books – Page 4 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms – a new ebook

I am taking a step away from the world of the backstrap loom in this post to tell you about my new e-book, Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms. This is a book that I have designed specifically for those who use what I would call a “standard” inkle loom, whether it be a one-of-a-kind home-made model or one of the mass-produced kinds. By “standard” inkle loom, I mean a frame with pegs that has some kind of system that allows adjustments to be made to warp-tension. The threads in half the warp are held in individual string-heddles while the weaver lifts and lowers the threads in the other half to create the two basic sheds.

And, I have provided instructions on these looms that are suited to BEGINNER pick-up weavers….those who have found that, although there are unlimited possibilities for weaving beautiful bands in plain weave on inkle looms, they would now like to add some little motifs to their bands….geometric patterns and little animal figures sitting on an attractive “pebbly” background.

With the experience of warping, setting up the loom and weaving plain-weave bands behind them, they can now venture into the world of pick-up patterns with methods that have been designed specifically for this kind of loom and their level of experience.

The methods I present take into account the particular characteristics of the inkle loom.

Firstly, I sort out some terminology. In my wanderings around the internet, I have found that there can sometimes be a little confusion over the terms pick-up, complementary-warp, pebble weave and Andean Pebble Weave. I welcomed the opportunity to talk about those terms in this book.

I present three different methods for creating Andean Pebble Weave patterns, two of which are aimed at beginner pick-up weavers. The third method is one that you can try, if you like, when you have gained a little experience and are interested in perhaps adding some short-cuts to speed up the process. You can try just one of the methods or all three of them.

All three methods produce the same pretty results! You can decide which one best suits your weaving style.

There is a method for those who enjoy getting their fingers in among the threads. The only tools that are required are those that you would normally use to produce plain weave, that is, something with which to beat and carry the weft.

Another uses a few additional tools which are as simple as two pencils and a pointed stick!

The third requires some additional materials to set-up the warp, no additional tools for weaving, and is for those who are interested in making a little extra effort in the set-up to enable them to see the patterns appearing on their bands faster. Additional string heddles are used in this third method and I cover, in pictures, text and video, the instructions for making them and the tips and tricks for operating them on inkle looms.

I use my Ashford Inklette throughout the e-book and in the videos to provide instruction. My friends Ruth Mitchell and Bradie Hansen also contributed with their full-size Ashford and Schacht inkle looms.

In order to cater to as many learning styles as possible, I have presented the instruction in various forms. Dozens of step-by-step pictures are used. Detailed text accompanies each and every picture. Instructional video clips take you through the steps all over again and there is an additional set of video clips called “Just Weaving” where you can enjoy watching the flow of each of the three methods, uninterrupted by instruction.

The .mp4 video clips can be viewed on all kinds of devices…iPhones, Android devices, iPods, iPads etc….

Tutorials cover how to recognize mistakes and un-weave, finish a band, lay out patterns, weave two different kinds of borders, and manage chart-reading. Tips for left-handed weavers are provided. The book finishes with twenty-two Andean Pebble Weave pattern charts for small motifs which are perfectly suited to beginner-level. Plus, there are two surprise bonus charts with patterns I know you will love!

If you already own and are using my e-book, Complementary-warp Pick-up, for your inkle loom, you won’t need this new book….unless you are curious about adding a couple of other methods to your pick-up weaving repertoire on inkle looms. The second kind of border structure that I teach in the Appendix of this new book might be new to you too.

Which method do I prefer? It very much depends on a number of factors which take into account the kind of material I am using for warp, the weight of the yarn I am using, as well as the number of threads. I love to have different methods up my sleeve to use in all kinds of situations, just as I do for my backstrap loom. If you have seen me or other weavers using additional string heddles to create Andean Pebble Weave patterns on inkle looms and have wondered about those, the third method in this is book will answer all those questions…all the why’s and how’s of making them, as well as using them.

