Garters

Woven bands are very useful for holding up your socks. They are worn  by Scotsmen for keeping the handknit hose in place. This has been a tradition since before there was elastic, which some now use instead.

Mountain Men wore woven garters to keep the leggins tight around the leg.

Recently, I was asked by a gentleman in Wyoming to make a pair of garters for his kilt hose. He sent me some links to websites which carry all manner of fancy stuff for Scotsmen. Some of the garters there had nice thick and fluffy tassels on the ends, which he liked very much. After puzzling over how I might achieve this same look, I settled on rya knots, which are usually added during the weaving to make pile (as on carpets). I devised a method using a yarn needle to add them in after the fact and think that it all turned out pretty well.

First I cut some pieces of red yarn to 9" in length.

Then, I threaded one through the needle and inserted it behind 3 or 4 warps.

The yarn was then pulled out at center between two warps to form a loop.

The two ends went over the top and then down through the loop and were pulled tight.

After adding four of these on one side, I then flipped the garter over and repeated the process on the second side. Effectively, this added 16 new ends and increased the number by half of it's original number. 32 warp ends were supplemented by 16 additional ends, making a nice fluffy tassel.

Before (left) and After (right)