Understanding Overshot

How Does it Work?

Overshot has a ground of plain weave overlaid with a pattern, generally of a different color and weight. If you were to remove all of the pattern threads, what would be left is a plain weave cloth. The plain weave gives the fabric structural integrity, making it possible to disregard many conditions that would ordinarily be needed for a sturdy fabric. Plain weave picks are refered to as the tabby weft, pattern picks are refered to as the pattern weft. It is woven with two wefts on two different shuttles, alternating. First a tabby pick, then a pattern pick.

Historically, overshot is woven on four-shafts and has an abundance of design possibilities. Often it is woven using wool as pattern weft because the fulling will give the long floats some stability.

Overshot is a block weave and a twill derivative. To get a quick sense of this, look at the diagonals in the threading, treadling, and tie-up.

This project disregards some of the “rules” for historical overshot. The tabby and pattern weft are the same weight, and both are cotton. Wool would be impractical for napkins that need to be washed frequently.

Tabby, Pattern, and Half-Tones

Overshot has three separate design elements. Pattern (highlighted in green), tabby areas (highlighted in red), and halftones (highlighted in black). If you can, spend some time and warp sampling different colors and consider these three elements as you do.

When choosing colors, consider all three of these elements. On one hand, having a strong contrast between the tabby and pattern colors will help you have clear distinguishable lines in the pattern and tabby areas, on the other hand, if these two wefts are too different from each other, the halftone areas will look muddied.