ANDEAN PEBBLE WEAVE ON INKLE LOOMS…..!https://www.taprootvideo.com/preview_class.jsf?iid=3&cid=13

And now I shall return to my pocket-bag fabric which is so very near completion. The second two weaving ladies are now happily seated at their almost-finished looms and I am about to add my newly-created pattern for the tree which will shade them. I suspect there will be some un-weaving for adjustment because I am being naughty and weaving the tree without first sampling!

Perhaps there will be a finished bag to show next time I post!

Backstrap Weaving – A New Year and a New E-Book!

Happy New Year to all of you! I usually let December 31st slip on by but this time it was a little different because it marked the finish of my latest e-book on the eye-pattern tubular band and other decorative finishing techniques. It really did feel like a big finish and, as the fireworks boomed outside (we tend to only have the noisy ones here and not so many of the pretties), I almost felt as if they were cheering for me. I guess the end-of-year means something different for each and every one of us. This is what it meant to me at that very moment, and on and off until 2am! There are no official public displays of fireworks. People buy them in the market and let them off in their back yards. It can go on all night!

So….about the e-book. You may know this pretty eye-pattern tubular band by its Quechua name, ñawi awapa. I have seen it woven in various places across the highlands of Peru and Bolivia. Because I know of at least one other local name that is used for it, I decided to simply call it the eye-pattern band in my book.

Weaving the eye-pattern tubular band in the central Bolivian highlands.

I have been happily applying it to my small woven pieces ever since I learned it. The novelty of seeing those little eyes appearing along the band never wears off! Used as an edging, it is the perfect finish to my woven pieces. In the highlands it is used for both decorative and practical reasons as it protects the edges of the fabric which are often the first parts to wear out.

Here’s my latest finished project using a simple two-color eye-pattern band as the edging on my Andean Pebble Weave wrist-cuff .

The tubular band is woven and sewn simultaneously to the perimeter of the cuff using the weft as the sewing thread.

When I was learning to weave a coca-leaf bag with my teachers in Bolivia in 1997, I realized that removing the cloth from the loom did not mean the end of the project. It actually signaled the beginning of a whole new process that involved embellishing the piece with various decorative finishes. I saw that the eye pattern has different levels of complexity in different regions and that the methods used to create it can also vary. These kinds of similarities and differences have always fascinated me.

And, I have since learned that the eye-pattern tubular band is fun to weave on its own rather than purely as an edging. It makes lovely necklaces on which to hang pendants, sweet bracelets and bangles, and can be used in a variety of ways in accessories….fobs for keys and tools, lanyards, eye-glass holders, shoe laces, straps and drawstrings…. From my own experiments, I show you how to create straight, curved and spiraled versions of the tubular bands. They all have their particular charm!

One of the many fun things about this pattern is that you can make it as subdued or as lively as you like. I am generally limited to using only two colors at once in a pattern when I do most of my basic pick-up weaving techniques. The eye-pattern band allows you to use up to five or even more colors in the pattern. My favorite combination is usually with only three but you can make them as colorful as you like!

The traditional way to weave these tubular bands is by having the narrow warp attached to the weaver’s waist or belt with a piece of string. String heddles are not used at all and so the weaver’s body is simply suspending the warp. The weaver is not required to move the body back and forth to add or relax tension on the warp to help operate the heddles.

You should at least be familiar with weaving terminology…warp, weft, beat, shed etc…before you approach this.

Because heddles are not used at all to create the sheds, the warp can be easily set up and woven using an inkle loom or any other loom or frame that allows you to adjust tension for take-up. Full instructions on how to set up and weave the independent band on an inkle loom are included in both versions of the e-book.

Here I am weaving one on my tiny Ashford Inklette.

My e-book is available in two versions. One contains the instructions for weaving the eye-pattern band as an independent tube and then goes on to show how to weave and sew it simultaneously as an edging along the two sides of a project, or around corners, covering all edges.

I used a two-color eye-pattern tubular band to dress up a simple pouch that I made with commercial cotton fabric. The cross-knit-loop stitch decorates the mouth of the pouch.

