Step 1: Wind a warp for each color. It may be helpful to think of this step as measuring individual lengths of yarn rather than winding a cohesive warp as you would for floor loom weaving. (See pictures on the following page)

• First, use the Warp Yarn Calculationand Warp Paths - Baby Grand Loom or Warp Paths - Grand Loom to determine the path of your warp. You’ll want to choose a warp path that is a 8-10 inches longer than what you need for your band as you will be cutting the yarn and tying knots later. You can trim the excess once the cards have been threaded and tied on or add additional length here for more fringe.

• Begin and end with a slip knot around the starting dowel or optional cup hook to secure the end of the warp.

• When you’ve wound what you’ll need for a single color, first secure the last end of that color and cut the yarn from the cone. Then cut along the starting dowel. For example, wind all 26 ends of Straw if you’re weaving Bowties and Diamonds, then remove the Straw warp from the loom. You will have 26 individual ends rather than a continuous loop as you would have for a traditional weaving warp. For Bowties and Diamonds you will need to wind 26 ends in Straw, 14 ends Teal, and 8 ends Burgundy.

• Chain up the yarn or wind it on bobbins to keep it from getting tangled. If I’ve just wound the last color and I’m going to immediately start separating the bundles, I don’t bother to do a chain at this point.

• Once the warp is wound, separate the chains into 4 end bundles following the vertical columns of the warping guide and either chain them back up or wind them on bobbins. I also find it helpful to lay the bundles out in the order they’ll be threaded.

Step 2: Thread the cards according to the warping guide and tie them onto the loom. This is where most mistakes are made, so go slowly and triple check your work.

Step 2a) Set up: At this point the left side of your loom should be assembled (per the instructions ) and laying flat with the dowels up on a level surface. Make sure the tension assembly, the four corner dowels, the starting dowel, and any other dowels necessary for your warp path are installed. You may find it helpful to use the four optional bases at this point to keep the loom level. You will also need your warp (separated into 4 end bundles in step 1) and your cards. I find it helpful to make sure that all of my cards are stacked and oriented in the same way with side AD at the top of the stack. I also grab a band clamp at this point, especially if I’m weaving with yarn that has low elasticity.

Step 2b) Thread your cards and tie the warp on the loom: Directions given here refer to cards with S and Z tablet tilt/ tablet orientation.

• When threading the cards, rather than pulling the yarn all the way through, only pull the through about six inches of yarn prior to tying on.

• All cards will start with AD (red) on top, CD (yellow) facing towards the loom/ away from the weaver, and AB(blue) close to the weaver.

• While you’re threading the cards, it’s ok if your threads are a little twisted, but they should not be tangled.

• Z tilt cards only: With A and D at the top of the card, thread all ends from the front (lettered side) to back (blank side).

• S tilt cards only: With A and D at the top of the card, thread all ends from back (blank side) to front (lettered side).

• For all cards: Once you have threaded your card, place it on the loom following your chosen warp path with the card face down and tie all 8 ends in a tight square knot near the starting dowel. If you made your warp longer than necessary in order to include fringe, make sure that you have approximately the same amount of yarn on each end so that your fringe will be even.

Step 3: Attach the right side of the loom. This step is mandatory. LoftyBand Looms are not designed to be used as single sided looms.

Step 3: Open the second shed and beat.

Step 4: Repeat Step 2.

Repeat steps 1-4 for the desired length. If you are planning to use a needle to weave the end back, stop here. If you are planning to weave the end back in as you work, you will need 5 additional picks to secure the end.

The first video shows the warping process. The second video shows how to end the warp by tying the first and last end together.

The Lofty Band Loom can be used for both Inkle and Tablet weaving. Most weavers new to band loom weaving start weaving inkle bands, as they are a little simpler to learn.

This site starts with information for assembling and weaving with the Lofty Band Loom, as well as tutorials about how to make inkle and tablet woven bands. In addition, there is a section with more information about material and supply choices, as well as information about diving a bit deeper into inkle and tablet weaving.

