Scarves with Doubleweave Hems

 The pandemic is still happening and I am still weaving scarves.  I had a friend ask if I ever wove scarves without fringe.  I hadn't but I knew there were ways of approaching that.  I wasn't interested in doing a turned hem because of the potential bulk.  I have weaver friends who wove scarves that had what is called a doubleweave or tubular hem.  

The technique involves weaving two layers of textile at either end of the scarf, i.e., doubleweave.  Once finished, these two layers are folded inward and the folded textile is sewn together.  This gives a nice hem that hopefully isn't a lot bulkier than the scarf itself.  

Since I had been having success with tencel scarves, I decided to use 10/2 tencel Just Our Yarn yarn for this type of scarf.  The plan for the first scarf was to have the body woven as a 2/2 twill with a plain weave hem.  That way, I could weave this on my Baby Wolf.  I threaded the warp as a straight draw on 8 shafts.  The tie-up was a 2/2 twill (treadles 1-4) and the configuration needed to weave doubeweave on the hems was on treadles 5-8.  

Pink Scarf Drawdown

The warp was sett at 36 epi, the same sett that had been used for previous scarves I wove with this type of yarn. The warp yarn was a light peach/pink and the warp a medium dark red-fuschia.  

The weaving was straightforward.  I even hem-stitched each layer of the hem, so that it would be easier to manage after it was off the loom.  

Finished Scarf Hem

The resulting scarf worked.  I did get a slight bit of draw-in - more so at the end than the beginning of the warp.  The two layers of hem turned in ok and they were sewn together to look seamless.

Pink Scarf with Doubleweave Hem

Nice scarf, nice colors.  However, in looking at how this scarf turned out, I decided that I wasn't happy with the plain weave hem versus the twill scarf.  I also wasn't excited about how the short color intervals in the 2/2 twill design.  

Now that I felt comfortable with the technique, I thought about how I could select a different draft to improve on those areas that I thought could be improved.  

Since I wanted to have a more interesting scarf, I chose to use a 2-2-1-1-1-1 tie-up (treadles 1-8) with the straight draw threading.  The hem was to be a twill rather than plain weave.  This called for eight treadles instead of the four needed for the plain weave hem above.  These are treadles 9-16.  This could be woven on a standard 8-shaft loom if you changed the treadles before and after the hem.  However, I have a dobby loom, so it was much easier to weave this scarf on that.  

Here is the drawdown with focus on the tie-up for the hem and scarf. 

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Drawdown - partial

The yarns I used for this scarf were 10/2 tencel from Just Our Yarn.  The warp was a mixture of ends of skeins that ranged from blues and fuchsias to oranges and greens.  I alternated two of the color ways together.  I decided that since there were common colors on the different skeins, this should work.  The weft was a blue-fuschia variegated 10/2 tencel.

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Warp Colors

For this scarf, I used an advancing, irregular point treadling.  

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Draw Down - Full

Weaving the hem took a little bit more care for this scarf.  It was easier to pack down the twill weft picks than it had been with a plain weave hem, so I had to be careful not to beat too hard. Again, each layer was hemstitched while on the loom.  The two layers were turned in and the folded edges stitched together.   

Blue-Fuschia Scarf Hem Detail

The finished scarf looked good and the hem more closely matched the rest of the scarf.

I think this was fairly successful.  I will definitely try this type of hem again.