Other decorative sewn finishing techniques such as the coil stitch, pictured below, are included with dozens of step-by-step photos as well as drawings.

The other version of the e-book is for those who only want to weave the band as an independent tube, perhaps for using it in jewelry and accessories, and aren’t interested in the sewing techniques. Both books provide ideas, instructions and suggestions for finishing the bands and for using them in such projects.

There are links to both versions in each one’s product description on the Taproot Video page.

And, let me tell you about something new for my e-books……

Both e-books include access to supplemental video clips. These are not stand-alone tutorials. They were designed to allow you to see “in action’’ some of the processes. The techniques are thoroughly explained in the books using over 140 photos, drawings and diagrams and so the videos really are optional supplemental material. With these additional materials I hope to be able to cater to a greater variety of learning styles. I had a lot of fun making those video clips and I am thrilled with them! Links to the videos are provided in the ebooks where they can be viewed and/or downloaded, if you like. They are better viewed after you have read each tutorial. Little video camera symbols in the book will let you know when there is a related video clip to be viewed.

For my left-handed weaving friends, I have included instructions in the Appendix on how to adapt the weaving technique to suit. You will notice that I said for my left-handed weaving friends. I am sorry, but for the sewing techniques in the book, I have left it up to you to adapt. My left-handed students have always been so awesomely good at doing that in my classes!

I will leave you with this picture of me with one of my teachers, Maxima, spending a tranquil afternoon together. I weave as Maxima sews a decorative edging to a small pouch. The pouch on which she taught me to weave and sew a tubular band, lies on the ground between us. This was on my birthday back in 2011….a lovely way to spend it.

So, I hope that you will enjoy the e-book and I look forward to seeing what you create using it!

I wish you all the best for 2019!

(Hair update, for those who are interested…. I now have a blunt-edged chin-length hair cut with a good five months of grey growth!).

Backstrap Weaving – Warm Smiles and Color in the Lingering Winter

While a majestic Mt Rainier in a grey landscape welcomes me to the chilly Pacific Northwest…

and snow continues to blot out color in the northeast, the time that I spent weaving with fellow backstrap loom enthusiasts has been all about color and warm smiles with lovely work by Ann Lynn, Tracy and Mary Alice…

We have been weaving Andean Pebble weave, supplementary-weft, double weave and complementary-warp pick-up structures. The results have been wonderful and I have been particularly pleased with the designs that the double-weave band-weavers have been creating themselves, from Star Trek symbols to patterns inspired by Turkomen rug motifs. And, there is still some patterned tubular band weaving to be done along with sewn embellishments.

We made a new weaver. Bethany wove her very first piece ever…a plain-weave warp-faced band….

And now she is already into double weave pick-up following pattern charts. She has found a comfortable way to set up at home.

And, more experienced hands, like Stacy, below, dove right in and started winging it and designing their very own patterns in double weave pick-up…

Tracy also got very comfortable with the technique very quickly and was soon adding her own original patterns to the collection of pattern charts with which we were working. I love how people react when they see how effortlessly and automatically the lower layer of the double weave appears. It really is a little piece of magic!

I know that Tracy will come up with awesome patterns and color combinations in supplementary weft too. That’s what she is working on below and her pattern ideas come from the various places she has lived around the world and the various textile cultures in which she has moved. I will tell you more about that in my next blog post. Now Tracy knows two techniques that I like to call ”doodling on plain weave”: double weave and supplementary-weft patterning. There are almost no rules and the pattern charts for one technique can also be used for the other.

Jennifer was weaving patterns in complementary-warp pick-up and is already making jewelry from her finished bands. Her 7-year old daughter, Tabitha, also keen to try this band-weaving stuff…

Kathryn finished off her woven woven backstrap using the instructions in my article on Backstrap Basics...