To use the site, note that the contents are normally displayed on the left. If you are using a mobile or small screen, the contents are accessed by clicking the little symbol in the upper right that looks like this:

When using the contents, sometimes there are nested documents as indicated by the little arrow displayed on the left. Expand the sections by clicking.

Band looms are used to produce decorative bands of varying widths that are strong and firm. These bands are warp faced, meaning that you see more of the warp yarn (the yarn that is wrapped onto the band loom) and very little of the weft yarn (the yarn that you weave with).

An interesting use of your new Lofty Band Loom is the ability to wind a traditional warp chain.\\

The figure on the left below shows the tension assembly and end peg excluded from the warp path.

The figure on the right side below shows the tension assembly and end peg included in the warp path.

Warping (continued)

The LoftyFiber Band loom is available in two sizes, the Baby Grand and the Grand.

Refer to the next documents for a parts list for the Baby Grand (small) and Grand (large) band looms.

Step 1: Assemble the Left Side of the Loom

When the threaded side is assembled, the Baby Grand should match the following profile shown in Figure 1 and the Grand should match one of the configurations shown in Figure 2. You should not need to use force during assembly. The last piece of the square portion to be placed should always be the one highlighted in yellow below.

Selecting tablets is a lot like selecting a shuttle to use: the tablets that fit perfectly in your hand might not work as well for someone else. Modern tablets are available in a variety of sizes, materials, and number of holes, which leaves a lot of decisions to be made. The easiest decision to start with is the number of holes. The more holes you have, the more complex images you can make, but it is much easier to learn the basics with square, 4 or 5 holed cards (if the fifth hole is in the center), so we’ll start there.

Width is a little harder to decide, because it has a big impact on the weaving experience: the distance from the bottom of one hole to the top of the next determines the height of your shed. For example, the Lacis cards are 2.5” across, but they have an average shed of about 33mm (about 1 5/16”) depending on the thickness of your yarn. For the most part, that’s a reasonable shed for card weaving, however, if you plan on weaving with thick warp yarns or warp yarns that have a lot of halo, you will likely need a wider shed. The Schacht cards are 3.25” across with an average shed of 35mm, which makes them great for thicker yarns.

Another consideration when you’re picking tablets is the durability of the cards and how much tension you put on your warp. I like to have my tablet weaving under a lot of tension to help get a crisp looking design on my finished band.

However, you should never have so much tension on the warp that the cards can’t turn easily, otherwise the paper or cardstock cards (like the Schacht cards) will tear at the holes and laminated cards (like the Lacis cards) can give you papercuts.

Our LoftyFiber tablets are 2.5” square cards. They’re durable enough to flip the card directions without treating the cards delicately like cardboard or laminated tablets (including tablets made from playing cards) require, and we have two thicknesses available. The first set is designed for beginners: they’re a little thicker, which makes them easier to hold and turn when you’re learning the motions. The standard set is thinner--like the other commercially available cards--and they’re designed to fit nicely in your hand even when you’re working on wider bands. However, a lot of beginners use markers to color code the edges of their cards to help keep track of where they are in their patterns. Because of the material our cards are made of, even permanent markers or paint markers may rub off. Instead, we suggest using colored masking tape or electrical tape to mark the edges. We use SoundOriginal colored electrical tape on our class sets for beginners.

For the Grand Loom, there are 5 possible configurations (A, B, C, D, E). Look at the following document that corresponds to the way you configured your Grand loom in assembly for possible warp paths and corresponding warp lengths.

See below for videos for Inkle Weaving.

Band looms are a fun, easy way to weave narrow warp-faced strips. These bands are found in textile traditions all over the world and can be used as belts, hair ribbons, straps, decorative edging on garments, and more!

The Lofty Band Loom can be used for inkle or tablet weaving. Most weavers new to band loom weaving start weaving inkle bands.

