double weave overshot made in china

Introduction:While in the throes of getting my entry ready for the China exhibition, I thought I would continue with some double weave projects and ideas.

The patterns in patterned double weave are created by the exchange of areas in one layer of cloth with another layer of the same cloth.  Amazing patterns can be woven even on a simple loom using a pick-up stick (weaver controlled) as well as on a multishaft loom (loom controlled).  I would like to share with you images, drafts, and thoughts about two of my patterned double weave projects woven on my 16 shaft loom:  one that I just finished last week, designed with the help of my weaving software, and the other one from 1986, originally designed on graph paper with colored pencils.

In my earlier weaving life I was mostly interested in weaving things that were functional, but what matter more to me now are satisfying my curiosity about weaving structures and creating interesting designs.  So, as I was studying the chapter on double weave in Bonnie Inouye’s book, Exploring Multishaft Design, I was intrigued by patterns that used advancing twill/network threadings and treadlings with resulting blocks that were not clear or sharp.  I also checked out articles by Paul O’Connor (downloadable at handweaving.net) where he shares his amazing knowledge about double weave.  All this inspired me to weave the Double Weave Fabric I describe below, not sure what I’ll use it for, maybe upholstery for the seat of a chair since it’s strong and thick enough or perhaps a pillow.  On second thought, not a pillow because I can imagine my husband saying, “No, not another pillow!”

The view in Draft 1 shows the structure of the weave and the way the two layers interchange.  I started out with 16 shafts but after making some changes it turned out I only needed to use 14.  Note how the outer edges of the shapes become unclear in certain areas.  I just love this effect.

In loom controlled double weave, having more shafts means you can have more blocks.  You can weave a 2-block pattern with 8 shafts which is what I did to weave the Double Weave Scarf.

The types of yarn I used to weave the Scarf helped make it wearable – soft, 6-ply cotton for the warp and cotton and silk for the weft.  The sett was 20 e.p.i. (2 per dent in a 10 dent reed); the woven piece was washed by hand, air dried, steam ironed, and it’s about 11″ x 60″ finished.

There is so much information available about double weave in weaving books, magazines, and at handweaving.net too.  It’s harder to explain or to understand than to actually do it, so I hope you give it a try!

Many years ago, I finally got to try weaving. I took the Beginning to Weave workshop through the Ottawa guild. At that time, 1989, the OVWSG did not have a studio space to house what guild equipment we had acquired. (The Guild had an old second-hand 100 inch loom and 6 or 7 table looms. There may have been a floor loom too but I was distracted by the 100 inches of loom, so do not remember). All the looms lived in one of our guild members’ very big basements. On weekends, she either taught weaving workshops or hosted weavers working on the 100 inch loom. It sounded like a busy basement! I remember 4 weekends of driving to a little town just east of Ottawa. I took the table loom home each week to do homework. I still remember the sound of the mettle heddles rattling as I drove down the highway, back and forth to the classes. Then I think there were two more weekends of Intermediate weaving and Dona sent me off and I was weaving!

It all starts with yarn, wind it carefully, attach it to the back beam, wind on, thread the heddles, slay the reed, tie on to the front beam, check the tension and then start to weave. It sounds like a lot of work but it is all worth it as you start to pass the shuttle through the shed and the cloth begins to appear. Weaving was like Magic! From a pile of string to POOF, actual cloth!!!

During the workshop, I found pickup seemed strangely familiar as my brain watched my fingers happily lifting and twisting threads for the various lace and decorative weave patterns. The other thing that my brain went “ooh this is cool!” was Overshot. It is a weave structure that requires a ground and a pattern thread, (two shuttles). One is fine like the warp and the pattern thread is thicker and usually wool. I was still reacting to wool so I used cotton for both.  My original goal was to draft and weave a Viking textile for myself but I put that aside for a moment, I will get back to that later.

The first thing I wove after my instruction was a present for my Mom. she had requested fabric to make a vest. I looked through A Handweaver’s Pattern Bookby Marguerite Porter Davison and found an overshot pattern that I thought we both would like. I wove it in two shades of blue (Mom’s favourite colour), at a looser thread count than usual. (Originally the overshot weave structure was used to make coverlets, so were tightly woven and a bit stiff, while I liked the pattern I wanted the fabric to be much more drapey.) Even worse, I did not want it to be as hard-edged in the pattern as it was originally intended so I tried a slub cotton as a test and loved it.

So, for any sane weaver, it was all wrong! Wrong set, wrong fibre, wrong colour choices! It was fabulous and perfect. I kept the sample as a basket cover and at either the end of 1989 or the beginning of 1990, I gave Mom the yardage for her vest. “Oh this is too nice to cut” Mom Said, so it lived on the back of her favourite reading chair as a headrest until her most recent move (2015?) it never did get to be a vest but it has been well enjoyed.

In the Exhibition The Inkle band, hanging beside the overshot, I wove much more recently. I used an Inkle loom and a supplemental warp thread. This means weaving with an extra separate thread that was not part of the main warp on the loom.  I used a yarn with a fuzzy caterpillar-like slub.