And, it is always very pleasing to see what people have created since the last time we all had a chance to weave together…

Kathryn moved on with her Andean Pebble Weave skills and wove this fine band in 10/2 cotton using motifs from my second book…

Tracy used the handwoven cloth I brought from Bolivia last year and her tubular edging skills to construct this great cylindrical bag with its drawstring lining. The top and bottom is edged with a ñawi awapa tubular band.

So, these have been the just some of the colorful results of the face-to-face interactions I have had with my backstrap weaving friends in my recent travels. There’s been lots of color to brighten up the lingering wintry days. I got dressed in a splash of color while looking over the awesome ikat robes that my friend Marilyn brought back from her trip to Uzbekistan last year. The one I picked to try on is in one of my favorite combinations of color, as you will know if you have been following my blog. She has prepared a presentation of images and video in which she has documented the entire ikat process and we had time to watch it together. If your guild is interested in seeing this as part of a program, I can put you in touch with her.

Apart from all this face-to-face interaction and time spent sitting by and backstrap weaving with friends, there has been lost of online interaction and long-distance trouble-shooting and guidance as new weaving friends all over the world take an interest in the wonderful backstrap loom.

There is always a certain amount of frustration knowing that if I could only be by someone’s side I could set them along the right path in moments. This usually comes from not being able to communicate in writing how a certain part of the process should feel…how much tension should be applied to warp, how hard should the beat be, how does one ”be the loom”. I want to somehow be able to dive through the computer screen but it is amazing what can be achieved with the right amount of tenacity!

I made my video class on Operating the Backstrap Loom to help communicate those concepts to those with whom I don’t have the chance to weave side by side. I want to help people understand how it feels to be part of the loom itself. The video class is not quite like having me by your side but so many people have commented that it is pretty darn close and that pleases me no end!

I got to visit the home of my video class, Taproot Video, on this trip. It was fun seeing both my and John Mullarkey’s dvds going out to a customer in the one package. John Mullarkey is the latest instructor to join the Taproot Video co-op and his tablet-weaving class is on Egyptian Diagonals. These and all the Taproot Video classes are also available for lifetime streaming.

My interaction with my online weaving friends has involved more cuffs, among other things. Just as I was about to archive our Cuff and Bracelet Weave-along thread in the Ravelry group, I got to see this…

Tracy and I went along to see an exhibit of the private collection of Leslie Grace in Seattle. It included this fabulous example of the woven and twined cuffs made on simple looms by the Mayoruna people of tropical lowland Peru. Check out the two sweet dangling shuttles. Some months ago, I posted on this blog about the way the weavers close the cuffs by threading the braids through the header cord. Jan had brought this to our attention and used the technique to finish her cuffs. She is even using the dangling braids as a wrist distaff for her spinning.

The Mayoruna cuffs have subtle patterning in relief. If you look closely you will see a diamond pattern. Certain warp threads are twined while others are not. The twined threads stand out in relief against the others. I had tried this some years ago using twine for the warp threads as I had wanted to weave border panels to accompany my Shipibo-inspired wall hanging. I chose twine because I thought that it might resemble the kind of fiber used by the Mayoruna people. I thought that using a lowland technique would be very suitable. However, the pattern simply didn’t show up enough in the twine. I think that something even stiffer is needed to make it work and I didn’t want stiff panels for my hanging.

That’s my sample in red twine above closest to the black-and-white panel. You can see the red-on-red cotton warp-float technique I decided to go with instead on its right. You can see pattern in my twine sample but it wasn’t showing up as well as I had hoped. (Actually, now I am looking at this picture and wondering why I had rejected that band. The pattern seems to be very clear to me now!) In any case, it gave me the opportunity to explore the technique and understand better what was going on. Next to my cotton panel is a lovely white-on-white Mexican example of a simple warp-float pattern.

Here’s the finished cuff from Leslie Grace’s collection.

Of course, there are plenty more things to show you from that collection. My adventures with dear Tracy in Seattle at this exhibit and in her home in magical Port Townsend will be coming in another blog post as well as pictures of some of the amazing textiles and bands that Marilyn brought back from Uzbekistan.

