Huck Lace Weave Butterflies

Isn’t the scarf stunning?! I haven’t done a lace weave in a long time so I went looking for an idea and saw this butterfly in Best of Weavers – Huck Lace. The original draft was done on a 16 shaft loom and needs 17 treadles but I modified it using PCW Fiberworks down to 14 treadles, just perfect for my 12 shaft loom. The butterfly motif looks similar to the one in the book, but by shaft switching and modifying I really simplified and tightened up the motif. I wanted to make these scarves for summer wear so I modified my width and length. I chose to weave the scarves 5 inches wide and 50 inches long, this is a full 20 inches shorter than my usual scarf length. The warp and weft for my first scarf is 2/8 Bamboo in Red Violet. The butterflies are the star of the scarf so I wanted to have the warp and weft the same so there was nothing to distract the eye. The butterflies are quite large at almost 4 inches so I had a hard time figuring out placement. Finally I decided that I needed a strong visual; so I cut out pieces of paper in the correct size and measured out the length of scarf I wanted and played until the spacing was right. The scarf I used is one my mother made me in Italian silk ribbon and Tencel – pretty eh? One thing with doing an image on a scarf is that at the half way point the image has to be flipped so that when the scarf is worn both sides have the motif going in the same direction and that they match perfectly. I ended up weaving five butterfly motifs going in one direction and four going the other. I finished my scarf with hemstitching in small increments and then did a plaited fringe treatment. I think it really adds that special touch to the scarf. For the second scarf on the warp I decided to change things up a bit and I used 2/8 Tencel in an almost matching Red Violet for the weft. Bamboo is lovely and smooth but it is slightly matte and I thought that the having the same colour but with added shine would be interesting. I wove the scarf with the same motif placement, but the Tencel makes the huck floats shimmer and catch the light. I finished this scarf with the same plaited fringe treatment. The Tencel and bamboo scarf is slightly darker then the all bamboo scarf. They both have a lovely drape. It was my first time working with bamboo and it was a joy! I love this pictorial type of weaving and I’ll be working on a few original ideas for my next designs.