Band looms are used to produce decorative bands of varying widths that are strong and firm. These bands are warp faced, meaning that you see more of the warp yarn (the yarn that is wrapped onto the band loom) and very little of the weft yarn (the yarn that you weave with).

To get started, a cotton yarn such as an 8/4 Unmercerized, or a 3/2 Mercerized, is a nice weight to use for your first inkle woven project.

Read below for a little more information on inkle vs. tablet bands, yarn choices for band weaving, and shuttles.

The pattern in this section was designed using Jeff Bigot’s SeiZenn Pattern Editor and was reproduced here with his permission. More information about the editor can be found in Dive Deeper - More Information on Inkle and Tablet Supplies and Techniques.

Yarn Requirements (in order of appearance in the color key and based on a 2 yard warp)

• 16 Yards Amethyst

• 16 Yards Magenta

• 24 Yards Lemon Yellow

• 8 Yards Key Lime 18 Yards Natural

• Approx. 14 Yards Turquoise Blue (weft)

The warp winding guide is equivalent to the top section of the Pattern Preview below. Both show the ends of the warp with the top representing the odd numbered ends (typically heddled) and the bottom representing the even ends (typically unheddled). Depending on the way the pattern was rendered you may not see the version above, which provides plenty of space for checking off the ends as you go.

Inkle weaving is an umbrella term that has come to envelope a lot of different forms of woven bands. The word “inkle” means band and is typically used to describe woven bands in a variety of techniques as well as the looms used to weave them.

The phrase “inkle woven” typically refers to the bands whose structure mimics that of other woven fabrics like Inkle Woven Chains shown below. . They’re made using heddles to create sheds. These heddles are typically either homemade with cotton or commercially produced Texsolv heddles that are intended for multi-shaft looms. but you can also use plastic and wooden heddles (see the Additional Notes and Materials section for more details). Although these bands are simple, Annie MacHale’s book In Celebration of Pain Weave shows how a simple technique can be used to design stunning bands.

n contrast, “tablet woven” and “card woven” are used interchangeably to refer to bands made by turning tablets (also called cards) to open sheds. The result is a series of twisted cords that are held together by the weft. As such, tablet woven bands are typically stronger and thicker than inkle woven bands and can put more tension on the loom. With Tablet weaving, there is a lot of variation possible in techniques—skipping holes when threading, changing the number of cards that turn in which direction, etc. Claudia Woolny offers an extensive guide to tablet weaving techniques in her book Tablets at Work. Here, we’ll be focused on the simplest variation of tablet weaving--what Woolny calls “threaded-in pattern” and Otfried Staudigel refers to as “tablet plain weave”--with all four corner holes threaded and all cards turning together in a twist neutral turning sequence. This form of tablet weaving is one of the more popular, and there are a plethora of recently woven examples available online as well as a collection of free patterns available in addition to Bowties and Diamonds shown below.

on the left (for more information see Appendix III).

A Cautionary Note about Pattern Reading

Whether you’re interested in making inkle woven bands or tablet woven bands, be careful when you’re approaching patterns that are written by a designer you’re unfamiliar with: when it comes to band weaving there is a distinction between inkle woven bands and tablet woven bands, but the standardization ends there. Different authors use different terminology for bands with the same characteristics and vice versa.

With inkle woven bands, pay close attention to the thickness of the yarn used in the suggested materials, as some styles use a thicker pattern yarn with thinner yarn in the background and border, and the ratio of the thickness of pattern to background yarn is often a key element of the design. You may also see a mix of fibers for a desired effect. While you can often make substitutions, also pay attention to the characteristics of the yarn used: while you can easily substitute between mercerized/ pearl cotton, you cannot substitute superwash for non-superwash wool as the latter felts and the former does not.

