Sunday, April 11, 2010

11 April: Inkle exploration

The low-tech weaving has shifted into inkle-weaving. (For those with no inkling about that, an inkle is a narrow woven band, in the shoe-lace to cummerbund width range.)


The pink and grey wool one at the top is woven to a design by Laverne at Backstrap Weaving - she took the pattern from a yurt band and wove it on her backstrap loom; my version was done on an inkle loom.

The lavender and gray interlaced pattern is another one woven in my handspun wool on the inkle loom.

The pile sample was woven on my backstrap loom, with a warp of handspun linen and pile knotted on in rug wool. Different spacings and pile lengths were explored, before I decided that life is probably too short to go any further with this. At least it shows it can be done on a backstrap loom.

The green and cream interlaced pattern one is done in cotton in 2 thicknesses. This pattern needed a lot of concentration, and even after unpicking several bits (and several times too!), there are mistakes in the weaving.

The bottom band is woven on the inkle loom in mill-spun Shetland wool (spun in Shetland), and was an attempt to finish up a bagful of leftover small skeins. The warp threads clung to each other, and opening every shed was an effort, but the finished band is worth it - lovely subtle colours and a solid feel, and at over 2 inches wide and 6 feet 3 inches long, a useful size. In fact I like it so much, I think I'll go and make another one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hi I have been looking for your lavender and gray interlaced pattern for my inkle loom for weeks. could you let me know where to look for that pattern?