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Monday, January 20, 2014

Simple Pickups - Dots and Dashes

When inkle weavers see the Celtic knot designs and the lovely Sami patterns, they are often temped to jump right into the deep end by doing these first. My approach has always been to move into something gradually and I wove for years before attempting the pickup patterns. And although I really enjoy the more complex patterns, there are a lot of things which you can do with super simple pickups and get interesting results.
Here are a couple of recent examples in which I picked single threads here and there. I'm really happy with these.


In this pattern, there is a row of three threads in the center, one silver, one black and another silver, single spots of color if woven in plain weave. I alternately picked the two silver and the one black as I went along.
It turned out much more interesting than if I'd woven it in plain weave. Simple. Nice.


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In this one, I've put a single spot of yellow by itself and then picked it up only every third row.


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In each of the following designs, I've pickup up some pairs of threads.







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Only slightly more complex, this pattern has in it's center short bars of alternating colors in the center, 5 gold in one row, and 6 maroon in the next. By picking pairs of threads first right, then left, it gives the look of interlocking SS's or a Greek Key pattern.



For detailed instructions on weaving this pattern, look here:
http://aspinnerweaver.blogspot.com/2014/02/greek-key-pickup-tutorial.html

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting these! I have done some inkle weaving and a lot of simple pickups (no celtic knots for me) but it is really nice to see some "inspiration" photos. I especially like the "greek key" - totally easy to figure out now that I have seen it.

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    1. Great, Becka! Glad to provide Inspiration! If you do something with the 'greek key' I'd like to see photos!

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