You may be able to see how I wove the weird slubby supplemental warp. The yarn is weighted and left hanging over the back peg of the Inkle loom. It comes over the top peg (usually labelled B in diagrams) and floats above the weaving.  In the areas where the Caterpillar (Slub) is not present I catch the yarn with the shuttle and weave it into the band. In the area the caterpillar appears I would leave the yarn above the warp and then start weaving it in again as I reached the end of the caterpillar. I hope that explanation doesn’t sound like mud and makes a bit of sense. Using a supplemental warp on an Inkle loom is not quite normal but it is a lot of fun.

I was going to tell you about my original goal in learning to weave, the mysterious Fragment #10 from a Viking excavation from around the year 1000, but  I have likely confused you with weaving enough for one day. So I will save that for another chat. (don’t forget the Inkle loom I would like to tell you a bit more about that in another post too. I promise I will get back to felting in the not-too-distant future)

Conventional shaft loom weaving constricts the weaver into making only a single layer of fabric that is no wider than the loom. Increase your loom"s capabilities with Doubleweave Revised & Expanded!

In this comprehensive guide to doubleweave, master-weaver Jennifer Moore revisits the tips and techniques to weaving in multiple layers. Doubleweave Revised & Expanded is filled with new information about double weaving and more including:

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!

Do you love to weave? Here is a draft for an overshot scarf made from 10/2 Xie (rayon from bamboo) and self-striping sock yarn. You"ll need a 4-harness loom, a 12-dent reed, 2 shuttles and the willingness to have a little fun!

Overshot is a classic weaving style brought to this country by the early European settlers. You"ll find the classic blue and white overshot coverlets in museums, antique stores and old homes. Today, overshot is being re-imagined in all kinds of ways. It"s still a beautiful, fun style to weave.

Weave a variety of table runners for eight shafts with the popular weaving project eBook: Best of Handwoven Top Ten Table Runners on Eight Shafts. Weave this double weave runner featured on the cover.

The fashion silhouettes had been replaced by the material oriented hand-made looks of surfaces of the textile materials after the 1980s when the plurality of styles started to appear in fashion industry. Textile designers have begun to explore relief effects taking their inspirations from traditional craft techniques of pleating, printing, crochet, shibori and smocking. Nowadays, crafted textiles are highly popular due to their distinctive prominent appearance. In this study, a survey is executed to obtain relief effects on pictorial fabric surfaces by using elastic yarns combined with yarns of low elasticity, and with different weave structures such as brocade, double cloth, and overshot on hand jacquard weaving loom. As the pieces are hand-woven on jacquard loom, they reveal the weaver"s respect to the craft of weaving. The paper concludes with the presentation of fabrics for use as clothing and with implications for fashion design.

Weaving is an old craft technique which became an art and design form with the invention of mechanized weaving looms after the industrial revolution. Even if weaving is mechanized today, it maintains its craft characteristics. As a verb "to craft" seemingly means to participate in some small scale process. (Hung,Magliaro, 2007, p.12). Hand-weaving on jacquard looms underlies the personal scale involving skilled hand side of crafting process. The weaving on hand jacquard loom process starts with selecting an image, manipulating it in weaving design program (pointcarre) and feeding the data into jacquard design program. In this study, different weave structures are utilized during the design process to get relief effects on fabric surface. Double weave and overshot weaves are employed in the fabrics.

With this study the relief effects of elastomeric cotton yarns ( cotton, elasthane) have been explored on fabric surfaces. AVL hand jacquard loom has been used to implicate designs. Different craft techniques such smocking, pleating and shirring were imitated with weaving structures including double weave, overshot weaves and brocade on hand jacquard loom. Weaving on hand jacquard loom gives the opportunity to the designer to add an individual tactile characteristic to a design which refers to handicrafts. Therefore every mistake became a part of the design process.

Connection: In this fabric reversed double weave has been used. Cloth got plain and voluminous places on the surface. After weaving process the areas of the cloth on which cotton yarn is used as weft gained a shirred also a pleated effect due to the recovery of elastomeric yarns. The surface has a draped like appearance.

Deconstructed woman : Elastomeric yarn has been used between the layers as extra yarn in a reverseble pocket weave structure and it was bond to the fabric at the intersection points of the layers. Due to the recovery of elastomeric yarn fabric surface become like a smocked surface.

Reminiscence: Elastomeric yarn has been used in a brocade weave structure . After having been taken from the loom, the brocaded areas got shirred and the fabric surface gained a pleated surface.

Twiggy Venus: Elastomeric yarn has been used es extra weft yarn in overshot weave structures. It interlaced on some part of main cloth depending on the Venus figure. The result is an unexpected plisse effect.

Using elastomeric yarn for relief effects are explored in this study. The aim of this study is to create woven fabric surfaces with relief effects taking inspirations from old craft techniques. Weaving on hand jacquard loom gave designer opportunity to manipulate the computer files and consequently weaving process. The achieved relief effects have been changed due to the weave structures, the area of the multiple weave structure and the amount of elastomeric yarns.