By Betty Paepke
This week's Inkle Loom Challenge project comes from our shipping clerk Betty Paepke. The drape of the resulting fabric is luxurious.
Betty shares her process below:
The pattern for this trim comes from The Weaver's Inkle Pattern Directory, page 96 - Monk's Belt - Alternating Blocks 1. The inspiration for this project came from a jacket fabric I've envisioned in Boulevard weave, inspired by a Boulder Handweaver's Guild juried show, entitled "Ice". My color palette would reflect glacial colors of indigo, turquoise, blue, aqua, grey, and pink.
For this challenge, I returned to the "Ice" theme for a band that would trim my imagined jacket fabric and would echo the Boulevard weave structure of the jacket fabric.
I used 10/2 bamboo which gives this band a silky sheen and texture. The background is a solid blue and the pattern threads are a painted warp I painted with fiber reactive dyes. Though I find this band lovely, both the painted warp colors and the background color ended up being more pale than I anticipated. I will try for darker, richer colors for my final project. That said, I find the resulting trim interesting and this sample has allowed me to get a visual feel for the trim I would like to use for the jacket. Although I did not deviate from the 2 block vs 3 block form of the weave, the pattern thread blocks could be manipulated to allow 1, 2 or 3 blocks of color. The placement of those blocks would be another pattern element.
