overshot

is woven in plain weave.  Send us a photo so we can see what you don't like.

Joanne

Hi Lyn, I'm looking at your pattern and a few things come to mind. Are you using the same colors they are using? They don't have a lot of contrast, your sett maybe too wide and you may be beating too hard. But I think what might be going on is this. For the pattern weft they require 3 strands of 2/16 thrown together in one shed, then one strand of 2/16 for your tabby. Are you doing this?

Yes, this has happened to most of us at one point in time! The typical mistake is we don't realize we need to weave tabby between, or, we are lifting the opposite shafts that we are supposed to be lifting, and the pattern appears on the underside! ;-)

> Did you read page 102, 1st column, that describes what the "star" designation means?

> Did you notice she is using a pattern weft much thicker than the warp? (typically three times the size of one warp.)

> Did you remember to repeat the treadling as indicated? The first one is repeated 2X, the third one is 3X etc.

If one of these suggestions doesn't help, please DO post a photo. I hope you can get back to happy weaving quite soon!

are you using them?
I discovered on my own how valuable they are and use them all the time now

Hi Joanne, Cathie, Sally and Elk Ridge,

Thank you for trying to help me!  Perhaps if I give some more background it would be helpful.  I am using a Baby Wolf Pup 4-harness, 4 treadle, rising shed loom with a direct tie-up.  

I am using different colors than in the book.  red warp (thin), red pattern weft (thicker and doubled), and cream tabby weft.  Also the weft yarns are slubby.

I am treadling as follows:  1,4 red; 1,3 cream; 1,4 red; 2,4 cream; 3,4 red; 1,3 cream, etc.

I did check the underside of the fabric to see if my pattern showed up there-nope. 

I read p. 102 regarding the star designation.  I didn't understand if this refers to creating an overshot pattern in general, or if I was supposed to somehow apply this information to the written pattern.

Floating selvedges-YES-always use them.

Logic keeps bringing me back to the plain weave.  Since the threading is not a straight draw, weaving tabby does not lift every other thread.  But shouldn't I just be able to simply follow the pattern as written?

I appreciate any and all suggestions and ideas.  Thanks!

Since I don't have the book, I can only have general thoughts - . Any draft that follows the odd-even rule (that is, every other end is threaded on an odd-numbered shaft, the rest of the ends threaded on an even-numbered shaft) should get every other end lifitng with the "ordinary" tabby tie-up. All(?) overshot drafts follow that rule.

Another guess, though, is that you would "see" your pattern better if you switched the colours - warp and tabby the same colour, pattern a different colour (but still thick(er), of course).  

Kerstin, posting rom Laura's account

thanks for that idea, Kerstin-I will try sampling with the colors switched.

(yes, the threading DOES follow odd-even, etc, as you suggest)

Maybe your sett is too close, too tight, for this weave.  The photo is a bit small to see,..

Joanne

Hi Lyn, I checked your treading and you're reading it A O.K., plus as Kerstin
Pointed out your tabby is just what it should be 1,3. 2,4.. The star designation ,as I recall, is just telling you that this is one way of treading overshot.
Let us know how you're doing!

If you tell us how many warps per inch you have and how many cream color tabby wefts you have per inch, that will help also.

Joanne

In overshot, your background is formed by the plain weave area made with the warp crossed by the tabby. In order to see the pattern, you need to have a pattern weft that is not just thicker than your warp but more importantly it should have a contrasting value so it shows up against your warp. With a red warp, you would need a tabby that blends with the red- it could be red or any color about the same value (as dark or as light as the warp). Then you need a pattern weft that is either significantly lighter than the warp, like a cream pattern weft, or significantly darker than the warp- a black or a dark navy would show against a red warp.

When you make the pattern match the warp and the tabby is contrasting, this fools the eye into looking for a design where you hve used the cream-colored weft. Try switching weft colors but keeping the same sizes.