With card woven bands, weaving is a breeze, but pattern set up can sometimes be ambiguously written. The pattern will usually have threading directions that refer to S or Z, and you will need to decipher from the pattern whether that refers to the tilt of the cards or the twist of the threads. Therein lies the rub: the tilt of the tablets is opposite the twist of the threads, which can lead to what is often referred to as sawblade edges in the design which look jagged and choppy instead of the crisp, smooth edges that are expected. Sometimes you’ll get lucky when you misread a pattern and you’ll be able to just weave the band upside down or turn the band over. Other times you’ll be able to flip the cards and start some cards at a different point-- Ellisif Gydasdottir has a great video explaining how to do this and it’s listed in Appendix III. The majority of the time, though, rethreading the cards is the path of least resistance. The good thing is designers will typically pick one way of writing their patterns and stick with it, and there are a lot of great resources to help you decipher which threading is intended (see Tablet Weaving on a LoftyBand Loom and Appendix III for more information).

Dowel Color Key:

• Required for Warp Path

• Required for Loom Structure

• Required for Heddles

• Removable

Step 1: Untwist the knob on the tension assembly. If your project is still on your loom, hold the other knob firmly and be careful not to let the hollow dowel slide out of place. If you have a tablet woven band in progress on your loom, make sure to secure the tablets with a rubber band before loosening the tension assembly.

Step 2: With the loom lying flat and the left side down, remove the right side of the loom. Start by gently pulling up on each corner creating small separations between the right side of the loom and the dowels. Repeat with the remaining pegs. Once you’ve loosened all of the pegs, lift the right side of the loom off.

Step 3: Disassemble the remaining pieces in the opposite order they were assembled. The first piece to be removed from the square should be the piece highlighted in yellow in the diagrams in the document Assembling the LoftyFiber Band Loom

Tablet Weaving on a LoftyBand Loom

There are a number of ways to wind a warp for tablet woven bands. Due to the number of color changes in the warp, we’ll be taking a look at how to wind a separate warp (using your inkle loom) and then thread the cards.

Tablet woven bands should always have a border of at least one card on each side, which may or may not be shown in the pattern. The border threads are included in the pattern here, and usually have the same threading and will always turn together regardless of what the other tablets are doing. Here, the border cards (1 and 12) are both threaded in the Z direction and will turn with the rest of the cards.

How to use this section:

Tablet Refreshers: Pay special attention to the bold text and the tips boxes throughout for a cliff notes version of the section. You may also want to check out below for a refresher before you begin, especially if you’re having issues with your pattern showing up upside down.

Weaving and Inkle Experienced Tablet Learners: This is a different skill, and a lot of what you know from inkle weaving and weaving on other looms will not apply here. The set up especially may be counterintuitive: there is no cross for counting warp ends and the loom is warped in three phases rather than doing the ends in color order. You may find it helpful to keep your weaving experience in the back of your mind and approach this as a beginner.

Total Beginners: Start here and read the entire Tablet Weaving section before starting to follow the directions. Try not to get too hung up in ; it may even be helpful to skip that section on your first reading and then come back and read it again when you’re ready to start on your band. The steps in this section reference other sections of the Band Camp Handbook, so it may be helpful to mark the Bowties and Diamonds pattern and your warp path so that you can flip to them easily. You may also need to refresh your memory on . It may also be helpful to check out the tips in the section. Following the written description of each step there is a picture walk through that you may find helpful, especially during the set-up phase.

Dowel Color Key:

• Required for Warp Path

• Required for Loom Structure

• Required for Heddles

• Removable

Dowel Color Key:

• Required for Warp Path

• Required for Loom Structure

• Required for Heddles

• Removable

Setting up an inkle loom for the first time can be a daunting task. In general, I recommend setting up your loom without additional fringe for your first few projects. It is also easier to lay the left side of your loom down flat on a table rather than to try setting up the loom while it’s upright.

When I do inkle woven bands, I use Texsolv heddles and heddle the first and last ends of the warp to get clean, an even shed and controlled selvages. In addition to choosing your style of heddles (see Additional Notes and Materials for more information), you can also choose to leave your warp unheddled until you’re done winding or to start and end your warp with unheddled warp ends.

