Tape loom weaving and how to get started with it - fabric lace swatch

Buy a man a scallop lace and he'll have a nice fabric belt. Buy him our tape loom and he'll have a belt, handles on all his bags, hems on his clothes...

Weaving lanyard have accompanied us throughout history and one of the famous surviving ones adorns an outfit from a grave in Skjoldehamn, Norway, which belonged to a member of the Sami tribe. But you can use them now, too, to decorate clothes and hats, bookmarks and bag straps. And I'm sure you can think of plenty of other things where you could put a handmade ribbon.

How to do it?

First you need to think about the pattern and colours. Although something will always come up, less is more and 2 -3 colours are usually the optimum. In the attached pictures you will see the resulting patterns, you can adjust the colours to suit yourself. In one row the threads are in solid round holes, in the other row the order of coloured threads in vertical holes. In the cube to the side is the weft colour, contrasting or subtle.

Add at least 50 cm to the desired final length + add the material for the ends, if they will be somehow braided, for example in braids, etc.

As a result, it is usually 3 metres of yarn for approx. 2 metres of fabric 

x

the number of positions occupied in the plate

You will also need enough yarn for the weft. This will be wound onto the skein and if you need to adjust it during weaving, make a small knot and try to tuck it into the product a little.

Pull the threads into a strike - the fixed part of the warp into the holes, the moving row into the vertical cross-sections and tie at one end. This is usually great to tie at home to a doorknob, window handle, chair... You can tie the other end around your body. Of course, as the product gets bigger, kitchen plastic food clips work quite well :-D

And now you keep pulling the weft thread left and right in the same way, nicely edging the wooden shuttle towards you to keep the pattern tight and even. As you do this, you periodically pull the threads up and down in a strike, crossing the threads to create just the pattern that the weft thread provides.

REMEMBER TO KEEP THE THREAD STILL PRESSED and hand tighten the edges to keep the pattern straight and not scrunched up.

Tip: If you're not confident and feel sorry for the material, cut only short pieces of thread for the first string. But trust that however bumpy the ribbon is, it's still a handmade amazing scallop. YOUR scallop!

Also especially for vintage craft lovers, we recommend making a nice beginner's pack that includes both a comb strike and a weaving bobbin, as well as carriage plates and a lucet fork. In such a kit, hopefully still with the naalbinding needle, you are able to master the textile medieval craft in all its basics. I also offer the necessary authentic forged sharp scissors and horsetail, which I can make to order in terms of weight and material as well as decoration. Everything you need can be found in the SEWING, WEAVING, NAALBINDING section.

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I hold the certificate Zápraží - Original Product - which supports craftsmen in the region southeast of Prague. It means that everything was made by hand here, in the heart of Bohemia.

I also received the Master of Crafts of the Central Bohemia Region award - it honours craftsmen for their long-lasting endurance in a craft that is revived and popularised at home and in the world.