Sunday, March 25, 2007

Overshot Exposure

The latest issue of Handwoven Magazine is dedicated to weaving with "overshot" structure. It is done using a fat weft for the pattern and another thinner weft for plain weaving to help hold the pattern in place.

This is my first attempt at overshot. Handling two shuttles and keeping track of non-pattern treddles was a challenge. I'm not in love with the technique, but at least I've tried it now (and won't be quite so frightened by it!).




Here is the same threading as the overshot woven as a straight twill. It looks a bit like an ekg trace! More importantly, this weft is something that has been in my stash for YEARS! And now it's gone! Hooray! It worked well here--it was a mercerized cotton (I assume--no ball band & I didn't do a burn test) slightly smaller in diameter than the 4/2 cotton warp. I liked the sheen of the mercerized cotton against the duller untreated cotton.




The threading for the overshot pattern was a 24 thread repeat. That's huge compared to my regular 4 or 5 thread repeats! This is the same threading tromped as a twill (1234321,4321234). I like how this came out. The warp is 4/2 cotton. The weft is "Aunt Lydia's Denim Cotton". The denim cotton is a 75/25 cotton/acrylic blend.

1 comment:

Leigh said...

Hi. I've been surfing WeaveRing and came across your blog. Your overshot samples are very nice. I have to admit that I didn't much care for overshot when I first wove it several years ago; too hard to keep track of(!) But I'm playing with Summer and Winter now and that is 2 shuttles too, but much easier to weave and just as lovely. I like that you make towels as samples; me too!