My red wool wasn't quite dry yesterday afternoon so I left it on the line overnight. And it rained. It's also still cloudy and will possibly rain again. So definitely no kirtle making going on here today. Instead, I have decided to look up some new inkle patterns.
But before I get to that, some history. I bought my inkle loom on ebay about 5 years ago and it basically sat on top of a cupboard that whole time as I didn't know how to warp it. I learnt how to tablet weave very early on, and thought inkle weaving was basically the same (which it sort of is) and that I could just teach myself how to do it. Now I probably could have done that, but it would've been so much more effort than someone just showing me. So I waited, and waited, and waited for someone, ANYONE, to teach an inkle weaving class that I could go to and learn. It's actually one of the main reasons we ended up going to Rowany Festival this year. That and all the other classes I wanted to do. So my unreserved thanks go to Lady Tatianitska Iaroslavna who not only taught me how to warp up my probably-not-an-inkle-loom loom, but also showed me an awesome new way to start and finish without an ugly big knot. It's so clever and I am going to use it for my tablet weaving as well. These are the relevant pages from her class notes. I hope she doesn't mind me posting them here. In essence, you weave both ends of the thread at the same time when you start, and when you finish you use clever little thread loops to do the same thing. Sneaky huh!
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| Starting |
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| Finishing |
Now why is my loom probably not an inkle loom you ask? Well it looks very different from every other inkle loom. I'm pretty sure it's hand made, and it should have three pegs on each of the upright bits, and the heddle peg (the one with the pink heddle threads on it) is in the wrong spot. I would like to get another one at some point, and conveniently stumbled across this Review of Different Inkle Looms page which has given me some things to think about before I make/buy my next one. My current loom makes about two metres of braid but I think I would like to be able to get more out of it.
Anyway, the pretty bit. Here is the first piece of inkle weaving I did last Friday at Rowany Festival. It is red, pink and white and I made it as a belt for my two year old daughter. Now before you go "wow that's your first piece?" remember that I am not new to weaving. I have done a LOT of tablet weaving so the common mistakes like getting the tension right have been made way long ago.
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| Inkle woven belt for Grace |
Here is my actual first piece of tablet weaving in all its glory. I started at the bottom if you can't tell.
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| My first piece of tablet weaving |
And just to make myself feel better, this is one of my later ones. It was made as a token that I could give at tournaments, even though I didn't even have a partner at the time. So lets just pretend it was made for my husband. He loves it anyway. It says " LOVE Phèdre" with little lovehearts on each side.
So this is the current project I am working on. These are intended to be criss cross leg wrap thingys (if someone knows what they are supposed to be called please let me know). The colours were chosen by my husband to match the tablet woven belt I started in 2010 which I hope eventually to finish. They are the same colours, just the lighting makes it look different
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| Inkle woven leg wrap thing |
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| Tablet woven blue flame belt |
So the second leg wrap is on the loom still but it's nearly finished, so I need a new pattern. I bought some new balls of crochet cotton in really nice subtle cream colours from Big W the other day (I ran out of black, and ended up coming out of the shop with $60 worth) so I would really like to make something for myself with them.
I found this page that has me wanting to experiment with brocading, but I don't know if I'm quite up for it yet.
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| Brocaded dragon on inkle weaving |
I am rather fond of this one, but in the SCA a Laurel Wreath is a pretty important award and I don't want to be thought of as impertinant.
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| Laurel wreath pattern |
I am in love with this, and these are actually similar to the colours I bought, but it's a pick pattern which is a bit complicated and she doesnt seem to actually have the pattern on her site that I could see.
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| S shaped pick pattern |
And I have just now discovered this amazing inkle pattern generator. This is awsome and I am probably going to go have fun with this for a while
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