Inkle Weaving

I use a home-made inkle loom, made for me by my husband. Many books on inkle weaving have patterns for loom construction, and mine is a composite of several such patterns. I enjoy this its portability and ease of setup.

Below is a selection of bands woven on this loom. Click on any image for an enlarged view, use back arrow on your browser window to return to this page.

A

B

C

A - Inkle-woven sampler utilizing picked and dropped pattern warps. Yellow single warps alternate with pairs of pattern warps. The tie-up and design of these patterned bands are not mine and at this time I'm unsure about its copyright. It will be cited, or published if copyright free, on this website at a later date. -HH

B - Inkle-woven bookmarks and circular woven band (far right), same tie-up as sampler A. Tubular band (B3) was woven from same warp as bookmarks B1 and B2, but weft was put in only from right-to-left and brought back over the top of the warp (rather than the usual back-and-forth weaving motion). See C below.

C - Tubular band woven as in B3, tabby tie up. Green warp groups are half the width of the center black warp group. Diagrams below represent warp as seen end-on.

Weft is same thread as outer warp so that it is invisible when selveges are drawn together.

1. Pass warp through shed from right to left. Change shed, beat and draw weft snug. Pass warp again from right to left.

2. As weft is drawn snug between picks, selveges are drawn together forming a tube.

The spiraling of the tubular bands occurred naturally after wet finishing (washing), probably owing to the twist of warp fibers and/or the circular nature of the weft.