Skinny Yarns and Small Projects – Blog Post
Alan Luhring has been weaving fine threads for many years. He loves to weave small overshot patterns using skinny silk and cotton yarns. In the January/February 2015 issue of Handwoven Magazine, he talked about using those skinny yarns to make notecards. If you don’t have the magazine, click here for an online version.
We wanted to revisit his notecard concept, and we have a pattern for making your own notecards. Come on a journey with him as he talks about weaving small projects with skinny yarns.
Disclaimer: Alan is Katzy’s Dad and they have been sharing their love of weaving for over 30 years!
By Alan A. Luhring
Fine threads call for high ends per inch. However, when you use fine threads for small projects, the warp ends are limited to a manageable number, and they won’t overwhelm the number of heddles you have on each harness.
Small pieces have other advantages
They don’t take long to weave, and you can store them in small spaces. A card box can hold a variety of cards versus a whole drawer full of towels! Weaving small projects can be a great way to use up small amounts of yarns that are left over from other projects. And if you want to share your weaving, small pieces can be attached to notecards to share with family and friends.
Small Overshot
Overshot is a wonderful woven structure for small items. A white or natural warp made from 20/2 yarn (sett at 36 EPI) is the perfect background for a rainbow of notecards with 10/2 yarn as the pattern weft. Every card can have a different look as you change the color. The Pattern weft threads float over the warp threads, allowing the color or texture of the pattern yarn to be in the spotlight. Plus, with Overshot, you can get remarkably intricate looking patterns with only 4 shafts. And it is magical to watch the pattern develop with each shot of pattern weft.
Where You Start Can Change the Look
Overshot patterns can look radically different depending on where you start in the draft. And when you are using only one threading repeat, you can make all kinds of wonderful variations based on the draft. I have often used the pattern, Mary Ann Ostrader, from Margaret Porter Davidson’s book, A Handweaver’s Pattern Book.
Here is the draft of the pattern, as shown in Margarite Porter Davidson book: A Handweaver's Pattern Book on page 146.
To make the notecards, I isolated the cross patterns inside the draft, and I modified the treadling sequence to make the legs of the crosses weave approximately the same size as the arms.
If you continue to play with this draft by shifting where to begin the pattern, you can make circles with the diamonds in the corners.
There are many Overshot patterns that would be as lovely and fun to play with: Blooming Leaf, Jitterbug, Gertrude’s Fancy. Which would you choose for your next small project?
Would you like to make your own notecards? Click here for a free pattern to get you started.
Very intriguing concept. … time to play.
Nice project idea, thank you! I did note that in the description next to the figure, it says “Please note that
in the treadling, only the tabby
threads are shown. Please use
tabby to weave the cloth.”
I think you mean to say that only the PATTERN threads are shown.
It is correct in the Weaving instructions.
Thank you so much for finding that error! We have fixed it in the downloadable file. We appreciate our sharp-eyed customers! Happy Weaving! Katzy