Overshot Scarves

Two weavers working in the 1950's, Josephine Estes and Bertha Gray Hayes, have studied and designed miniature overshot patterns.  Traditional overshot designs often have pattern repeats that are 200 to 400 ends.  These designs make wonderful coverlets, blankets and throws, but they are not suitable for smaller and narrower woven cloth like scarves and towels.  Josephine and Bertha's drafts are designed with repeats of 20-50 ends.  Weaving Designs by Bertha Gray Hayes was published in 2009 and Josephine Estes drafts are available at the University of Arizona weaving site here.  I picked up a skein of Autumn Rainbow Mini Mochi recently and wanted to make a scarf using the Mini Mochi as the pattern yarn, which would showcase the slow color changes of the yarn.  The draft is Josephine Estes' Rings and Crosses.


Date Finished  January 2015

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Overshot - Rings and Crosses

Reed  12, 18 epi

Warp     Fiber  Tencel

              Count  8/2

              Color Turquoise

              Mfr  Valley

              Source  WEBS

Warp     Width in Reed  7"

              Ends  130

              Length  6 yds

Scarf One Weft      Fiber  wool and nylon

              Count  Mini Mochi

              Color  Autumn Rainbow

              Mfr  Crystal Palace

              Source  Paradise Fibers

Scarf  Two Weft      Fiber  cotton

              Count  5/2

              Color  White

              Mfr  Valley

              Source  WEBS

Spring and Fall Scarves

These two scarves have been on the Newcomb since last winter and I finally finished the second one this month. They took quite a long time because of the goose-eye inlay.  The other thing that took quite a while was selecting colors and patterns.  You would think that using random colors and treadling would go faster, but I had to consider each pick and how it fit with the rest of the cloth.  Much of the weft came from cotton sweaters that I had frogged over the past couple of years.  Most of the yarn is cotton, but I had a little raw silk that came on a second hand AVL end feed shuttle that I purchased last year.

The weft for one of the scarves uses blues, greens and yellows - all very spring like colors.  The second scarf is more muted with varying shades of browns and tans.  The sett is 16 epi, which is very loose for 8/2 cotton, so it required a soft touch with the beater.  The resulting cloth is light enough to wear through the summer.  The inspiration for these scarves comes from seeing photographs of the work of Ilse Acke, a handweaver in Bruges, and Susan Johnson of Avalanche Looms in Wisconsin.

Date Finished   April, 2014

Loom   Newcomb Studio

Weave Structure  Plain, twill

Reed   8, 16 epi

Warp     Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2 and 8/4

              Color  natural and eggplant
Warp     Width in Reed  9"

              Ends  152

              Length 6 yds

Weft      Fiber  various cotton, silk

              

Beat                       50/50                     

Twill Block Scarves

I have to admit that I am a lurker on the Warped Weavers Group at ravelry.com.  I love looking at the projects posted by members and getting inspiration on projects.  I have wanted to weave a turned twill and thought that pillows using 8/2 or 10/2 cotton would be my first project in this weave structure.  But I saw a set of scarves woven by marydargie woven using 8/2 tencel and loved the draft.  I changed it up a bit and only used one color warp, aquamarine.  I wove two scarves on this warp, one using a hunter green weft and one using a burgundy weft.  The scarves have a wonderful drape to them.

Date Finished  October 2013

Loom  Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Turned Twill

Reed  20epi - 12

Warp     Fiber  tencel

              Count  8/2

              Color  Turquoise

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Warp     Width in Reed  10"

              Ends  202

              Length  6 yds

Weft      Fiber  tencel

              Count  8/2

              Color  one with hunter green and one with burgundy

              Mfr

              Source  WEBS

Beat                       50/50                     

Size  8 x 80"

Space Dyed Scarf

I love this scarf and it will stay on my neck most of the winter.  It's the first thing that I have woven AND dyed in the past 25 years and I am planning to dye more yarn for weaving this winter.  I took a class from Kathrin Weber at Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in October, 2012 on space dyeing.  We dyed a couple of skeins of cotton and rayon and one warp.  One of the things I learned from the weaving is the importance of making the color changes every 6 inches or so, not every 12 inches.  To show the effects of the different colors, you need to have frequent color changes.  The other two skeins have longer distances between the color changes.  When weaving these, I think I will tie on the warp on in groups that allow the color to shift several inches, giving an ikat-like effect.  Here's one of Kathrin Weber's designs that utilize this technique.

