Weaving Krokbragd On The Bonker

Day 106: This half-minute video is not meant to be instructional, rather just a demonstration of weaving krokbragd on the Glimakra band loom, lovingly known to myself and friends as the "bonker loom." If you want longer to study the technique, a two-minute version is available on YouTube. However, I will do my best to explain the system so that you can understand what's going on.

When in normal operation, the bonker has two wooden bars each having two projecting pegs which hold the heddles. These bars are attached to the treadles, and a cord runs over a pulley at the top of a stationary middle post. When either treadle is depressed, one bar raises a set of heddles as the other one lowers its set forming, what is known as the "shed" where the two layers of threads separate. These could be called sheds 1 and 2 for the sake of this discussion. Krokbragd is a bit different. It requires three sheds rather than two, and one of the three is repeated twice in the same sequence of four passes of the shuttle. You can think of krokbragd designs as being made with a nine-pin printer. You can only have one of three layers of threads on top at a time, and one layer repeats between the other two, 1-2-1-3, 1-2-1-3 and so on. In order to achieve this on the bonker, one set of threads (the 1s) runs through the heddles on the front pegs. The other two sets of threads are not heddled on the loom itself. They run straight from the warp beam to the cloth beam. By hanging auxiliary heddles over each #2 and each #3 and attaching them in bundles to carabiner handles, they can be pulled DOWN (not up, as they would be on an inkle loom) to separate their respective sheds. However, you need to have room for the threads to separate, and because the righthand set of pegs interfered with dividing them, I had to reverse the bar so that its unused pegs projected out from the back of the loom. I know...that was Greek to a lot (most?) of you, so let's watch the demonstration.

I depress the treadle, raising the #1 threads and pass the shuttle through from front to back and lightly beat the thread into place. I depress the other treadle, lowering the #1 threads. #1 is now the bottom layer. With my left hand, I lift the two upper layers together near the fell line (the point where the new thread will lay). This causes the two layers to separate near the heddles. I insert the band knife between the top and middle layers (remember, the bottom layer is out of service), beat the previous thread into place, pass the shuttle. Then I raise the #1 layer again, beat the last thread into place, pass the shuttle. In the final move, I raise layers #2 and #3 again, separate them by lifting at the fell, insert the band knife between them, beat the previous thread into place, pass the shuttle. And now we're back to the first move in the sequence. There is a definitely rhythm to the action, as you can see. Sometimes a thread gets caught on one adjacent to it and requires a little extra assist to free up, but not nearly as often as happens on the inkle loom.

In conclusion, I'll say that it is a lot easier to weave krokbragd on the band loom than on the inkle, to say nothing of faster. I also make fewer mistakes, so there is very little back-picking to correct errors. And...although this should go without saying...it's just a whole lot of fun.