Inkle Weaving Twill Experiments

[u/Oakennoggin]

A collection of my recent test bands, comparing warp-faced vs twill softness and combining wool and cotton yarn.

It's crazy how obvious the mistakes are on one side and not the other

I've been experimenting with twill on my inkle loom since I picked up a mini rigid heddle a while back. I could only make a 2-1 twill with that setup, but I toyed with a few variables.

All together there's:
1. A twill band with wool warp and weft (bottom),
2. A twill band with #10 crochet cotton weft (front and back),
3. A baltic-pickup-style band with purple and green wool and black #10 crochet cotton,
4. A warp-faced band with wool warp and crochet cotton thread
5. A twill band with all crochet cotton (top), and
6. In the third picture, a tan and purple warp-faced band with wool warp and weft.

Some takeaways:

1. I thought the floating warps in the wool twills would make them feel softer than the warp-faced bands, but the twills ended up feeling rougher than warp-faced weaves even on the sides with the floats. The twills were more more drapey, and they felt thinner which makes sense since they're all stretched out.

2. It is hilariously obvious every time I made a mistake on the twill pattern. When I was weaving the twill bands I saw the side where the weft had floats so it looked really consistent, but when I took it off the loom I realized it needed much more dedicated attention.

3. Every one of these bands has wildly uneven edges, I gotta work on that.

4. I really like how the twill pattern looks on the all-wool band (bottom), it's like subtle shifting sand with big ugly tire treads every now and then.

Hope this was neat, please hit me with your tips for straighter edges and how to count to 3 without losing your place.

[u/LavenderHearts69]

I have an inkle loom I built for tablet weaving, and I keep telling myself I'm going to learn to use it for inkle weaving. Cool stuff like this really reiterates that I need to learn!