The combination of Garden Bathing — sitting in the backyard surrounded by greenery and the rustle of tomato, eggplant, pepper, lavendar and sage leaves — while reclining in the lawn chair with an inkle loom is unrivaled. The experience, enhanced by the rhythmic actions of snugging the weft, lifting the heddles and passing the shuttle through to the other side of the inkle loom are topped off with occasional sips of homebrewed Jun (like kombucha but using green tea and honey).

The recently acquired inkle loom makes weaving easy and a joy. About 8 years ago, I built an inkle loom with the idea of gifting it to my then young neice, who enjoyed learning new crafts. But a series of events prevented that from happening. I’d truncated the loom to make it more portable and the weaving area was too short making it difficult to sustain rhythmic weaving. So that loom was disassembled and the wood repurposed.

These colors were chosen to reflect the pentas and nasturtiums in the garden.

When I decided now was the time to learn inkle weaving — ostensibly to create a new mandolin strap among other things — rather than spend the time, money on wood and energy to make a loom anew, I ordered a Schacht’s inkle loom. For the effort it saved me, the Schacht loom is a good deal, arrived quickly (sooner than I could have made it) and wonderfully easy to use. I like it much better than the style I had made.

With the addition of Annie MacHale’s book “In Celebration of Plain Weave: Color and Design Inspiration for Inkle Weavers” I have been exploring making bookmarks, hat bands and mug rugs so far. The online resources Annie gives in her book are fun, easy and great to get you figuring out original patterns to weave. So far I am doing plain weave and love the fun of exploring with colors.

Best to use yarn that is same width throughout a project, as I learned with this set up.

The loom fits comfortably in my lap when my feet are up on the outdoor lounge chair or the indoor Lazy Girl. By June 8, 2024, the humidity makes the 94F feel like 104F outside, so admittedly there is a time to leave the garden for the indoors and air conditioning.

Most of my colors have been fun to figure out and Annie recommends referring to color patterns around you. In my case that’s the garden right now. The pentas, nasturtiums and tomatoes influence my use of reds and greens. I’m awaiting the arrival of some pinks, yellows and purple yarn (inspired by eggplant flowers and the fruit itself) from Creative Yarn Source, recommended by Annie.

I’m using this blog as a way to chronicle what I am up to creatively and it has been a few years since I’ve wanted to try weaving. Now is the time.

Mug Rug in orange, teal, white Key fob Bookmarks