Winding a Warp for an Inkle Woven Band

Step 1: Select your warp path, using or as your guide. The samples of Bowties and Diamonds shown in this booklet were woven on the LoftyBaby Grand using 50” tablet weaving band path found in warp path buide for the Baby Grand and resulted in an average woven length of 30” (not including fringe).

When you’re weaving an inkle woven band, be sure to beat consistently. Unlike other forms of weaving, beating is a sharp, hard motion rather than squish. With yarns that have low elasticity I often beat twice to make sure that my designs come out as crisp as possible.

Dowel Color Key:

• Required for Warp Path

• Required for Loom Structure

• Required for Heddles

Dowel Color Key:

• Required for Warp Path

• Required for Loom Structure

• Required for Heddles

Dowel Color Key:

• Required for Warp Path

• Required for Loom Structure

• Required for Heddles

Selecting Warp Yarns

While bands can be woven out of virtually any material (including wire), they are typically woven with cotton, linen, or wool in a variety of sizes. The ideal warp yarn for inkle weaving has a little elasticity, but not too much. The thickness of the yarn will also have an impact on the width of your band and the crispness of the designs in the finished bands.

The following example shows the same pattern, Bowties and Diamonds, woven with different yarns. Not the width change with the different yarns.

For a beginner I recommend cotton warp yarn because it is easier to tension than linen or wool. When weaving with cotton, it won’t make a difference whether you’re using mercerized or unmercerized yarn (other than mercerized cotton having a sheen to it). An 8/4 cotton has a nice thickness to it for a beginner, however, 10/2 is a more popular size for inkle bands because of how fine it is. On the other hand, if you want a project that will work up quickly, 8/8 is twice as thick as 8/4 (which will come in handy if you decide to do certain types of pick up weaving) and it will give your band additional strength, which lends itself well to making dog leashes.

If you’re working with linen, make sure to leave at least three quarters of a centimeter between the tension assembly and the end of the tension slide while winding the warp, because linen will not stretch to accommodate any slack you have. You will also need to be careful to get all of the ends tensioned evenly and to tie all of your knots firmly. Once you’ve started weaving, a band clamp can be very helpful in keeping slack out of the area where you’re weaving: pull any slack in the warp beyond the first turning point and then attach the clamp above that point. Whether you position the clamp close to the turning point or closer to the end of the warp, you will need to adjust the clamp position as you weave.

If you’re working with wool or wool blends, be careful not to put too much tension as you weave, or the width of your band may be uneven in places. You’ll also want to take care when you’re laundering bands made with wool as they may shrink and/or felt significantly. If you’ll be attaching the band to a garment, be sure to prewash the band before attaching it just as you would prewash any fabric you were using.

You can also experiment with using different yarns in your warp. In the resources in Appendix III, there are some great examples of how using different textures in woven bands can impact the designs you’re weaving.

A Note on Selecting Weft Yarn

When you’re band weaving one of the most important things is the crispness of your designs. There are a few important factors that play into that: how sharp your shuttle is, the way you beat, and your weft yarn.

When it comes to weft, there’s some debate on whether it has to exactly match the outermost warp yarns. I’m of the opinion that it depends on what you’re looking for in your finished band: if you use the same color as the outermost warp ends, then the weft will disappear; if you use a different color, then you’ll see it on the edges of the band. While using the same color weft as the warp is sometimes more practical, Annie MacHale has pictures in the Inkle Weaving Facebook group which show how you can make what looks like a tricolored braid on the edge of your plain weave bands by using two colors on the last two warp ends and a third color in the weft. I’ve also seen variations of the technique where only the last warp end on either side and the weft color are used as an accent. For the sample bands included here, I’ve chosen to use a weft color that is different from the warp, because it allows the weaver to see where the tension is too loose: if you can see the weft through the warp, you need to pull more tightly; if you can’t see the weft at the edge of the pick, you’ve pulled too tight.

