Jaine Faires (DBA Mox Nix) has spent her life creating beautiful pieces of handwork featuring table runners and table mats. So much so that she is known as "Thread Head." Her mother and aunt do a meticulous job of hand stitching the hems of each piece. Just to touch the blend of the 2-ply wool (weft) and the cotton (warp) gives the hand of an ancient, well-loved article. The fulling process includes prewashing and blocking before hemming, thus pieces may be washed without worry and the dyes do not run. An artisan of great note, Jaine has been well published and you will find her work on the covers of Early American Life magazine, June 2005 and August 2005. Read the articles there for history and enjoyment. These exquisite table runners and table mats bring historical authenticity to any featured table in your home. Table runners form a magnificent background on which to place ironstone, pewter, silver or other treasure of tabletop beauty. |
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"The type of weaving we do most likely originated among the Scottish weavers who immigrated to North America in the mid 18th Century. This type of weaving seems to have followed the routes of Scotch Irish migration: throughout the Appalachians in Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee, into Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. Overshot was also popular in Eastern Canada. Overshot weaving came into its own following the invention of the cotton gin, which made it possible for cotton to be spun into yarn in enough quantity and strength to be used as warp. This enabled factories to weave household textiles, such as fabric for clothing, cheaply enough for most people to afford, and freeing the time looms were used for purely functional cloth. Looms could now be used to weave something pretty. In the 1820's a device call the Jacquard loom came to North America. This type of loom allowed professional weavers to weave amazingly intricate fabric in very little time. As the fabric became ever cheaper, home woven textiles such as overshot fell out of favor in all but the most rural or isolated areas. By the 1840s overshot was only woven by those who could not afford to buy other types of cloth. Today, overshot coverlets are valuable antiques or treasured heirlooms. |
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On Oversh ot..."People have been hand weaving fabric on looms for at least four thousand years. The wrapping worn by Egyptian mummies were loom woven. The simplest looms are merely frames for holding the warp (the yarn running from front to back) in place while the weft (the material running across the warp) is alternately threaded over and under the warp. More complex looms use some method of threading the warp through harnesses and lifting the warp into a shed through which a shuttle (a device for holding the weft) may be passed or thrown. The simplest of these looms use two harnesses, one to lift the even numbered warp ends, and one to lift the odd numbered ends. More sophisticated looms use many harnesses; the more harnesses, the more complex the patterns which may be woven. The type of weaving we do is woven on fairly simple four harness looms." ......Mox Nix |
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| Imitate pictures of homes you admire by adding accents on the mats and/or runners such as pewter, historic tin lighting, redware or collectables. | ||
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