The Art of Making a Scarf

Making a scarf is more of an art than a process. We start with a creative idea which can be inspired by a memory, a color, nature or perhaps a work of art. The idea is translated by an artist into a finished design. Depending on the season or year the scarf can be any shape or size, in various fabrics (woven, knitted and printed). In all cases, the superior quality of the finished scarf is a result of the skill, knowledge and creativity of the craftspeople that make them.

 

Printed Scarves

A design is printed, color-by-color onto a piece of fabric (which is either woven - most cases - or knitted). The process is similar to the way an artist would create an engraving. The artist traces the original work of art, color by color. One by one, colors are printed onto the fabric, using a separate screen for every color. This printing process is carried through by trained specialists who spend a great many years fine-tuning their craft.

 

Once the printing is finished, the fabric has to be dried and then washed to 'set' the dye. This creates a permanence to the scarf. The scarf is then cut from the running length of fabric and 'hemmed' or sewn around its edges. Some of the very best scarves are still sewn or hemmed by hand, recalling the great earlier tradition of scarf-making when everything was done by hand. Today many of our scarves are still printed by hand, although at times we enjoy the benefits of technological advancement in improving quality control and accuracy.

 

Weaving and Knitting Scarves

Weaving and knitting, two very different processes are both produced on machines starting with yarns either in their natural or pre-dyed state.

 

Woven fabrics are threads or yarn that are set up on a machine or loom and some of the threads run front to back (or top to bottom) while other threads run side-to-side. As these threads move through the loom, they cross each other and create the 'weave,' or pattern, of the fabric.

 

In knitting, yarns or thread are intertwined in a series of connected loops, either by hand with the use of knitting needles or a machine.