Another factor is the thickness of your weft yarn. The weft yarn should generally be the same size as your warp yarn or thinner. If designs in your band are elongated, one thing to try is decreasing your weft size by half: if the warp is 8/4 cotton, try an 8/2 cotton; if your warp is a 14/2 linen, try a 30/2 linen in the weft. If you want to elongate the designs on your band, do the opposite: increase to a weft twice as thick.

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.

To be honest, I typically skip warp calculations all together unless I’m running out of the yarn I’m planning to use or the band I’m planning to weave is particularly long (more than 7 feet) or wide (more than 2.5”), because I typically use the same yarn I have from weaving, so I have more than enough yarn to do a band.

However, if you’re planning a project where you need a band of a particular length, one of the things you’ll need to take into account is how much yarn you’ll need for your warp. Inkle bands are typically warp faced so, you don’t have to worry about take up (the amount of length you lose as you weave) as much as you do with other forms of weaving, so warp calculations are a breeze. If you need your finished band to be a certain length, start with step 1. If the length doesn’t matter, you can skip to step 3.

Step 1: Determine your loom waste. Keep in mind that you will lose some length from your warp as loom waste which is shown in Figure 6 in blue. On an inkle loom, your loom waste depends on your warp path: you’ll lose at least the length between the top dowel closest to you (A) and the first turning point of the warp (B) plus the distance between that same dowel (A) and the point where weaving stops being comfortable (C) (for me that’s about 2 inches from the heddles on the Baby Grand, but it will vary from weaver to weaver). For the warp path pictured, I would plan to lose the length in blue. That’s 4.5” from A to B plus 6” from A to C which gives a minimum of 10.5” loom waste on the path shown. In other words, even though the warp path is 50” the weaving length on the band produced is 39.5” (not including fringe).

Note: On the Lofty Baby Grand the distance from A to B will either be 4.5” or 7.5” depending on whether you use the middle dowel on the top side. On the Lofty Grand the distance from A to B will vary depending on your chosen loom configuration and warp path.

Step 2: Calculate shrinkage (if applicable—really only if you plan to wet finish your band or if it will be laundered as a result of end use). In my experience linen and cotton bands have negligible shrinkage when wet finished. However, wool bands will shrink and possibly felt depending on the breed of sheep the yarn comes from, the twist of the yarn, and how the bands are washed. If the end use of your band will involve washing and your band will be made of a fiber that, like wool or rayon, will typically have a lot of shrinkage you will need to add length here. The best way to figure out the length to add is to weave a short sample band and then calculate as follows:

(1 - (length of wet finished band / length of band after weaving)) * 100 = Pct of Shrinkage

(𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ + 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑚 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒) ∗ 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑠ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑎𝑔𝑒 = 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑎𝑔𝑒

𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ + 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑚 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒 + 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑘𝑎𝑔𝑒 = 𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑚 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑝 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ

For example, if you need trim that is about 60” long, your loom waste will be about 10.5”, you’ve woven and laundered a test band that was 30” off the loom and is 25” after washing, your calculations for the finished band would be like this:

1 - ((25" / 30")*100) = 17% shrinkage

(60" + 10.5") * 1.17 = 82.5" minimum warp length

Step 3: Use a guide string to determine the path closest to your total minimum warp. In general, it’s better if your warp is a little longer than the minimum. Some sample configurations can be found for the Baby Grand and Grand .

When plotting your guide string, be sure to exclude the contrasting-colored dowel if you’re doing an inkle woven band. This dowel will hold the heddles and cannot be included in the warp path. When you’ve selected your path, measure the guide string.

Step 4: Add any additional length and multiply the number of ends of each color by the length of your guide string. For inkle woven bands, you will only need to add length here if you intend to add additional fringe by winding a longer warp and tying knots. However, if you are tablet weaving you will need to add 8-10 inches to account for the length of yarn you will use when you are tying the knots to set up your warp.