This scarf was made with the warp I dyed during the class.  The drawback is that the warp was only 100 ends, 4 yards long.  I got one full sized scarf from the warp and a short scarf, only about 40 inches.  It might be long enough for my 6 year old grand-daughter to wear, or it could make a cool cover for my tablet.

Because I wanted it to be predominantly warp faced, I needed a pretty close set, 20 epi.  I only found that out after sleying the reed at 15 epi and finding that the colors on the warp were not as clear as I would like.  So took all the ends out of the reed and started over.  The only other issue with this warp is that at 100 ends, it would give me a scarf only 5 inches wide, so I added several stripes of blue chenille.  The chenille was also used as the weft, which resulted in some iridescence in the fabric.

Date Finished  December 2012

Loom  Schacht Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  Plain

Reed  10 epi

Warp Fiber  Rayon thick and thin

Count 

Color  White, then space dyed with Procion dyes - mostly blues and reds

Source Blazing Shuttles

Warp Fiber  Rayon chenille

Count  1450

Color  Blue

Mfr

Source Webs

Warp Width in Reed  6.5 inches

Ends  132

Length  4 yds

Weft Fiber  Rayon Chenille

Count  1450

Color  Blue

 Source  Webs

Beat Warp Faced

Size  6.5" by 66" plus fringe

 

Night Windows Scarf

My second attempt at the Night Windows Scarf was mostly a success.  It is the first project on my new to me, Schacht Baby Wolf 8 harness loom.  The loom currently resides in Montana and my warping board is in North Carolina.  I wound the warp for this is NC before heading to MT and unfortunately was 4 ends short in my count, not too noticeable, but not perfect.  It meant that the 8 harness twill would look off, it was short a few ends in two of the blocks, so instead the first weaving on the 8 harness used only4 harnesses.  Next time, I'll take full advantage of all those harnesses and all the options that they bring.

Date Finished  July 2012

Loom  Schacht Baby Wolf

Weave Structure  plain

Reed  8 dent

Warp     Fiber  Mercerized cotton

              Count   5/2

              Color  black

              Mfr

              Source
              Fiber  Rayon Chenille

              Count   1400 yds/#

              Color  variegated
              Mfr  Dragon's Tail

              Source  Earthguild

Warp     Width in Reed  10 inch

              Ends 2 per dent cotton, 1 per dent chenille

              Length  70 inch

Weft      Fiber  Rayon

              Count  8/2

              Color  Black

              Mfr  Dragon's Tail

              Source  Earthguid

Beat                       50/50                     

Size

Notes

Summer Scarf

More frogging, another scarf.  This one was made from a striped cotton vest.  The vest had random stripes of 1 inch or less in shades of white, blue, chartreuse and yellow.  This became the warp, with no color covering more than 2 or 3 consecutive warps.  I like the looks of the yarn, but the scarf is a little too dense.  I'd like to get the next one more light and airy and to get that I will decrease the sett from 8 per inch and use a finer cotton than the number 3 crochet yarn I used for the weft.

Shadow Weave Scarf

I just finished two scarves woven in a Shadow Weave.  I have never woven this pattern before and the warping and the weaving was very complex to complete.  The draft calls for weaving 76 rows before the pattern repeats, so it took some concentration.  That is probably the main reason that it took over a month to get it off the loom.  The other reason is that is is woven with two very fine yarns with a sett of 20 epi.  The yarns are a vaiegated bamboo and tencel, which gives it a very drapey quality.The pattern comes from Handwoven, January/February 2012.  Handwoven's instructions provide an 8 shaft draft and a 4 shaft draft.  Using my 4 harness loom, the pattern was not nearly as evident as in the photos in the magazine.  Higher contrast between the yarns should help.  The scarf is finished with a twisted fringe using the LeClerc fringe twister.

Date Finished  May 2012

Loom   Newcomb

Weave Structure  Shadow Weave

Reed  12 sleyed to 20 epi

Warp Fiber  Bambu 7, Rhubarb Patch
                     8/2 Tencel, Eggplant

Count  8/2

Source   Cotton Clouds

Warp Width in Reed  8"

Ends  157

Length  73"

Weft Fiber  same as warp

Count  19 ppi

Beat 50/50                    

Size

Notes  Cotton Cloud kit did not have enough of either yarns,  and I had to order more.