Krokbragd On An Inkle Loom

Day 124: Eight inches of snow is a wonderful motivator. I polished off both my inkle loom project and the tablet-weaving piece hung over the small rigid heddle, leaving my schedule open for a new challenge: krokbragd on an inkle loom. Like the Monk's Belt, krokbragd is a weft-faced weave when created on a standard loom, but when you translate it to inkle-speak, it has to be turned so that it becomes warp-faced. In other words, the pattern appears as a result of the warp threads riding over the weft rather than vice versa. I've done krokbragd on both my floor loom and the rigid heddle, and although the results were satisfactory, the technique and more specifically, remembering where I'd left off frequently occasioned blue language. However, on the inkle loom, this Scandinavian style of weaving is dead-easy once you've set up the auxiliary heddles.

The quirk to inkling krokbragd is that you need three sheds. An inkle loom normally only provides two: up and down. Patterns like Monk's Belt and South American Pebble Weave can be made by lifting threads up from the lower half of the shed or pushing them down from the upper half, but in krokbragd, this would be too time-consuming and confusing. It is far easier to set up "artificial" sheds beforehand so that the warp can be manipulated with a quick, single hand-motion. In addition to the heddled threads the weaver sets up during warping, two additional sheds need to be created. The first is done by placing additional heddles on the desired threads, drawing them up through the warp in sequence and fastening them all together on a safety pin, stitch holder or short dowel (you might drop threads off a dowel, so be careful while weaving). The second shed is made by picking up alternate threads from those you just heddled, dropping the heddled threads under the pickup stick, while at the same time raising them above the remainder of the warp. Sounds complicated, doesn't it? Believe me, I made quite a few mistakes on the first pass. In the photo above, this shed (#2) is held on a carabiner. Shed #3 consists of the threads held by the blue nylon heddles on the safety pin. Note that both of these sheds are held behind the front top peg on my Ashford inkle loom. If you have a different style inkle loom, you may have a slightly different setup. Now, assuming you have all your ducks (heddles) in a row, you can begin weaving. You'll only need one colour, one shuttle and a cup of coffee or tea. Raise shed #2, make a throw. Lower shed #1, make a throw. Raise shed #3, make a throw. Raise shed #1 again, make a throw. Repeat this sequence of sheds to your heart's content: 2-1-3-1, 2-1-3-1, 2-1-3-1 and you're weaving krokbragd. I've used a cheap knitting worsted for both warp and weft to create the cute little "daisies" in the inset.