The designs that are possible in just your
basic straight inkle weaving are limitless. The "style" of
the designs is not. In creating inkle designs, you really
only have two "rows" of design. The two rows repeat
themselves. The finished design is row1, row2, row1, row2,
row1, row2,...
I have created graph paper that is specially designed for
inkle weaving. For every row on the graph paper, there are
three columns. The reason for this is that, in order to weave
a square on an inkle strip, it takes three threads of warp
for every pass of weft. The warp passes over and under the
weft while the weft remains straight. So, the warp has to
travel half the circumference of the weft (which is 1/2 of
PI times the diameter) but also has to travel an additional
distance because the weft threads are not close enough to
be actually touching each other (more like traveling half
of an oval instead of half of a circle). Feel free to do
the math <grin>. This ratio works out to approximately 3:1
and is changed when you use a weft that has a diameter different
from the warp. With all that in mind, you can now create
your inkle designs. Remember to repeat every two rows. For
straight/plain inkle weaving, there can be no variation from
that.
To write out an inkle design in the notation that is popular
for inkle weaving, it would look like the following:
O WWWBBBWWWBBBWWWBBBWWWBBBWWW 27
H WWWWWWBBBWWWBBBWWWBBBWWWWWW 27
H = Heddle (warp through a heddle)
O = Open (warp NOT through a heddle)
W = White warp thread
B = Black warp thread
Total # of threads ==> 54
The above would result in a black and white check design
with white edges using 27 heddles and a total of 54 warp
wraps. The "O" at the left side of the top row
indicates the threads that are wrapped through the "Open" areas.
These are the threads that do not pass through heddles and
are the ones that will be moved up and down to create sheds.
The "H" at the left side of the bottom row in the
design chart indicates the threads that will pass through "Heddles".
For the warping process, the design chart is read from bottom
to top and left to right. So, using the above design, the
first thread of warp that goes on the loom will pass through
a heddle and is white. The second thread is white and does
not get passed through a heddle. The third is white and goes
through a heddle. And so on. This next chart gives you an
idea of the order of the threads.
O 2468 ...
H 1357 ...
It seems a bit confusing at first but just takes working
one project to get the hang of it. This is the way the previous
notation would look on graph paper:
and this is how it would look as a finished band:
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