Heddles for Inkle Weaving

I recommend using Texsolv heddles rather than making your own to ensure a clean, even shed. The Ashford table loom heddle (green ties) and the Louet Jane and Magic heddles (black ties) both work great. For some styles of inkle weaving where you need to differentiate between pattern threads and background threads, I find it’s best to use one length for my pattern threads and the other for the background. If you’re just starting out, though, I recommend doing a plain weave band like Inkle Woven Chains—the pattern included here—using heddles that are all the same length; either of the suggested lengths will work wonderfully.

As for the number of heddles to purchase, it really depends on the width of bands you intend to make, because the number of heddles is half the total number of ends in the band rounded up to the nearest whole number. For example, Inkle Woven Chains has 41 ends, so you need 21 heddles. For reference, woven in 8/4 cotton Inkle Woven Chains is about 1” wide. When I’m weaving headbands or hair ribbons, I typically use 8/4 cotton and a pattern that’s 41- 47 thread wide. I tend to make my belts wide, though, so with 8/4 cotton, I opt for something between 99 and 121 ends. You’ll typically have an odd number of ends, because your first and last ends should either both be heddled or both be unheddled. I prefer to have them both heddled because it produces cleaner edges.

On the LoftyGrand, you can also experiment with small backstrap weaving heddles. These come in acrylic, plastic, metal and wooden varieties and are sometimes called rigid heddles, ribbon heddles, or band weaving heddles. Unlike a heddle for a rigid heddle loom, these heddles are typically sized by either the total number of slots on the heddle or—in versions designed for pick up weaving—by the number of pattern threads. For example, the picture to the left shows Stoorstalka’s Sunna 5 heddle, which is the perfect size on the LoftyGrand at about 5.125” wide (their basic 31 heddle is smaller and may also work). However, it did not weave comfortably on the LoftyBaby Grand because at about 5.125” tall it wasn’t possible to move the heddle enough to get a good shed on the smaller loom. More recently, I’ve also seen people using single sections of a varident reed (intended for rigid heddle looms and sized by the number of slots and holes per inch), which would also work nicely on a LoftyBand Loom. Please keep in mind that if you intend to use a backstrap heddle or a section of a rigid heddle you will need to cut all of the warp ends in order to thread the heddle, so you’ll have to wind the warp separately and leave room to tie knots similar to tablet weaving. Although it’s certainly doable, I didn’t find that it made weaving any faster and the set up took more time than weaving with the texsolv heddles.

Stoorstalka’s Sunna 5