Sheep In The Daisies

Day 53: I can't help it. I love sheep, and couldn't resist doing yet another variation on this inkle-woven krokbragd design, this time putting daisies in their field. In hindsight, I wish I'd made the stems a little longer and darker green, but that just means that I have an excuse to make more. Krokbragd on the inkle loom is fun to do, but it does not lend itself to complicated designs. Creating a pattern could be likened to designing a font for a nine-pin printer (remember those?), because although it can be made as wide as you like, the actual pattern must develop over four rows, two of which are identical and alternate. In this case, row one separates the sheep and is also the center and stem of the daisy, then row two creates a leg and a leaf, row three is the sheep's body and face, and also the space between the daisies, followed by row four which is a repeat of row two (i.e., the second leg and leaf). Krokbragd is not reversible. Solid blocks of colour appear on the reverse, visible here where the ribbon turns back on itself. Inkle weaving of any type (krokbragd or otherwise) is limited by the size of the loom. Three yards is the biggest flock I can manage.

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.

Kumihimo At The Next Level

Day 31: I find kumihimo to be a very relaxing craft, so I decided to change it up a bit to add beads to the customary braided cords. This makes the third technique I have used to create the flower pattern shown here: regular beadwork, crochet and now kumihimo. Each method has its own drawbacks and advantages. Beadwork tends to be more rigid, and while that is fine for short sections, it doesn't work well as a full-length necklace. The advantage is that each bead is picked up individually, and doesn't require meticulously accurate stringing of a pattern. Crocheting with a slip-stitch is a lengthy and somewhat tedious process, plus the beads need to be strung in order on the thread prior to starting the work, making a rather cumbersome mass when wound back onto the ball. The advantage to crochet is that it is more flexible while still being reasonably compact. Made in kumihimo, the work is more open, leaving thread visible if the beads are irregular, but the necklace has a nice fluidity and a more obvious spiral. An additional plus is that more beads can be added to the strand as required, and errors in picking are easy to remedy. I started with 120 on each thread and have added more in batches of sixty several times. However, given the construction of kumihimo versus that of crochet, accidental breakage of a strand in the finished product would result in a major disaster in the kumihimo version as opposed to a minor (if annoyingly demanding) repair in crochet.