Inkle Woven Belt for National Dress - set up

Friday evening I warped my inkle loom. Ah look! There’s another one of those multi-meaning English words: warped! This warped is positive, rather than negative. Negative warped would be to bend something permanently that should not be bent. Here it means to apply “warp” threads to a loom with the positive intention of weaving.

I got out my Ashford inkle loom and put it together. If you live in Finland and want one go to http://www.lankakauppakuje.fi/kauppa/. Hanna will be happy to get one for you. I clamped it on its side to the table top so it wouldn’t move around.

Then I set up my yarn, I put the white mercerized cotton into the empty water pitcher, and the indigo dyed hand-spun wool on the swift. I figured out how threading my inkle loom would be different from threading a traditional rigid heddle (pirtta). Then I began warping the loom.

Set up:


After the first two warp threads are on the loom:


Note the red leashes. They go up from the middle peg, over the white warp thread, and back to the middle peg. This brings the white warp threads to the same level as the lower blue threads, and it will allow me to create the shed (opening between the threads so that I can weave):


All warped but still clamped down:


Finally upright and ready to weave:


I have woven the first few rows but it will be tomorrow before I willingly show you what things are looking like.