And then, something else came into my hands to pour some more energy and interest into the Cuff weave-along (which officially finished at the end of February but which may never really end!)…

Here are some sweet wooden ends for woven bracelets that come in four different kinds of wood. I have already ordered some maple and walnut ones and look forward to using them with my bands. I do have, after all, a whole bunch of woven sample bands from my last two books that can be made into bracelets or cuffs.

Indigomargo made another cuff since I last wrote a blog post…I love seeing this pattern which is one of the ones I created myself for my first book way back in 2010.And speaking of those books, I have been receiving the sweetest feedback of all…pictures of things people are weaving using the patterns and techniques!

My friend Emerald in Australia wove this belt using a backstrap loom. There’s probably a pattern from each of the four books in this piece. The viscacha is in the latest book.

These ones come from Alexandra (top left), Maxine, Nancy and Maxine again who has just started on the various ”River and Ocean”-themed motifs. All three weavers are using inkle looms. The complementary-warp pick-up technique is well suited to inkle looms and any other kind of loom that can give you two sheds and allow you to weave warp-faced fabric. My third book teaches the technique and provides 42 patterns for band weavers. The fourth book has an additional 100 patterns using the technique for bands and beyond.

Marsha on Ravelry is weaving a hatband in 20/2 silk using the horse motifs, ”Eldy’s Mustangs”, designed by my friend Deanna. Now she is playing with lots of different patterns in the left-over warp from the various themed sets in the latest book of 100 patterns…

I will leave you here. I simply must. I’ll be weaving double weave tomorrow with friends old and new and I have been experimenting with a new way of arranging the edge threads and need to get my head straight on that. Of course, I have learned a couple of different ways of handling the edges from my indigenous teachers and I am using a bit of this and that to create something a little bit different.

But, I must show you something that just arrived in my inbox as I was writing this post. Dorinda sent me pictures of Maribel’s very first faja.

I have written about Maribel quite a few times. I met her last January when I went up to the highlands to meet with the weavers in Huancarani. She was 19 years old at the time and she was alone waiting for us in the football field with her toddler Daniel when we drove up…waiting patiently long before any of the other ladies arrived.

She was keen and determined to be a weaver, join the co-op and produce things to supplement her family’s income. She was the first in the group to ask to learn the new pattern I had brought to show and she fast became my favorite. Since then, she has produced some of the bands that get made into yoga mat straps using the pattern I taught her as well as the traditional patterns of her community. Her husband has been really supportive and sometimes helps her wind the warps.

Here’s the first yoga mat strap she made with the pattern I taught her. It has its little swing tag with her name on it. I imagine she was very proud of it. However, it is a slower pattern to weave because threads need to be picked up by hand in every single shed. The traditional patterns of the area are in a technique that can be partly loom controlled and, therefore, just that little bit faster to weave.

I adore this picture of her proudly showing her first faja with a variety of local patterns! What a way to end a post that began with the awesome yet somber and snowy Mt Rainier :-)… with color and a warm smile!

Backstrap Weaving – Feedback in Words and Cloth

I’m back at the loom again after all that pattern-drawing and book lay-out work!

I am way beyond the halfway hump now on my silk scarf project and am weaving the small paisley-like motifs between expanses of plain weave. There will be one more section of intensive patterning to match the beginning before I finish.

I love sailing along through the plain-weave sections and I finally managed to do something I have been meaning to do all along, that is, make a short video of myself weaving a plain-weave section.

I stopped myself just in time before I could finish one of the last plain-weave sections on this piece and took a short video.

In the fuzzy screen shot at left, you will see that my cross sticks have caught up with my coil rod. When that happens it’s a message to me to unroll more unwoven warp from the far beam, roll the coil rod away, shift the cross sticks and heddles further away from the weaving line and continue. I did all that after filming. So it is a slightly cramped scene you will be seeing. Mind you, this is exactly how I will be forced to weave when I finally get to the end of the warp. The amount of working space I have will be greatly reduced. There is a lot of extra wood clacking sound just because everything is so close together.

