23 April: Inkling on

- which sounds like something P.G.Wodehouse might have written.

The guild library last week yielded a small book called "Inkle Weaving" by Lavinia Bradley. It has a slightly different approach from my other books on the topic. One was to use up all those short bits of yarn that get thrown into a bag as too big to throw away, but too small to make anything with. They are simply knotted together and used to warp up the inkle loom - the knots get woven into the band, and an interesting texture and colour results -

The chapter titled "Bolivian Pebble Weave" looked interesting. The technique is illustrated by a typically South American Navajo design (!), which I wove in handspun BFL .

The suggestion in the book was that the technique could be adapted to produce more English designs like Christmas trees, horses and dogs.

I tried making up a meander-type design, but I don't think it's successful, either in the sugared-almond colours of BFL, or in the sludge colours of sock yarn -


Then, using the "Baltic-style" warping (one thick pattern thread followed by two thin background threads), I wove some handspun Shetland into a chevron pattern inkle which I love -


To make the pattern threads thicker, I needed 2 strands of yarn; as there was only one ball of each colour, I put a blue strand and a green strand together. It was dead easy to weave, the yarn was good to work with, and the finished band is very satisfying. There may be more.

(What do I mean, "may"?)