So my mother bought me an inkle loom a few weeks ago, just as we were going into lockdown, with a hope that I would miraculously produce a Guanabana-style belt just like the ones she’d seen in Toast (bougie baby). She is an avid and talented knitter and yet, although I’ve done macrame and crochet in the past, I wouldn’t actually describe myself as someone who is particularly crafty; what I would describe myself as though is incredibly restless (a symptom of my generation) and so I find value in these practices that keep my hands busy and away from my phone.  I shrugged it all off, assuring her not to hold her breath as it would probably take me weeks to do; I was reluctant about how complicated the warping/weaving process seemed and told her that I wanted to finish my crochet projects before starting anything new (again, a generational malaise that I can never complete a single project before starting 10000 more). I was, at the time, trying to finish a granny square blanket which was honestly one of the first things I ever started crocheting, but I found it so tedious and had never been able to finish it. Lockdown gave me the perfect excuse to focus and I did manage to finish it - with a huge amount of self-control (a new friend to me?) - but my partner’s little sister who very sweetly messaged me saying she had just taken up crochet, inspired by a crochet bag I made her for Christmas, sent me pictures of her amazing, professional looking projects (tops, bags, blankets, pretty much everything and anything), and I felt a little blow to my pride which, paired with the tedious blanket marathon, left me pretty reluctant to do any more crochet. I’m, ahem, now social distancing from crochet and so suddenly found I had a lot more time on my hands and needed a new hobby.

My mum, ever asking me if I’d set up the inkle loom yet, finally pressured me to do so and, while I hate to admit that she has done me a huge favour and also, of course, that she knows exactly what is best for me, I have since spent the last 3 weeks glued to the loom making inkle bands! It’s been so enjoyable and more-so therapeutic. I would say ‘like most people’, but it’s hard to know what everyone is going through, but like a lot of you, I lost my job due to COVID, and my experience in academia over the last few months has made me question my career options once this is all over. I’ve found weaving has really provided me with the head space to think about everything and nothing, and the process has been rewarding mentally but also in the physical output of the bands! 

I got 2 books to get me going, Susan Foulkes‘ Weaving Patterned Bands, and Anne Dixon’s The Weaver’s Inkle Pattern Directory: 400 Warp-Faced Weaves. I’m really awful at following instructions, though, and learn so much quicker by just doing and using my intuition. I couldn’t understand any of the pattern charts and honestly, even when I look at a page full of writing that I know will explain it to me, I can’t be bothered to read it (awful, no hate pls). It’s the same with cooking and my partner hates me for it - very haphazard! I did watch a few Youtube tutorials, but I really found that warping the loom (which is fairly straight forward) and then just going for it, picking up different strands, etc. has taught me so much about the way the process works. You can find loads of resources online for inkle, too! For me, the most useful was A Spinner Weaver, who posts very simple plain weave warp patterns and also loads of pictures of her weaves and what you can do to them. Some of the pictures and uses for the bands made me laugh, including a ‘powder horn strap’, a ‘baldric’ (a sword belt-thing), many Renaissance or Medieval faire costume ideas, and loads of different sashes - so stay tuned for my Celtic style transformation. So far, although I’ve made quite a few bands, I’ve only fashioned a few of them into something ‘of use’ - two dog collars and lead using hardware from old ones (don’t judge my sewing in the pics - I’ll get there!!!). My mum is also really inspired by Kate Davies, who knits and also recently got into inkle weaving, and I really appreciate what she said in a blog post from Feb titled, on the uses of handwoven tapes and bands, in response to people asking her what they were for, “This [question] interests me because, as someone with a bit of knowledge about eighteenth / nineteenth-century dress and textiles, I’m aware that just a century ago, few of us would have asked that question, because narrow woven bands had so many different household uses.” What I did find useful from the books were the beautiful pictures of traditional Swedish, Baltic and Eastern European band weaving. The Swedish bands were particularly significant, and took me back to my trip to Sweden with my partner to visit his family last Summer. 

I used a selection of different cotton and wool weights. I bought all the cotton from The Handweavers Studio, and every time I’ve ordered over the COVID lockdown I’ve received the order within 2/3 days - so shout out to them! Luckily, because my mum knits so much, there are loads of leftover skeins and straggles to use, which are especially useful for the pattern/pick-up areas which look better when done with a thicker strand than the border areas!

Finally, I’ve really loved dipping into a part of feminist history through the physical practice of weaving. I am a total amateur to doing it myself, but my academic work has been heavily influenced by feminist practice, praxis, embodied methodologies and Marxist feminist approaches to labour, and I can appreciate the position of weaving in feminism. More-so, the technofeminist in me is frothing about connecting (baby steps) with the legacy of Ada Lovelace - as so wonderfully brought to my attention by Sadie Plant - and the nuanced relationship between computers, weaving and coding! Stay tuned for more of this, though, as I have a few posts lined up about techno-feminism and weaving more specifically.

Cya