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Monk's belt weaving
I've been experimenting with a technique called 'monks belt' weaving.
It's an adaptation for an inkle loom (which is what I have) from another type of loom (a 'four shaft' loom, if you really want to know). I didn't invent the adaptation, I got it from an inkle weaving book)
The catch, as it turns out, is that you can do it, but you can't do it easily.
It's not a natural fit on an inkle loom and involves more effort than it really deserves.
The results look bold and dramatic with strong contrast, but...
Here's what I made for user Pensnest. I used a grey background yarn and a bright, garish two colour acrylic double knitting yarn that my daughter in law passed on to me.
I'll try and explain the route of the problem. Most patterns woven on an inkle loom take advantage of the background pattern caused by the heddle on every other thread. It's dead easy to have all the odd warp threads picked out, or all the even ones. If you have odd and even yarns of different colours, then you would get a natural checkerboard pattern as the odds and evens go up and down on alternating rows.
Normally, you only need to pick a few threads out of that sequence to get a wide variety of patterns.
With monk's belt patterns, you have to manipulate half the threads on every pick (every pass of the shuttle).
It's a lot of work.
Plus, the long floats (you can see them in the photo) mean that the end result (if you're using relatively thick yarn) comes out much thicker than a normal inkle loom weave would. So, unless you're using much thinner thread, you have something that takes a lot of work to do, that's also too thick for some uses, and also more likely to snag on things.
But the results can still look good.
I wove an extra bit with the left over yarn, just to try another monk's belt pattern, but I'm not sure what to do with it.
If anyone can use it, it's yours in exchange for the usual donation to one of my favourite charities. (It's really too thick to make a good bookmark)
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Many thanks!
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Because they're all heddled, if you just started weaving with no manipulation, you'd get alternating horizontal stripes of plain grey and all pink. That's why there's so much manipulation of the warp required, as you have to add coloured threads to the grey rows and remove them from the coloured rows.
(I'm not sure how much sense this is making...)
The function of the thinner grey threads on each side of the pattern threads is to 'push up' the pattern thread and make it more visible.
It took me a while to get my head round it.
The grey threads, when visualised without the pattern threads, weave 'tabby' - a very simple over and under weave - the simplest possible.
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Sometimes, it's nice to be able to weave something short. It allows one to try new patterns without being committed to a metre or so.
Any pref for colours?
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Lovely mixture of pale green, soft greys and a heathered brown. ('heathered' in yarn terms means the brown has subtle colour variations in it). There's a pale sky blue, but that may be too far into the ball to get into a small item.
I could use that ball as a pattern thread against a dark navy blue background, but if you want something fairly subtle, I could experiment with using different parts of the same yarn as pattern/backgound. That way, there will be a pattern there, but the colour of both pattern would change gradually across the band, but probably in different ways to each other.
I think it might give that muted effect you mention, while still having a pattern. (and potentially be rather pretty)
What sort of (roughly) length would be best?
The width is likely to be somewhere between 4-6 cm.
It's very easy to add extra length as a rule. The loom has a minimum length to warp it, so doing 60cm isn't much more work than doing 20cm (unless I pick a really stupid pattern...)
But that might be too long for your little 'rug' so let me know what suits.
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I got a rigid heddle for my birthday, so wanted to try it out!
On my screen, at least, the green is very muted. Probably because the camera on my tablet isn't anything special. The light blue also looks grey in the photo.
Still it should give you an idea of what the yarn is like.
See https://www.ravelry.com/projects/JudithProctor/first-rigid-heddle-project/slideshow?fullscreen=1&start=107647339
So, several options.
This one is only 3cm wide - the rigid heddle only has a fixed number of holes, so that's as wide as it can produce with 4 ply yarn.
The idea of running the colours across and back as pattern/background won't work - that's what the test strip was for. The yarn is intended to produce a fair isle pattern on socks rather than stripes (I was hoping it would stripe more and have a shorter pattern repeat.). I cheated/manipulated quite a bit to get as much stripe on the sample as there was.
So four options.
1. Cut the test strip in two, sew 25cm to 25 cm and make a 6cm wide strip. I can finagle it to get fringe at both ends.
2. Weave a wider strip on the inkle loom and let the colours fall as they will.
3. Use a navy blue background and weave a 'chain link' pattern on it down the centre. Even letting the green/brown colours go random, they harmonise well together and becuase the navy is pretty dark, they'll show up beautifully in contrast.
4. Same as three, but with a mid-brown rather than navy. Both look good, but if you're after a slightly more muted effect, the brown might be better.
Which do you fancy?
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