Inkle Loom Weaving : First Attempts

 

 Almost ready to go!

Setting up the Inkle Loom for Weaving.

The last post had a couple of videos to demonstrate how to set up the loom for weaving. 

The first thing to do is to make some string heddles.

Here I am using some cotton rug warp because I have it on hand, and I know it's stable and strong.  

Once the heddles are ready, you can begin running the warp, one strand at a time.

Every other string gets a heddle.  

This appears to be the most I can put on this loom.  If I wanted a longer warp, I could ask my husband to add more pegs and do a longer zig-zag.  One run around the pegs = about 110 inches -- which is longer than I expected!    Keep in mind, you'll lose a certain amount to loom waste (12 inches maybe?)

I am using a verigated green acrylic chenille-like yarn.

One of the videos I saw on You Tube said varigated yarns add interest if you're just doing plane weave.  And the acrylic stays stable, doesn't stretch or distort.  Just what I need as a beginner!

I'm using the Lacis stick shuttle, because the yarn is a little bulkier than would easily fit on the other shuttles.

I know -- It's crap yarn, but good enough for practice.

 

Here's a detail shot of the open shed with the heddle strings pulling keeping 1/2 the strings in the same place.  

You can push the heddle-free strands up or down to make the opposite shed for common cloth or plain weave.    Here I am demonstrating the opposite shed.

 

First attempts at weaving on the Inkle Loom!   

It seems to go pretty fast.

Here's I an getting used to / practicing 

1) getting good selvedge edges along the sides

2) the rhythm of right to left / left to right and altering the shed.

3) beating the weft yarn into place.

It's getting a little tighter and cleaner as I go a long.

At one point, I realized, I'd skipped on the the warp strings, and had 2 heddled strands next to each other.  You can see it towards the bottom of the photo, if you know what to look for.

I decided to fix it by moving one of the loose edge strings to the left to fill in the space.

Almost immediately, the weaving got cleaner and more stable. ;-)

Inkle loom weaving is known as a weft facing weaving, meaning you could almost use anything for the weft (the yarn on the shuttle) becuase you don't really see it except for the edges rounding the corners.  When it goes through the shed, the weft strand pushes up all the warp strands.  Those are the ones you see in the patterning.