If you are weaving the included inkle weaving pattern, Inkle Woven Chains, you will have 5 colors to calculate: Lemon Yellow (12 ends), Magenta (8 ends), Amethyst (8 ends), Key Lime (4 ends), and Natural (9 ends) for a total of 41 ends.

If you are weaving the included tablet weaving pattern, Bowties and Diamonds, you will have to add 8-10 inches and then calculate for each of the 3 colors: Lemon Yellow (26 ends), Turquoise Blue (14 ends), and Magenta (8 ends) for a total of 48 ends.

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.

*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.

The Lofty Band Loom comes with a 3-D printed with a handle. A shuttle is used both hold yarn that is used while weaving (weft) and to press the yarn firmly into the band.

Below are some other shuttles options.

There are two important factors when picking a shuttle: the sharpness of the edge and the feel of the shuttle in your hand. With a sharper edge, you can get crisper, more defined designs on your band. Although you may see it online as a “hack”, I would caution against using a butter knife to beat in combination with a shuttle that has a dull edge (even if you like the way the shuttle fits in your hand), because you don’t want to introduce any unnecessary abrasion into your weaving.

In general, I prefer to weave with a belt shuttle that has a handle, because it’s easier for me to beat with. However, the ideal shuttle for band weaving is at least an inch longer than the width of your project, tapers to a sharp edge on one long edge, and has a groove for yarn to build up in when the shuttle is wound. That being said, be wary of shuttles that are too narrow as they’re harder to get a good grip on. Belt shuttles are generally recommended.

If you’re doing pick up work, I find that using a gehpa or a netting shuttle gives more control over picking up threads. The trade off is that the edges aren’t usually tapered to an edge, so the designs won’t be quite as crisp.

For this step you will need 4 loops of scrap yarn (strong yarn about the same thickness as your weft or thinner) at least two inches longer than the width of your band. Alternatively, you could use a strong fishing line and beat more gently.

Step 1: Open the your next shed and beat loosely.

Step 3: Open the second shed and beat loosely.

Step 4: Repeat step 2, this time leaving the loop of scrap yarn sticking out on the opposite side. Repeat steps 1-4 once more.

Step 5: Open the next shed and beat.

Repeat step 7 until the remainder of the loops are pulled out. Then trim the end close to the band and remove the band from the loom. If you’d like fringe, try to cut as close to any color change knots as possible. Otherwise, just cut close to the edge of the band, but be careful not to cut through the first or last pick of your band.

There are a large variety of turning directions for tablet woven bands as well as a few other things to consider when you’re choosing a pattern. One of them is twist build up: turning the tablets in the same direction for a period of time will cause twist to build up behind the cards. You can neutralize it either by flipping the direction of the cards (so that they face right instead of left or vice versa) or by turning the cards in the other direction (backward instead of forward). In the included pattern, we will be using the latter method. In patterns where the border cards are always turning in one direction I find it easier to flip the cards and continue turning in the same direction.

Another thing to consider is which cards to turn. Some tablet weaving patterns can have elaborate turning directions that are pages long. On these more complex bands, it’s especially important to watch the twist build up. You may also notice the amount of twist on each group of warp ends can differ, which can lead to some warp ends being longer than others. In that case, you’ll want to set your tension by the shorter ends and use a band clip to mediate any unevenness in tension. Bowties and Diamonds is a simple band where the tablets are moved together in a twist neutral pattern.

Also keep in mind that you may see the band bow outward when you change the direction of a large number of cards. If the direction changes happen regularly over short intervals it isn’t very noticeable. In a pattern where the majority of the cards change direction and the direction changes are irregular or infrequent, you can decrease the amount of bowing by pulling the weft a little more snug on that row.

Getting started: Weaving in the end

With tablet weaving it’s normal to see a slight tapering at the beginning of the band where you’re establishing band width. There are two ways to prevent this from being a part of your finished project. One way to avoid it is to weave a header with a different yarn (without weaving the end in) to establish the width of your band, then begin your band as described below. The header is removed when the band is taken off of the loom. A second way is to begin your project as described below and then use a pin to help work the slack back up from the beginning.

