Self-drafted 8 shaft overshot cloth

Hello, friends. The summer and winter placemats are finished and some have headed out to my family for Christmas.  I liked the “heft” of the cloth, which is important for well-behaved placemats. So, we’re moving right along in the weaving queue!

I hope to submit at least one piece to the “Living with Craft” exhibition which is held during the League of NH Craftsmen Annual Summer Fair. (See more about the Summer Fair here). I’ve been tinkering with several different self-drafted overshot designs and finally settled on one:

I designed this pattern with the help of FibreWorks weaving software. I’ve been using FibreWorks for several years now but, because I am a slow learner, am just now starting to appreciate the features of this weaving program. I like the different color palettes that are available. For reasonably complex designs such as the one above, it is lovely to see the results of a new tie-up plan with just a few clicks. If you’re interested in perusing the program, do head over to their site. The FiberWorks folks  were most accommodating when it came time for me to reinstall the program on a new laptop. Check them out!

After correcting a couple of threading errors and having words with a broken floating selvedge thread, I started to weave the overshot pattern. I’m using ivory 10/2 mercerized cotton in the warp and tabby weft and 5/2 mercerized cotton in mineral blue, single thickness, for the pattern weft. I typically use a thicker cotton for pattern wefts in overshot, but I really was going for a finer, lighter cloth here. I experimented with the 3/2 cotton during sampling and I found that the thicker yarn tended to yield a less defined design. Here is a photo of the first five inches or so:

This photo doesn’t do the best job of capturing the mineral blue color very well. If the good people of New Hampshire are provided with a day that affords more light, I will reattempt the pictures. This project will be in the works for some time so hopefully there will be a break in the clouds so that I can get a decent photo. As with all overshot cloth, the weaving is slow-going but the results are usually worth the effort.

Weave on, friends and be well,

Kate K.