Judith Proctor's Journal

 I've been experimenting with a technique called 'monks belt' weaving.

It's an adaptation for an inkle loom (which is what I have) from another type of loom (a 'four shaft' loom, if you really want to know).  I didn't invent the adaptation, I got it from an inkle weaving book)

The catch, as it turns out, is that you can do it, but you can't do it easily.

It's not a natural fit on an inkle loom and involves more effort than it really deserves.

The results look bold and dramatic with strong contrast, but...

Here's what I made for user Pensnest.  I used a grey background yarn and a bright, garish two colour acrylic double knitting yarn that my daughter in law passed on to me.

I'll try and explain the route of the problem.  Most patterns woven on an inkle loom take advantage of the background pattern caused by the heddle on every other thread.  It's dead easy to have all the odd warp  threads picked out, or all the even ones. If you have odd and even yarns of different colours, then you would get a natural checkerboard pattern as the odds and evens go up and down on alternating rows.

Normally, you only need to pick a few threads out of that sequence to get a wide variety of patterns.

With monk's belt patterns, you have to manipulate half the threads on every pick (every pass of the shuttle).

It's a lot of work.

Plus, the long floats (you can see them in the photo) mean that the end result (if you're using relatively thick yarn) comes out much thicker than a normal inkle loom weave would.  So, unless you're using much thinner thread, you have something that takes a lot of work to do, that's also too thick for some uses, and also more likely to snag on things.

But the results can still look good.

I wove an extra bit with the left over yarn, just to try another monk's belt pattern, but I'm not sure what to do with it.


If anyone can use it, it's yours in exchange for the usual donation to one of my favourite charities.  (It's really too thick to make a good bookmark)