I should have seen this coming. After all the moaning and grumbling about sampling, it should have been perfectly obvious that I’d be charmed by this little whimsy. I present my new BFF (Best Fabric Forever) – overshot.
Look at those adorable little diamonds. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Actually, let’s look a little bit closer.
Aren’t those little tweedy bits amazing? And they give just a hint of depth and interest to the color. Yeah, that’s my “Dead Weaver Stash” coming through again. No idea what it is other than some kind of wool single with tweedy bits. Best of all, I’d not planned on using this yarn for anything other than a sample on this warp. But once I wove off that first motif, I was hooked. Don’t worry though, I had done a whole bunch of sampling with the 8/2 Mill End Wool that I’d originally planned on for this sample. It’s a totally different animal.
In real life, the pattern is much less distinct. The wool bloomed much more than I expected and I don’t think there’s nearly enough contrast between the warp and pattern weft for the overall effect to come through. There’s a sample for both of you – I was at least smart enough to ensure I had plenty. And I’ll include a snippet of the yarns as well.
See? Super fuzzy. Super, DUPER fuzzy. Again, I should have (and kinda did) expected more bloom from this yarn than the tweed single – the single is quite round and “hard”. I’d almost think it’d been fulled as part of processing. I don’t think it’s sized, but I can have another look at the unwashed samples. The other yarn I sampled was a 5/2 Mercerized cotton. The finished fabric has an amazing sheen (mercerized) and the hand is quite nice but, again, the color is all wrong. I’m not at all fussed about it though – again, it was meant to be a sample. Getting a picture was difficult because of the reflection off of the cotton, but here goes.
Now, here’s the really, REALLY cool part. This fabric is stretchy. I mean, REALLY stretchy. It’s positively elastic! And that was completely out of the blue. Who knew? Is that predictable? It’s gotta be the wool doing it’s thing, but still. Crazy. This is like handwoven spandex. And now I want to do more. Maybe a wool/silk combination. And something with a less (ahem) exciting motif that would lend itself to a jacket. That might just mean super fine threads, and I can get behind that, but there’s absolutely more work to be done here. Not sure if this is vest-worthy, but there’s absolutely more overshot in my future. You two should try this.
more later, when I’m actually awake, but what’s the ground warp and weft? I’m wondering wh7 the fabric’s stretchy. I’m trying to remember (need moar coffee) if I’ve ever woven overshot, but I doubt it should be stretchy – think off all those antique bedspreads. They weren’t stretchy, were they?
Need moar coffee indeed – please ignore my typos.
OK, tea is inhaled: charming, indeed. And that sounds like very instructive sampling. (I’m totally jealous, btw; I do something everything day, but it hasn’t added up to anything worth mentioning yet. this work thing gets in the way of life, you know?)
I’m curious, though – why were you so resistant to sampling before you wove the overshot and why are you so charmed by it when you finished? I ask because I often am completely charmed by a new weave structure/yarn/color/etc. when I first try it, and later – often much later – objectivity sets in and I can say to myself, “well, that’s structurally nicely woven (or whatever), but it isn’t quite what I want to wear,” or “that’s nice, but ultimately kind of dull; it needs more complexity.” And so on. I don’t think I’m putting myself down, you understand; I really think I’m assessing the fabric objectively, from a high standard.
I guess what that ramble leads me to is this: You can weave perfectly lovely overshot – now what?
And that blunt statement (sorry!) leads me right back to what Sara is always saying: Weave, weave some more, weave and weave and weave and WEAVE. Push that overshot farther and farther in whatever direction you want to go.
More again later, probably: I have to go be social today and tomorrow, and try to squeeze in dressing the loom for warp rep, I hope.
Question the first: ground warp/tabby weft is 10/2 cotton. And as to whether or not any of those coverlets were stretchy – I don’t know! That’s what’s so wierd and bizarre about this. The cloth is absolutely sturdy; it feels like a good upholstery fabric, but it definitely has elasticity. It’s solid and thick and sproingy. Just absolutely odd.
Question the second: I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit and I’m not yet entirely sure of the answer. Part of it is a little fear of what just happened – ANOTHER COOL THING! And something I want to pursue, but it’s not (necessarily) going to help me get done those other eleventy-billion things. There just aren’t enough hours in the day and now I have one more thing. I also need to figure out a better way of cataloguing/storing my samples. I generated a fair amount as part of this process (finished piece included) and they deserve to be put away properly. Binder? Booklet? I don’t want to just sew them together because being able to examine them individually is important (to me). And there are all the notes and snips of fabric that go along.
As to what I found so charming was the unexpected end result. It was absolutely nothing like what I thought I would get. Something more dishtowel-like was what I expected but that’s absolutely NOT what I got. And it’s downright novel (to me). Just goes to show me that I don’t know squat about this stuff yet.
A weekend of socializing is on the books for me as well. House party for 30 today and FOAY tomorrow. I’ve got the selvedge rug on the loom (learning a bunch there, too!) and I need to start thinking about the vest fabric. It feels like January is flying out the door …