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Inkle Weaving
I've been spinning and weaving since about 1988. My first lessons in weaving were on an inkle loom, but it was quickly passed
over to get to the big floor looms. I did some production weaving on an
eight-harness 50" Harrisville Designs floor loom for years, but it got
stranded back in Virginia years ago in my travels, and I finally recently
donated it to a weaving school in Alexandria.
What I could drag along was my faithful old inkle loom, and when I
started back up in period re-enactment, it seemed a natural fit. It was
like a return to childhood for me, one that I had never taken the time to
explore in the first place.
There's quite a bit of great material out there on inkle weaving. Probably the best known book out there, in this country, anyway, is Helen Bress's Inkle Weaving. It's packed full of a lot of background information and application, and has some fine illustrations on technique. I'd been lugging this book around along with my loom, but I was having a hard time getting started on what I really wanted to explore: pick up.
I finally stumbled across the now-defunct Inkleweaving.com by Tracy DeGarmo, a fellow SCA-er from Midrealm. She has some really excellent instructions that I used to get started on pick up, along with another great book that doesn't get enough press, Inkle by Evelyn Neher. This book used to be available from Robin and Russ Handweavers, but is harder to find now that they're retired. I put together my Pick Up Sampler by working through Neher's chapter on "Alternating," and her chapters on "This, That & Other Things," "Fantasies" and "Antique Looms" were a real eye-opener for me. I really needed someone to tell me, "Stick your fingers in here, count over this many, pull apart, no just shut up and do it, there see, ta daaa!" Now I can't put my loom down, and I want several more looms for all the projects I've been dreaming up.
Inspired by Evelyn Neher, I've been exploring lots of different fibers, and playing with developing trims and fringes, all kinds of weird stuff. (The tubular warp really worked! I have to put up a picture of that sometime... Wonder if that basket weave technique would really work, too? Need more looms!) Anyway, I started trawling around on eBay for cost effective fibers and have hit on some great ones, like the art silk shipped over from India by a few vendors. I also stocked up my basic perle cotton stash from eBay as well. Much nicer, and easier on the hands, than carpet warp.
Below are some beginning instructions that I developed as part of some classes I taught at Estrella War XX, 2004. When I'm teaching this class, students also get a sheet of five sample design drafts that they can choose from for warping, to save class time on designing, and a cotton knotted tassel which we use to practice finishes. I next developed the Beginning Alternating Pick-Up handout, and that PDF can also be found below.
More recently, I've been playing with a new loom, an 18th Century Tape Loom made for me by Rudy McKinney of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. An article on that experience can be found here, and I will continue to expand on it as I keep up my explorations.
Rudy has also agreed to construct an earlier period boxloom for me, I'm aiming for something around the 16th Century. I have begun an exploration of period artwork to develop construction plans, that survey can be found here.
View a gallery of my work here.
There's quite a bit of great material out there on inkle weaving. Probably the best known book out there, in this country, anyway, is Helen Bress's Inkle Weaving. It's packed full of a lot of background information and application, and has some fine illustrations on technique. I'd been lugging this book around along with my loom, but I was having a hard time getting started on what I really wanted to explore: pick up.
I finally stumbled across the now-defunct Inkleweaving.com by Tracy DeGarmo, a fellow SCA-er from Midrealm. She has some really excellent instructions that I used to get started on pick up, along with another great book that doesn't get enough press, Inkle by Evelyn Neher. This book used to be available from Robin and Russ Handweavers, but is harder to find now that they're retired. I put together my Pick Up Sampler by working through Neher's chapter on "Alternating," and her chapters on "This, That & Other Things," "Fantasies" and "Antique Looms" were a real eye-opener for me. I really needed someone to tell me, "Stick your fingers in here, count over this many, pull apart, no just shut up and do it, there see, ta daaa!" Now I can't put my loom down, and I want several more looms for all the projects I've been dreaming up.
Inspired by Evelyn Neher, I've been exploring lots of different fibers, and playing with developing trims and fringes, all kinds of weird stuff. (The tubular warp really worked! I have to put up a picture of that sometime... Wonder if that basket weave technique would really work, too? Need more looms!) Anyway, I started trawling around on eBay for cost effective fibers and have hit on some great ones, like the art silk shipped over from India by a few vendors. I also stocked up my basic perle cotton stash from eBay as well. Much nicer, and easier on the hands, than carpet warp.
Below are some beginning instructions that I developed as part of some classes I taught at Estrella War XX, 2004. When I'm teaching this class, students also get a sheet of five sample design drafts that they can choose from for warping, to save class time on designing, and a cotton knotted tassel which we use to practice finishes. I next developed the Beginning Alternating Pick-Up handout, and that PDF can also be found below.
More recently, I've been playing with a new loom, an 18th Century Tape Loom made for me by Rudy McKinney of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. An article on that experience can be found here, and I will continue to expand on it as I keep up my explorations.
Rudy has also agreed to construct an earlier period boxloom for me, I'm aiming for something around the 16th Century. I have begun an exploration of period artwork to develop construction plans, that survey can be found here.
View a gallery of my work here.
| beginning_inkle_weaving.pdf |
| sample_inkle_drafts.jpg |
| beginning_alternating_pick_up_for_inkle.pdf |