Inkle pyramid people

I joined Facebook when I started my business. I did it for the interest groups, not because I'm particularly social. One interest group I joined was for weaving on an inkle loom. Some of the members posted photos of little people made from strips of inkle woven cloth. One of those posts referenced an article in the November/December 199 issue of “Handwoven” magazine. The author of that article, Karla Taylor, originated the idea of making the people. I decided to see if I had the issue of the magazine.

I rummaged through my stash of “Handwoven” magazine issues. I had the issue! I found all her instructions for what she called “inklings” (because they were people made on an inkle loom). Karla Taylor also referenced an earlier article by Carol Strickler in the September/October 1985 issue of “Handwoven”. I searched for that issue, but I didn’t happen to have it. Oh well. Carol gave instructions for a tetrahedron, rather than the people. While similar, I’m sure they weren’t quite the same.

I decided to make a set of people following the instructions. In fact, I decided that it would be a nativity scene. In addition to some yarns I had laying around, I bought some #3 crochet cotton yarn on spools, and some #5 Perl cotton skeins in a package. I also realized later that some of what I purchased was #5 acrylic yarn, but decided to use it anyway

I started with the angel. I learned, or relearned, the lesson of keeping tension the same across the warp, and using fibers with a similar amount of stretch. Fortunately the angel turned out just fine. I was able sew it up just fine

Other inkle warps followed. Joseph would have a red and orange warp. The shepherds would be made from the green acrylic yarn. The wise men would be quite multicolored. Mary would have a lot of blue in her clothing

I had planned on using whatever I had left over for Baby Jesus. The fabric turned out just fine, however, my focus "group" (Wood), suggested I make him a bit smaller. So I'm rewarding the loo with a finer white cotton yarn. I decided to add some gold thread I had on hand. Since it was made for sewing, it was quite a bit finer than the white yarn I would be using. I warped several gold threads together to make the equivalent of one white yarn. That should give a nice band. I'll also use a light yellow #5 cotton yarn for some bands as well.

The first time I tried making one of these people I did it using cotton sewing fabric. I had to experiment what size I should make the face. I got that sorted out fairly quickly. After I wove most of the inkle strips I cut a bunch of fabric for the faces. I counted how many people I was planning on making, and sewed enough faces to go with them. Now I just need to do a lot of hand sewing to assemble all the people.