Ask Madelyn: Coverlets

I would like to find a pattern for a traditional coverlet. However, I would prefer to make it the size of a throw as opposed to a full bedcover. Does anyone have suggestions as to where I might find a pattern for that?

––Patchesluv

Hi, and this is a great question!

It's a hard one to answer, though, because there are so many sources and so many patterns, and for most all of them, you'd have to know how to adjust the draft for your throw size and yarns. One pattern I really like though, and one for which all the work is done for you, is Louise Cortelyou's Blooming Leaf Throw in Handwoven November/December 2005, pages 64-66. Blooming Leaf is an overshot pattern that was very common in traditional coverlets but Louise has redrafted it in doubleweave (on four shafts!), which means the fabric will be warmer and have a more throw-like in hand AND there are no floats to catch on anything.

Louise H. Cortelyou's Bloom Leaf Throw. Photo by Joe Coca

Traditional coverlets were woven in doubleweave and summer-and-winter as well as in overshot, so this version is still "traditional." (Overshot patterns used for coverlets are also available in Mary Meigs Atwater's Shuttle-Craft Book of American Hand-Weaving, Marguerite Davison's A Handweaver's Pattern Book and A Handweaver's Source Book, and Carol Strickler's A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, or you could treat yourself to The Coverlet Book: Early American Handwoven Coverlets, by Helene Bress.)

Best of luck! ––Madelyn