Ram's Horn Belt

Sorry for the absence from the blog these past few months. Since having a second baby back in August I've been struggling to find the right balance between keeping house well, serving others, and selling my fiber arts, all the while loving my husband and daughters. It's a difficult balance and this blog is low on my list of priorities. That said, I'm pretty excited to have a couple new things to post here! I've been very busy with special orders, but in between those I managed to weave a pretty cool new belt for my husband.

There is a traditional Turkish pattern that is very popular in card weaving called "Ram's Horn." It is really cool, because it features two colors spiraling around each other, which is a kind of tricky thing to pull off. It requires weaving with two packs of cards, sometimes turning them in the same direction and sometimes in opposite directions. My first attempt at weaving this pattern didn't go so well:

Frustrated, I set the loom aside and asked for help on a Ravelry forum. One lady very kindly gave me the contact information of a friend who is a tablet weaving instructor. Through an e-mail correspondence, the instructor helped me figure out what I was doing wrong. It took several tries and many hours, but I finally got the pattern to turn out right. I tiredly raised my fists and cheered. Quietly. Because it was nap time.

Now it is all finished, except for some end reinforcement and the metal tip that I still need to buy to help it slide through the buckle properly. That hasn't stopped Collin from wearing it the last three days though. He likes it, and I like it, and that makes me very happy.

I am ordering some new belt buckles and tips, so soon I should be able to offer these for custom order. This belt is made with linen yarn, which makes it extremely strong but a little fuzzy. For a smoother look, I could make it in cotton yarn. Suggested Retail: $20.

Guitar Straps

The first time I saw guitar straps woven on an inkle loom I was inspired. Guitar straps are both useful and a perfect place to showcase your unique style. They also are a fairly simple shape that allows for a lot of variety in pattern and material. I wove the following four guitar straps to try out a few different techniques and yarns, and I love them all! Check them out!

This fiery strap is woven from recycled, hand-painted cotton yarn from an old sweater. I dyed it in stripes while it was still knit up in the sweater pieces, then unraveled it and wove this guitar strap. It is lightweight, flexible and smooth, yet still with the strength that comes from a warp-faced weave that you get on an inkle loom.

A more bulky version is this guitar strap woven from t-yarn. That's right, this one is made from recycled t-shirts! Unlike the other straps, I didn't have to dye the yarn to get these vibrant colors - each color came from a different t-shirt.

This close-up lets you see the texture of the woven t-yarn. It's very sturdy, and has a small amount of stretch that makes it comfortable to wear. Like all the other guitar straps, the end tabs are made from a recycled black leather jacket. Only the hardware is new!

This extra-long strap has two very neat features. It was card-woven, so it is a little thicker than the other cotton straps and features in intricate pattern unique to card-weaving. It also has a variegated yarn that was dyed in a rainbow, which makes the pattern shift from red to orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple as your eye travels down the length of the strap. It is made from recycled wool yarns, and is perfect for taller guitarists who need a longer strap.

Finally, my favorite one is woven from hand-dyed recycled purple and green cotton/acrylic blend yarn along with cassette tape. The cassette tape gives the strap a really fun retro feel, as well as an amazing sparkle. I love the effect and am looking forward to using it again in another guitar strap with a different color combination.

(By the way, when I say this one is my favorite, I mean that I couldn't bear to take it off my guitar after we were done taking photos this morning. It's still hiding in my guitar case, and I'm seriously considering weaving another one to sell, just so I can keep this one. It's so cool.)

All the guitar straps are 2 inches wide, and all except the rainbow-patterned one are the standard size of 30-60 inches. The extra-large size gives you another 6 inches, adjusting from 36-66 inches.

Suggested Retail: $30

My New Inkle Loom

I am so excited to finally be able to share these pictures with you! This summer my husband Collin built me a really gorgeous inkle loom so that I can weave straps and bands. Like I mentioned a couple posts ago, straps are one of knitting's weakest points and inkle/card weaving is a perfect complement to knitting. The straps are all tightly woven, strong, and beautiul.

Collin based the design of this loom on one built by British woodworker Michael Williams. If you were going to buy a loom like this you'd need about $300, and since that wasn't really in our budget (and because Collin likes a challenge and something he can build with his hands), Collin agreed to make me one himself.

Collin used some beautiful hardwood scraps from my Granddad's wood shop: cherry for the main crescent shape, and walnut for the base and the inkle shuttles (not pictured here). The dowels are oak and the tensioner and support pieces are hickory. He used walnut wedges to firmly secure the dowels, since they can be under significant strain during weaving.

I'm using this loom for two different but related weaving techniques: inkle weaving (the traditional use for a loom like this) and card weaving, an even older technique which can be done without a loom but works a lot better on one. Both techniques produce very strong warp-faced bands, which means that the only strings that show are the long vertical ones. Card weaving uses a set of square cards to separate the strings, and can produce a huge array of thick, intricately patterned bands.

Inkle weaving, on the other hand, uses string "heddles" to separate the strings, and results in a slightly lighter-weight woven fabric. This is very important when you're weaving with a heavier thread, like t-yarn, or something more delicate like the cassette tape in the guitar strap above.

The shuttle in all these pictures is an old one Collin made for my frame loom. He made me some new inkle shuttles from walnut that have a sharpened edge for beating the strings open, but I haven't been able to get pictures of them yet. Before he finished the inkle shuttle I had to borrow Annie's toy chef knife to do the same job!

In a couple days I hope to be able to show you some finished guitar straps that I've woven on my loom. I also recently bought the hardware to make some dog and cat collars, so watch for some very neat pet collars to show up soon. I can't wait to work more on my new loom and show ya'll the results!