Bonnie

I was about to write something similar to Bonnie's reply...instead I have included an illustration of just what difference the color of the wefts will make....upper part of the image is the pattern weft nearly the same color as the warp and the cream tabby, lower part is the cream as the pattern weft and the tabby closer in color to the warp.

Hope that helps....

Cathie, thanks for eliminating the treadling problem.

I'm having trouble uploading pictures.  Neophyte blues.  

Bonnie and Su-the pattern calls for: warp color blue, weft color blue (as warp), tabby pink.  I substituted red for blue and cream for pink.

Joanne-my warps per inch are 11 and cream tabby warp per inch is 7.

I think my pick beat is ok but is it possible that if the tabby weft is too thick (proportionately) in conjunction with using a slubby fiber, that it has eradicated the pattern? 

I am going to try sampling with different wefts but will make sure to use something with a good contrast.

Thanks all! 

Hi Lyn....your problem is delving into the area of applied color theory....the pattern in the book suggested a very dark value for the warp and pattern weft and a light for the tabby. It works to create a subtle pattern in overshot. Now - the warp and pattern they suggested are both very dark values, and the tabby is a high value, so there is contrast between the elements. When you substituted red for blue, you inadvertantly switched from a low value hue (blue) to a very high value hue (red). By using another high value hue as the tabby, the contrast required to see the pattern was eliminated. If you want to use the red for both warp and pattern, you need to use a very low value color as the tabby to restore the contrast.
Hope that helps....
Su :-)

Hi Lyn,

Since the 7 tabby wefts is just over half the 11 warp threads, then you can try using thinner wefts.  The tabby weft should approach the 11.  For your next sample, you might try a thinner warp as well.  Overshot has floats which can get too long at this sett.  But since you are weaving a sample and want to try other threads, try a thinner tabby and a thinner pattern weft.  When the pattern wefts make floats which touch each other and build up a solid color block in the pattern, the pattern will show up more.

Joanne

I am using different colors than in the book.  red warp (thin), red
pattern weft (thicker and doubled), and cream tabby weft.

Either you've mis-typed or that's where you are going wrong. (I think.)

I've never seen an overshot that used a different colour for the tabby, but the same as the warp for the pattern.

I'm pretty sure you should be using single red for the tabby weft, and double or triple the cream for the pattern.

weaving tabby does not lift every other thread.

This bit worries me too, the definition of tabby is that every other thread IS raised. If that's not happening, you've either threaded the heddles wrongly or you are lifting the wrong heddles (wrong tie-up?).

In any case it's not the most distinct of patterns. If changing your wefts doesn't help, before you give up on the warp, try changing your tie-up to the one on p112. It has longer floats, so the pattern is bolder.

I have looked through all of the overshot patterns in Anne Dixon's book and most of them use the same color warp and tabby.  I picked one of the few that didn't.

I changed my weft to some different fibers and halleluiah!, can see more pattern now.  My wefts per inch are now at 10 so that must be helping matters.  Probably the color value thing is still an issue since the pattern is not as distinctive as it should be-but there is pattern, nontheless.

Thanks to all for holding my hand through the ordeal.

Hi Lyn! You've come a long way on this project and now you've started to see more pattern . That's great! It doesn't sound like you're 100% satisfied but that happens sometimes, keep playing around with your pattern weft color remembering to keep the contrast strong. Keep at it, you'll get there! Color is a funny thing, looks one way on the cone and another way when woven! There are lots of fun color excercise to do in weaving to help learn about color in weaving. One is to make a color gamp if you haven't done one all ready.
I hope you enjoy the rest of your project. Please, ask if you have any more questions!!!!!

thanks, Cathie-yes I do think a color gamp is in order.  I would like to try a number of weave structures and hopefully find out which I would like to get into in more depth.  Overshot is NOT the one, for now anyway!

when the warp is relaxed, off loom, and after finishing. It's "not finished until its finished" to borrow words from Laura Fry. (She wrote a book on the topic of finishing!)

thanks, Sally-great info.  now I have something to look forward to!