I cut the overshot scarves off the loom a few weeks ago, and remembered there's still a lot of work to do before they are finished.
Hem Stitching
I wound up just zigzag stitching the edges of the hems to secure them. My hem-stitching comes out with a thick line of raised stitching that does not jive with the rest of the piece. In fact, it sticks out like a sore thumb in the topography of the woven piece. So my default is zigzag stitching. The sewing machine is always up and ready to go in this house!
Weaving in the ends / broken threads
I remember this section. All those T-pins holding a repair warp thread, hanging off the back of the loom. At that point, it felt like I was breaking threads with every other throw of the shuttle. I finally realized that 4 sticks in the DIY tension device on the back end was too much. So I took 2 sticks out, and didn't have another broken warp for "miles" down the road. ;-) After that, I was also beating more gently, not wanting to break more warp threads. Hence, some of the later circles are elongaged, and not such compact circles. I'm ok with that.
Once I sat down to do it, it really didn't take long to weave in all those ends.
Twisting / Braiding the Fringe
In thinking about the fringes on these scarves, I decided I did not want to struggle with securing the ends in the hair twisting tool -- That's the hardest part of that operation! So I was delighted to discover a braiding option -- one that can be done on-the-road while visting my Dad after Christmas.
- See Fringe Finishing Techniques from Gist Yarns
One end of the green scarf was braided, and the other was twisted with my ultra-cheap hair braiding tool. I used the pick to open the clasp that holds the strings.
Twisted fringe does look better than the braids, so perhaps I'll just have to grin and bear it next time ...
The blue scarf came out quite a bit longer. I think I probably was not beating as hard, and you can see it in the elongated circles in the pattern. [MEASURE IT BEFORE WET FINISHING] Because it was already longer, I did not want to add to the length with fringe, so I decided to hem those ends with a bit of black ribbon.
The binding only shows on the back side, as the woven black edge of the scarf shows on the front.
It might have been nice to use a satin binding for this purpose, but alas - I had no such satin on hand.
Wet Finishing
Here's the step where you submerge it in a bucket of water for a few hours, then wring out all that water and let it dry. This step is crucial for helping the disparate strands come together and work as a cohesive team.
In the photo above, I lay the wet scarf out on a towel, then wrap it in the towel and stand on it to wring out even more water. Then it gets hung to dry by the fire.
Modeling the Finished Scarves
The blue one was a gift for my husband. We both like blue.
This is the same Circles Pattern as the red scarf finished in October 2020:
Archiving this Project
I put the pattern, notes, woven sample, and the very long bead string for the treadle sequence, and yarn samples into a zip-lock bag for future reference. I am already looking at the notes and bead string to set up the new project. It's been helpful to remind me how I did it the last time!
