So this pattern comes straight from Handwoven magazine, May/June 1992 issue, page 50/87.  It is an eight shaft double weave pattern that appealed to me with the smart black and white checkerboard studded with red blocks, dots and dashes on one side, and a pure red with black and white blocks, lines and dots on the other. Just a fun weave for me, learning how the threading of double weave can have such a dramatic effect.  This was designed as a table runner, but I changed it up to create a light, drapable scarf in “bambu” 12 yarns.    I had some trouble with edge threads breaking in the beginning six inches, but with a little focus and more careful beating, I was able to overcome this problem.  I wove the first scarf exactly following the printed directions, and hemmed, rather than fringed the ends.

Once I understood the treadling sequence and how to place the blocks and dots and dashes, I changed it up for the second scarf to have six inch colour blocks with black or white or red on top, and then placed the colour accents in columns.  The checkerboard is gone, replaced by stripes and columns of contrast.   I really love how this second scarf turned out, and how it looks quite different from the first.   The first and last six inches are woven in solid colours in two separate layers. The scarf is finished with a lovely three colour fringe.

Technical details

The warp and weft are Bambu 12 sett at 40 epi (20 per layer) and woven at 20 picks per inch per layer, threaded and treadled following the instructions in Handwoven. The warp was 5.5 yards long.

For the second scarf, I flipped the colours every six inches, using red weft throughout (six inches on the top then six inches on the bottom) and using white weft for twelve inches then black weft for 12 inches. To shift the red to the top layer, and black (white) to the bottom layer weave the following sequence:

Plain areas: red on top, black (or white) on bottom

Lift shafts 2 and 6, weave red weft (top layer)

Lift shafts 2, 3, 4  plus shafts 6, 7, 8 weave black (or white) weft (bottom layer)

Lift shafts 4 and 8, weave red weft  (top layer)

Lift shafts 1, 2 , 4, plus 5, 6, 8, weave black (or white) weft (bottom layer)

Repeat this sequence to create areas of solid red layer on top and a black and grey (or white and grey) warp stripe layer on the bottom

Pattern areas: red on top, black/grey (or white/grey) on bottom

Lift shaft 2 plus shafts 5, 7 and 8, weave red weft (top layer)

Lift shafts 2, 3, 4, plus shaft 5, weave black (or white) weft (bottom layer)

Lift shaft 4 plus shafts 5, 6, 7, weave red weft (top layer)

Lift shafts 1, 2, 4, plus shaft 7, weave black (or white) weft (bottom layer)

Repeat this sequence to create areas of red with black/grey (white/grey) accents on top layer and areas of black/grey (white/grey) with red accents on the bottom layer