The black and white mess of string on the far beam are the loops I tied around all the individual warp sections as they came off the warping board. They serve no purpose there. I just haven’t bothered to cut them off.

It is kind of amusing and interesting to watch video of myself weaving. I do some things so automatically and unconsciously…like the one-handed shuttle twirl that I do a couple of times at the start to release some thread from the shuttle. I had no idea I did that! And I think it’s funny how my strumming stick seems to be glued to my hand. I never put it down! It’s like a handy, extra pointy finger.

I hope the video shows you a little about some of the possible movements I use to operate the loom and open those two basic sheds. Different sizes and textures of thread and yarn will behave in very different ways and I modify my moves accordingly. You can learn much more about these moves and set-ups and the way I use them to operate my loom in my video Operating a Backstrap Loom. It’s on dvd or available for lifetime streaming on Taproot Video.

I have to give a million thanks to everyone who has bought my new pattern book so far and especially those who have sent me so much wonderful positive feedback. It’s heart-warming seeing it go out to so many places around the world like Taiwan, Slovenia and Israel. I feel that this new book completes a set. It is the natural companion to the instructional book, below left, that I published last September….

Here are some of the looms that I used to weave the samples and that other weavers have used to learn the technique and weave the patterns…

The wooden rigid heddle is a sweet little one that the folks at Vavstuga gave me when I first visited some years ago. That’s my tiny Ashford Inklette which surprised me by comfortably taking on 72 ends of #3 crochet cotton. I know you won’t be surprised to hear that I favor the backstrap set-up in the lower left picture. And that’s Julie’s Gilmore Mini Wave loom on the right, a loom that seems to be growing rapidly in popularity!

Speaking of the Mini Wave loom, here is Marsha’s project on one in luscious tencel using a pattern from my instructional book, Complementary-warp Pick-up.

I have loads of 8/2 tencel and have only used it once as warp. Marsha’s project reminds me that I must do something with it. The colors are so deep and rich..

Bonnie used a band she wove using another pattern from the instructional book to decorate a bill fold for her husband..

Claire had this fun and original idea to use her bands to secure the comfy pads for her spinning wheel. She made these bands in one of my classes and, yes, those patterns are in ”the book” too!

Kathy packed up looms, sticks and tools to travel and escape the snow for a while and wove these gorgeous pieces. (You know where to find the patterns if you like them :-)). I love this earthy combination of colors. She uses Knitpicks Curio cotton combining some of their colors with some that she dyes herself. I like the Curio cotton because it is 2-ply but I agree that it could do with the addition of some richer colors.

Backstrap Weaving – My New E-book of Patterns!

My new e-book of pattern charts, Complementary-warp Pattern Book, is now available from taprootvideo.com!

This is what has kept me really busy and excited for many months. When I missed out on my trip to Bali last year, I had time on my hands to get down and weave and weave and weave and add to the big basketful of sample bands I had started for this book. Then came the long process of creating the charts and laying out the book…not quite as much fun. I hope you will enjoy the result!

A slight technical hitch and a large case of jitters prevented me from having it online yesterday in time for my Thursday night blog post. Some sleep was lost. But, here it is, just one day late and I am so pleased! 🙂

It’s a book of patterns…one hundred of them!…for beautiful double-faced bands and other larger projects that can be woven using the complementary-warp pick-up technique that I teach in my earlier books. This collection of motifs consists of pebbly-type patterns, the ones that I like to call Andean Pebble Weave.

Weaving pebble patterns using two sets of heddles is just one option.

If you learned the “two-heddle method” in my first book, Andean Pebble Weave or the “picking cross method” in my second and third books, More Adventures with Warp-faced Pick-up Patterns and Complementary-warp Pick-up, you will be able to weave all the patterns in this new book of charts!

Using a temporary picking cross is another option for creating pick-up patterns.

