Weaving Sideways

Day 76: Lovingly nicknamed the "bonker loom" for the action of beating the weft thread into place, my Glimakra band loom sees possibly more use than any other piece of fiberarts equipment in my house. I use it more often than the floor loom which, by its very nature, holds long-term projects. The bonker is also easy to move around, so if I want to put it out of the way when I need more space, I can do so with ease. It usually stands in the living room, and is seldom without a warp for more than a few days, although what I am ever going to do with all the decorative bands I've created is still open to conjecture. They're just fun to weave. You see, in most weaving, the warp threads run vertically to the weft from the perspective of the weaver seated on the bench. Not so the bonker! The warp goes from right to left, and the shuttle is passed across the narrow width. I think of it as "weaving sideways," a process requires a slightly different skill set than regular weaving. It took me a while to figure out how to keep my tension even from selvedge to selvedge. Patterns are created with "floats," threads which miss out passing under or over a warp thread to remain on the surface of the work. Most of the time, this means lifting the pattern threads with the band knife, although sometimes threads need to be pushed down instead, or in more complicated patterns, some are lifted from the lower shed while others in the upper shed are suppressed on the same throw. This is most easily accomplished by having the necessary threads on string heddles so that they can be pulled down out of the active layer in groups as required. The sequence becomes a mantra: "5, 4-6, 3-7, 4-6, 5, open, 4-6 suppressed, open," and before you know it, six inches of band have developed and it's time to advance the warp again. Eventually, I reel off several yards of finished band, remark "Oh, that's pretty," and then roll it up and put it away. Keeps me off the streets, I guess. I could do worse.