A Note on Twist and Tilt

Before we get into the motions of tablet weaving, let’s take a look at what’s happening with the tablets and the relationship between the tablets, the threads, and how they work together to create a band. Tilt versus twist is one of the hardest ideas to wrap your head around in tablet weaving. Unfortunately, it’s also critical for successful tablet weaving. That being said, you don’t have to fully comprehend the concept right now: as long as you can understand the concept enough to follow a pattern you’ll be just fine; weaving a few bands may help things click into place. I find it helpful to keep a cheat sheet like the figure below nearby while I’m warping and threading so that I don’t second guess myself.

Let’s start with the easy part, the part everyone agrees on: if you twist threads together you will see a diagonal that looks like the diagonal on either an

The pattern in this section was designed using Jeff Bigot’s SeiZenn Pattern Editor and was reproduced here with his permission.

Yarn Requirements ( based on a 2 yard warp)

28 Yards Turquoise Blue 53 Yards Lemon Yellow 16 Yards Magenta Approx. 14 Yards Natural (weft)

The pattern in this section was designed using Jeff Bigot’s SeiZenn Pattern Editor and was reproduced here with his permission.

Yarn Requirements ( based on a 2 yard warp)

28 Yards Turquoise Blue 53 Yards Lemon Yellow 16 Yards Magenta Approx. 14 Yards Natural (weft)

Warping Guide

Typically, the warping guide will take one of the two forms below where each vertical column represents a single tablet and each row represents the thread that goes through the hole indicated. For example, card 1—the leftmost card— should have Z threading with straw colored threads in each hole, card two should have Z threading with straw colored threads in the first three holes (A-C) and a burgundy colored thread in the last hole, and so on. To know how many ends you will need of each color, count all the squares of that color in the warping guide.

You may or may not see initial positions and card numbers below the colored section if the initial position is A, and, in general, warping guides are read from left to right. In some patterns you will see the numbers 1-4 in place of A-D to indicate the hole to thread, and the indication may be to the left (shown below) or right of the colored section. You may also see symbols rather than colors in the diagram accompanied by a key. If possible, it’s a good practice to check the warping guide against four consecutive pattern rows that are turned forwards, because it can tell you whether the twist shown refers to the twist of the threads or the tilt of the cards. Check out for more information.

Weaving Directions

There are a number of ways to represent the turning directions of the cards. The figure below shows three of the common ways turning is represented. Graphical representations are typically accompanied by a table or written instructions, such as the one in the figure below, which can offer a lot of clarity. Tablet weaving diagrams and their accompanying tables are usually read from the bottom up and left to right, as they represent what the band will look like as you’re weaving.

Below, shown are three representations of turning diagrams are shown. The first, on the left, shows the twist that results from each turn, which is good indication of what the band will look like woven. The second is very similar to the first, but—rather than showing a full square of color—it only shows the color that should be in the band and the twist that results from each turn. In this version the shaded boxes represent backward turns. The third version combines the ideas behind the first two by overlaying version one with red downward arrows to represent backward turns. All three representations could alternatively be described by the table under the turning diagrams.

This list is far from exhaustive: these are the resources that I’ve encountered on my band weaving journey thus far which I recommend. When I start learning a new craft—rather than taking small bites and chewing thoroughly—I tend to dive in headfirst and then figure out the basics as I go, so some of this material may seem advanced. My best advice to beginners is to go at your own pace and to experiment to find what works for you. There’s a lot you can do with band weaving once you get the hang of it.

Within their categories, resources are listed in alphabetic order. General

Facebook Groups for Learners

In general, I recommend joining the private Facebook groups, because they’re less likely to have spam than in the open groups. Typically, even though they say they’re private, all you have to do is answer a few questions and agree to the group’s rules. The easiest way to find a post is to click on the Media tab of the group’s home page. You can also go to the Members tab and click on a person’s name to view all the posts a person had made within the group.