Other Accessories and Equipment Useful for Band Weaving

A darning needle for weaving in tails.

Locking Band Clamps* are a tool I often find myself reaching for. For beginners, they’re a must have tool, because they help eliminate any areas where you may have tension issues. As you get more experienced, they are really helpful while you’re weaving structures—certain forms of pick up weaving, for example—where the take up isn’t the same across all ends of the warp, which can lead to some warp ends being shorter than others. They’re also helpful if you’re using yarn with low elasticity. There are a lot of different styles of band clamps, but my favorite is just plain old bag sealing clips, which are long flat clips that clip on one edge like a barrette.

Locking Clips*

*Either curved or flat bag sealing clips (pictured left) will work on the LoftyBand Looms, however the more traditional tension locking clips designed for backstrap weaving (pictured right) will not.

Popsicle Sticks are a great way to separate out pieces of a band. For example, if you want to weave bookmarks, you can put a few popsicle sticks between each band to help you know where to cut. I use them when I’m weaving multiple bands on the same warp, learning a new technique (to separate out the areas where I’ve made big mistakes) or when I’m testing different ideas on the same warp.

Warping Dowels, Clamps, or a Warping Board can be useful in a couple different scenarios: (a) you’re doing a tablet woven band with threaded-in pattern, (b) you’re doing an inkle band with additional fringe and want to wind your warp separately, (c) you made a winding mistake and need to add ends into your warp. In all of these cases except the last, you can get around having additional supplies by using your inkle loom as a warping board so long as you keep in mind that you’ll have to reroute your warp when you’re done winding.

Needles and Scissors will come in handy when you’re inkle weaving. I prefer doll making needles, because they’re nice and long and have large eyes, but tapestry or darning needles will work just fine. As for scissors, any pair will do so long as they’re nice and sharp.

Rubber Bands can be useful to secure the tablets while you’re not weaving or need to remove the right side of the loom. If you’re inkle weaving use scrap yarn to secure the heddles instead, and make sure to also secure the cross (the point where one shed crosses the other).

Measuring Tape, Ruler, or an Inch Measuring Gauge (such as the gauges used to determine wraps per inch) are useful to periodically check band width as you weave.

Bobbins are not required, but they can be useful when you’re winding a separate warp as you would for tablet woven bands or to add long fringe on an inkle woven band.

FrayLock is something that I haven’t experimented much with myself, but it comes highly recommended in band weaving groups. It’s used in addition to other finishing techniques to help bind the ends of bands so that they don’t unravel.

A Binder with Graph or Dot Grid Paper is a great way to keep track of the patterns you like and keep notes as you learn. It’s also a great idea to sketch out your patterns with colored pencils (or a pattern editor like SeiZenn) to see if you like the colors together. I find that with band weaving a narrow spaced grid gives you a better idea of how your finished pattern will look. For inkle woven bands, I stick to just the sketch of colors and floats. For tablet woven bands I do a sketch of colors and the angle of the threads in the finished piece and then a second version of the band that has the color coding from the edges of the cards so that I can quickly weave it later. A lot of times when I’m doing either tablet or inkle woven bands I’ll start with the sequence I planned and then “what if..” until I get a series of different patterns, so keeping a binder is a great way to keep track of those ideas in development. I keep tabs in my binder for notes, patterns I want to try, patterns I’ve tried and liked, patterns I tried but don’t want to repeat, and one for blank paper and templates at the end.