I am proud to say that many of the motifs in this book have been created by my students and weaving friends around the world who have either taken my classes or used my books. I am constantly astounded by what their imaginations have produced and grateful that they have all been more than willing to allow me to include their designs in this book for your own personal use.

Inspired by all of you, I, too, have managed to climb out of my “Andean box’’ and have enjoyed creating some sweet patterns of my own… a collection of playful kitties (a row of which you can see at the bottom of the cover picture), leaves and flowers, sheep and snowflakes, to name a few. The patterns are arranged in themes such as Rivers and Oceans, Garden, and Andean Animals.

I am very grateful to my brother and sister-in-law who not only put up with me sitting on their floor and weaving all day every day for weeks and weeks last year, but also gave me valuable feedback on my new patterns.

Starting the collection of sample bands.

I have included a collection of patterns found on contemporary as well as pre-Columbian South American textiles and, in a few examples of these, I have given my own twist to some classic shapes used in Andean weaving. I give thanks to my weaving teachers in Bolivia who enjoy learning new patterns and using them in their projects just as much as you and I do.

The motifs are charted on the same block-style charts that I use in my other books. For those of you who have used my second book, More Adventures with Warp-faced Pick-up Patterns, in which you learn to use the spotted-style charts, I have included all the patterns on that style of chart in the Appendix. I know that each charting system has its own group of fans and so I have provided both.

Tutorials are included to show you how to plan the layout of your project. You will be able to adjust the charts to any width so that you can combine motifs of various sizes from different themed collections into one project. I am really looking forward to seeing how you combine the various motifs and border patterns in your weaving!

And, most of all, I hope that you feel inspired to create some patterns of your own.

You can find my e-book COMPLEMENTARY-WARP PATTERN BOOK at Taproot Video, the home of all my pattern books and instructional manuals.

By the way, if you would like to weave these patterns but you haven’t learned the pick-up technique yet, I recommend buying my last book, Complementary-warp Pick-up, which has step-by-step instructions and forty-two pattern charts suitable for bands. You will learn all you need to know to be able to enjoy the patterns in my newest book.

INKLE LOOM WEAVERS PLEASE TAKE NOTE:
The patterns in this new book range in size from eight to eighty threads. Some of the wider patterns may not be suitable for inkle looms. Weavers who use inkle looms and who learned the pick-up technique in my last book, Complementary-warp Pick-up, will know that the largest pattern in that book has only twenty threads in each of the open and heddled sheds.

About two-thirds of the patterns in this new pattern book have from eight to forty threads, a quarter have from forty-four to sixty threads and the rest have from sixty-four to eighty threads.

Much will depend on the thread size that you like to use and the size of your inkle loom. To give you an idea, I wove a band with size 3 crochet cotton (24 wraps per inch/2.5cm) with thirty-six threads in each of my heddled and open sheds (pictured above). I feel this is the widest I can comfortably weave using my tiny Ashford Inklette . Of course, I could fit in many more warp ends and weave larger patterns if I used finer thread. The Inklette is a pretty small loom.

I know that a lot of people are using the Gilmore range of Wave looms to weave pick-up patterns. Julie in the Ravelry group often shows pictures of her latest wide projects combining many patterns from my various books. She uses the Mini Wave which she tells me can accommodate up to four inches of woven width and she uses it to combine many patterns from my various books.

After all the editing and proof-reading I am not sure I can look at another red-and-white block chart for a while! I close my eyes and see a blurry scroll of red and white figures! Thanks go to Sharon with all her speedy and accurate help with the charting. Fortunately, my current paisley pattern is charted in pencil on oval cells and will give my eyes a nice change.

I had to leave the silk scarf project aside for some time just as I got over the halfway hump so that I could focus on putting the finishing touches on the e-book. I’ll be happy to get back down on the floor to weave again. I will certainly get a good night’s sleep tonight after a long day of preparing to launch my new Complementary-warp Pattern Book.