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Inkle Bands: Elevate Your Motifs with Three-Color Pickup

Instructor: Annie MacHale

If you’re familiar with speckled (or Baltic) pick-up, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to add color and complexity to your pattern motifs using the three-color pick-up technique. First, we will look at samples and discuss what makes this different from typical Baltic patterns. You’ll learn the difference between asymmetrical and symmetrical threadings, as well as tips for choosing colors to make your patterns pop. During this class, you will warp your loom and weave motifs using pattern charts supplied by the instructor. Annie will share tips for warping, making heddles, fixing mistakes, starting and stopping, and keeping selvedges straight. She’ll also demonstrate how to temporarily remove and replace a warp, as well as how to cut a project off the loom and handle it when it is complete. If time allows, we will explore a free online tool for creating patterns.

Playing With Color in Inkle Bands

Instructor: Annie MacHale

Dive deeply into color! Explore different approaches to use color effectively in a warp-faced band and learn how to create a good design. In class, you will examine woven samples, discuss pattern elements, consider yarn choices, experiment with color selection tools, and learn to create patterns on paper and with an online tool. Annie will demonstrate how she looks for inspiration from her everyday life and incorporates it into her work. In the afternoon, learn to warp your loom for color experimentation: clasping your warps, adding or subtracting warps, and changing weft color.

Weave Landscapes on the Inkle Loom

Instructor: Annie MacHale

Explore creative ways to use plain weave or simple pickup patterns to evoke scenery and terrain. Experiment with variegated yarns and novelty yarns, clasped warps, knotting, fringes, wrapping, slits, and other unusual techniques to enliven your landscape.

Tablet Weaving Anglo-Saxon Style

Instructor: John Mullarkey

Come learn a tablet weaving technique that hails from Indonesia! Bands created on the island of Sulawesi have beautiful patterning and color interactions. You’ll learn how to weave these bands, as well as how to design your own patterns for them. Sulawesi-style tablet weaving is similar in structure to a double-faced weave, and similar in patterning to diagonal weaves. This technique will expand your horizons of what’s possible with tablet weaving.

Tablet Weaving: 3/1 Twill

Instructor: John Mullarkey

Yes, Virginia, there is twill in tablet weaving. This double-faced weaving technique also produces beautiful twill lines in your bands. Learn a quick circular warping technique, then learn how to weave 3/1 twill patterns. Previous tablet weaving experience is necessary, and concentration is required.

Two-Sided Tablet-Woven Delights

Instructor: John Mullarkey

Have you ever wished you could weave almost any design into a woven band? Or how about weaving a message without pick-up? Double-sided tablet weaving is for you then.

This technique creates a two-color band with almost any figure or letters woven into it. This technique does require focus and concentration to weave however, as we will be following charts to turn individual cards to produce patterns.

Findings and Finishings for Inkle Bands

Instructor: Jennifer B. Williams

You’ve woven a beautiful band—now what? Learn to transform a warp-faced inkle band into a finished, functional, and professional-looking piece. Explore a wide range of finishing techniques and findings and learning how thoughtful choices can elevate a woven band from sample to completed object.

We will discuss finishing band ends, joining and managing selvedges, and adapting bands for different end uses. Students will learn about a variety of findings—where to source them, when to use specific types, and how to attach them securely and attractively. Leave with the skills needed to finish your inkle bands with intention and a professional touch.

Backstrap Rigid Heddle Band Weaving

Instructor: Jennifer B. Williams

The Scandinavian-style rigid heddle makes weaving both simple and joyful. With nothing more than a warped rigid heddle and a cord secured around your waist, you are ready to weave. Working on a backstrap rigid heddle offers a uniquely tranquil experience, one where the weaver is quite literally connected to the loom.

In this workshop, learn how to warp a backstrap rigid heddle loom to weave plain-weave bands, then try your hand at pick-up patterns. By the end of the class, you’ll have the skills and confidence to continue weaving patterned bands independently using this elegant and portable loom.

Aso-Oke: Nigerian Inspired Inkle Bands

Instructor: Jennifer B. Williams

This class is inspired by aso-oke (ah-SHOW-kay), a highly prized warp-faced Nigerian narrow strip cloth known for its rich surface texture and visual complexity. Traditional aso-oke weavers use distinctive warp manipulation techniques to create effects such as supplementary weft inlay floats, lace-like open areas, and elongated warp floats.

This class explores how to adapt these design elements into aso-oke–inspired inkle bands. You will learn to weave with multiple supplementary wefts and practice inlaying pattern wefts onto the surface of an inkle band to add texture, contrast, and emphasis.

We will discuss the cultural significance of aso-oke and examine aso-oke cloth samples. You’ll leave class with a deeper understanding of both the weaving methods and the design possibilities inspired by this tradition, as well as the skills to continue exploring these techniques in your own inkle work.

Breaking all the Rules:
Uzbek Jiyak

Instructor: Stacy Schlutsmeyer

One of the few living tablet weaving traditions in the world is found in Uzbekistan. The tablet woven trim they make, called Jiyak, breaks all the rules of typical tablet weaving. Using cards with only two holes, you will weave cablework designs by rearranging the cards. Jiyak is simple to weave but with produces dramatic effects.

Sulawesi
Basics

Instructor: Stacy Schlutsmeyer

Sulawesi tablet weaving is a flexible and elegant technique that creates crisp diagonal lines on a textured background. Learn how to set up a warp and weave Sulawesi patterns, then discover the mechanics of the structure in order to design your own patterns and troubleshoot problems.

Over the Rainbow:
Tablet Weaving Basics

Instructor: Stacy Schlutsmeyer

Jump-start your understanding of tablet weaving with a rainbow warp that reveals the technique’s mechanics. Learn to set up a warp, weave, read a pattern, and make your own designs in the 4x4 technique. At the end of the day, you will make a new warp to weave at home. The concepts learned in this class will help you comprehend a variety of tablet-weaving techniques.