New Resources for Baltic (Speckled) Pickup Weaving

I got a wonderful new book recently and I just want to keep weaving the patterns in all their variations ignoring all else! One of the book's strong suits is that it gives pattern motifs with lots of variations, 288 of them! The author, Heather Torgenrud, encourages you to mix and match different motifs using them like building blocks to create your own designs. It's really very clever the way she laid it out!

The book's title is:
Pick-Up Bandweaving Designs: 288 Charts for 13 Pattern Ends and Techniques for Arranging Color. 

Click here to read more about it from the Publisher, Schiffer Craft: https://schifferbooks.com/products/pick-up-bandweaving-designs
Priced at only $30 this beautiful hard-bound book is a bargain! If you can't find it at your local yarn shop, you can order it direct from the publisher. 

The patterns all use 13 pattern threads. I like working with this number as it's enough to allow for a fairly interesting and intricate pattern motif, but it's not an overwhelming task to keep track of that many. 

In conversations with the author, I asked if they were all traditional designs. This was her response, "They are my own designs and variations, all very much in a traditional style. I do describe my design process in the book so that people can get an insight into that and hopefully be encouraged to develop their own patterns if they don’t already do so". 

She added, "The charts are all in grayscale so that weavers can imagine them in their own colors, but the second part of the book is filled with color photos of woven samples to illustrate the discussion of color specifically as it applies to this particular pick-up weave." Often, with this kind of pickup, weavers tend to think in terms of using just one background color and one pattern color. She encourages ways to incorporate more either in the background or in the pattern and gives great tips!

I am looking forward to using more of the inspirational charts to build my own designs. I've been weaving some in cotton and some in wool, some with contrasting wefts and some with matching wefts, some with short repeats and some with longer ones. Mixing elements to create my own designs is delightful fun! 

       

If you are new to Baltic (Speckled) Pickup and want to learn from a master, Angela K. Schneider has recently released a great how-to video, Baltic Pick-Up on the Inkle Loom.  As a seasoned teacher, she is very thorough! The downloadable 55-minute video answers all of the questions a new pickup weaver might have including recommended tools and equipment as well as clear step-by-step instructions. 

You can find it here at Long Thread Media: https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/baltic-pick-up-on-the-inkle-loom-video-video-download

For my very basic overview of Baltic (Speckled) pickup, check out these blog posts, parts one and two. There are some older, but very good resources listed there.  https://aspinnerweaver.blogspot.com/2020/04/doing-some-baltic-pickup-and-looking-at.html

Although this technique has many names, it has come to be commonly known in the 2020s as "Baltic".When I learned from books back in the 1980s various authors called it by different names. The one that stuck with me was "Speckled" from Evelyn Neher's book, Inkle.  I agreed with her logic in calling it by the appearance of the plain weave pattern before doing any pickup as in the illustration below. 

The top two rows show the warping chart, and the part below is the drawdown, or how the pattern looks when woven. A simple red diamond design in pickup is shown against the white background. 
Along the left side, same warping chart, is shown in a different format that may be easier for some weavers to work with as there is space in between the blocks. The pattern was drawn with this free online tool, https://www.raktres.net/seizenn/#/inkle

Happy Weaving! 
Annie

Announcing Patreon for ASpinnerWeaver

Since 2008 I have been sharing stories of inspiration and creation here. It has become a well-used resource for bandweavers everywhere. It will remain as such.

Going forward, I will be moving my focus to Patreon where I will create exciting new content as well as a new community for inkle weavers to chat with me about what I am working on.

Won't you join me on this journey as I share my curiosity, enthusiastic discoveries, lessons learned, tips, tutorials, and pattern collections?

There will be content for free members and even more for those who choose to support my work by paying for a subscription. https://www.patreon.com/AnnieMacHale

 

The Book That Was Never Written and What Will Take Its Place

 

For several years I've been saying that I would write a 3rd book. I know that some of you have been waiting. But, it may never come to be. The topic was to be my take on Speckled Pickup. But, other authors have quite adequately covered this technique, more often called "Baltic". In my next post, I'll share two lovely new resources. 

I like to design my own patterns in this technique, many of which don't resemble any traditional motifs. Rather than putting them into a book, they will be published in the future as pattern collections that will be available through my newest creator space, Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/AnnieMacHale            This is a very exciting thing for me as it will allow me to create a community of inkle weavers and share my curiosity, enthusiastic discoveries, lessons learned, tips, tutorials, and patterns. It has chat features! 

Not writing another book feels like a good decision and a big weight off my shoulders. Both of my previous books were on topics that were not covered in depth in other publications and needed to be written. These books have contributed to the knowledge base of bandweavers around the world, and I am immensely glad that I wrote them. I am very grateful to each and every person out there who has purchased one. My apologies if you are disappointed about the decision not to write the third one!

In my first book, I delved into color theory and how to use it in an inkle band. Most of the books that I learned from were written in a time (the 1980's) when books didn't have a lot of color illustrations. None of them deeply explored the possibilities of weaving brilliant bands in plain weave. 

It felt good to share my understanding of color, learned through thousands of experiments on the inkle loom. 

The book includes 200 pattern charts and describes how to use them as a launching point to design endless variations. 

Each pattern includes a link to open it in the free online tool,  the Seizenn Band Weaving Pattern Editor. The result is that each pattern is interactive. You can call it up and edit it to suit your individual tastes, or yarn stash. 

In my second book, I wrote about Three-Color pickup, a delightful variation on Baltic-style pickup. Unknown to most modern weavers, it is an older technique for which pattern books have not been readily available until now. 

Since I knew of no pattern book for this technique, I felt that I needed to write one so that it could be re-discovered and used in modern times. 

Both books are available in spiral-bound paper versions through my Etsy shop here:

https://aspinnerweaver.etsy.com/listing/658320160/inkle-weaving-design-book-by-annie

OR ebooks are available through my Patreon shop here: https://www.patreon.com/anniemachale/shop

Please join me on Patreon where I will be posting regularly. I have so much to share!
As I settle in there, offerings and subscription levels may shift according to what I find to be helpful to most of my followers. https://www.patreon.com/anniemachale

A Conversation with Anne Merrow of Long Thread Media

 "The call of complexity draws some weavers to more shafts, more structures, more hand-manipulated techniques. For Annie MacHale, refining the techniques and celebrating the artistry of very simple bands has been a lifelong fascination. Starting when she first picked up a shuttle and inkle loom in her teens, Annie has worked in wool, cotton, and hemp, creating practical cloth that’s just a few inches wide."

And so begins the lovely article that Anne Merrow of Long Thread Media wrote about our interview. You can now hear the conversation live on the Long Thread Podcast.

https://littlelooms.com/long-thread-podcast-annie-machale