A great project for summer is inkle or band weaving using cotton. Here, I made a belt and a band for my new Tilley TH9. I used my inkle loom for the belt, but I prefer using a rigid heddle when doing pickup to be able to better see which strands to pick or drop. For a frame I used a Spears #4 loom and a little heddle I’ve had for years. Worked like a charm.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been learning how to weave knotted pile, which is a series of knots “tacked” down with a foundation weft. I started with a simple square/rectangle/line design. This was also an attempt to use split-complementary colors. I don’t think I would have chosen mustard yellow, rusty orange, and indigo blue otherwise, but they kind of work together. Here’s a little animation. The picture above shows how it looks after I trimmed it to about 1/2″.
An internet search for similar projects will most likely bring up Sara Lamb’s lovely book, Woven Treasures, which is where I learned how to do this style of weaving. You may also enjoy reading about the shaggier version, rya (or in Finnish ryijy) or flossa, which hails from Scandinavia and has an interesting history that begins as a warm covering for fishermen and progresses into colorful wall hangings and rugs. You can even weave rya rugs off loom, as shown in this video:
The 1970s are cool again–if you’re a fiber nerd, that is. Maryanne Moodie was the first weaver I spotted who was calling upon the age of shag carpeting to create a more-modern-but-still-earthy wall hanging. There are several weavers out there doing very creative wall hangings nowadays. If you’re inspired to give it a try, here’s a nice tutorial to get you going.
I wove mine on the little Goodwood Pocket Loom, not made any longer, but pretty much any small loom or picture frame will work. This measures 4″x5″ off the loom, not counting the fringes. This was a fun, fast project that I’d like to do on a larger scale… maybe on my new loom. And, no, I’m not talking about the new loom I just posted a few weeks ago but another one, a Hagen tapestry loom that I’ll blog about soon.
This color wheel is awesome. Just choose a color on the wheel itself by dragging around the little circle, and then you can find the colors that are complementary, split complementary, etc. You can even go lighter (tints) and darker (shades) or type in a hex code. It’s fun for designing, planning, or just playing.