Lambs On A Loom

Day 158: There will be more botany to come, I promise, but today I wanted to share with you a little project I've been doing as an exercise as I try to improve my skill at krokbragd. The sheep are a smaller version of the ones I have shown before as turned krokbragd, and since this is regular krokbragd (as opposed to turned), the execution is a little different. In any event, the motifs can be no more than three threads wide, so creating recognizable designs can be challenging. That said, I have struggled with getting neat selvedges when weaving regular krokbragd, and recently came across some helpful hints in that regard. I also wanted to try this weft-faced weaving technique on a frame loom similar to those many of us played with in primary school, and I find it to be ideally suited to krokbragd. Weaving is done with a long needle, picking up individual warp threads manually. Since each "line" of weaving is actually made in three passes, a single "row" may contain up to three colours. I have found that it is easier to design on the loom itself than to try to graph out a pattern, owing to the unique staggered construction of the krokbragd weave. Also, by incorporating additional wraps around the outer threads once per sequence of three passes, I am now obtaining neater selvedges as well.