The Pink Sheep Experiment

Day 105: Although I had already ascertained that it was possible to weave krokbragd on the Glimakra band loom, I wasn't sure how a warp longer than my original sample would behave. To that end, I set up four yards of sheep, a more complex pattern than the flowers in my test piece. There was another foible I hoped to be able to resolve, that being that the lower peg on the back heddle bar prevented two of the three sheds from being opened fully. This had not been a serious issue with the narrow sample, but in the wider band, the interference made it difficult to see whether or not the shed was "clear," i.e., that the shuttle could pass through without picking up threads from the wrong shed. I played around with various solutions for an hour or so, none of which seemed to make any substantial improvement, and then as I leaned back in my chair for a break, the cartoon lightbulb over my head lit up: reverse the heddle bar so that the unused pegs pointed the opposite way! A few seconds later, I had undone the Texsolv cords and had reinstalled the heddle bar backwards. It still rode smoothly in its groove, as if perhaps the loom had been designed to make the reversal possible. As I've said before, there is very little instructional material available for this type of loom, either written or in video, but understanding the mechanics of weaving goes a long way in finding new methods or solutions to problems. The reversed bar solved the issue, and although the second and third sheds still require some manipulation, the actual weaving goes much, much faster than on the inkle loom. In fact, by the time an hour was gone, I had turned out as many sheep as I could have done on the inkle in two or three days, and of course the bonker loom is capable of holding significantly longer warps. Oh yes, you may have noticed that the background for the sheep is pink. I figured if I wound up having to cut the warp off the loom because the experiment failed, I wouldn't shed too many tears over the lost yardage.