same treadling order, but each weaver chooses their own colors to bring. Sometimes the thickness varies from one weaver to the next, also. The result is that everyone’s artistic decisions and sense of design are apparent. No two set of samples are identical. The students work through a certain set of treadling patterns and go home with a variety of samples. Some of their work is pictured below.

The day after my overshot workshop, two wonderful ladies took me up to my next assignment: a lecture on Summer and Winter to the Skagit Valley Weavers Guild. Many of the guild members were also members of Whidbey Weavers Guild and of the Whatcom Weavers Guild, who would host me for my next workshop. A couple of my overshot workshop students brought in their samples. They had cut them from the loom and washed them the day before, after the overshot workshop was finished. It was fun to see their completed work and talk about what their next steps would be.

The three-day Early American Textiles workshop was presented at the Jansen Art Center and hosted by the Whatcom Weavers Guild. Nine students wove round robin style on ten different looms. Each loom had been warped by one of the students in a traditional weaving pattern using thread similar to what early American weavers would have used. Throughout the workshop we stopped to talk about production practices within the US and Europe during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. One of the students brought in a lovely coverlet she had found in a thrift store. Another shared stories of her aunt and uncle who were weavers. My students were very knowledgeable and, as usual, I learned as much from them as they did from me.

The Whatcom group was a tight-knit community of weavers, too. Many have known each other for years and they constantly share ideas and encouragement. The Jansen Art Center provides studio space for their collection of looms as well as library and meeting space. The staff at the Jansen Center was very welcoming and the cafe served some dynamite lunches–plus afternoon lattes to keep us all going.

Double cloth or double weave (also doublecloth, double-cloth, doubleweave) is a kind of woven textile in which two or more sets of warps and one or more sets of weft or filling yarns are interconnected to form a two-layered cloth.

In Medieval England, double weaves called compound weft-faced twills featured weft or filling yarns in multiple colors, with the design completely covering the face warp yarns and the unused colors for any particular section woven into a binding warp on the reverse side.

In early 19th century America, double cloth wool and cotton woven coverlets were made by professional weavers from wool that was spun (and often dyed) at home and then delivered to a local weaver who made up the coverlet.

In the later 19th century, craftsman and designer William Morris offered wool and silk double cloth fabrics for furnishing through his firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (later Morris & Co.). These double-woven fabrics had separate warps of wool and silk yarn and were woven by Alexander Morton & Co. of Darvel, Scotland, who would later weave similar fabrics from designs by C.F.A. Voysey and others.

Contemporary couture designers use "true" double cloth to make self-lined or reversible coats and jackets by using hand-finishing techniques such as separating the two layers at the hem and turning the raw edges under.

Buschman annotates more than 550 books and periodical titles published on the techniques and history of handweaving from 1928 through October 1989. She includes works on how to weave_basic weaving texts, books on looms and equipment, and patterns both for weaving and for woven articles; handweaving history and historic fabrics from around the world; works on Native American weaving, ranging from the Chilkats of the Northwest coast of North America, to the Pueblos and Navajos of our Southwest, Mexico, and Central America, and on through the rich weaving culture of the Andes; reference works containing specialized bibliographies and information on fibers, dyes, education and marketing; and periodicals. With author, title, and subject indexes.