Weave Landscapes on the Inkle Loom
With Annie MacHale
This program is part of Handwork 2026, presented by Craft in America
In this intermediate inkle loom workshop, you will explore creative ways to use color with simple pickup patterns to evoke landscapes.
Experiment with variegated yarns and novelty yarns, clasped warps, knotting, fringes, wrapping, slits, and other unusual techniques to add interest to the piece.
Audience: Students should be proficient at warping and weaving on an inkle loom. Some knowledge of Baltic/Speckled pickup is helpful.
- Skill level Intermediate
- Age appropriate 16+ (minors must have a parent on site)
- Materials fee $15 (Includes handout and some yarns selected especially for creating landscapes)
- Students should bring
- An inkle loom with 30 string or Texsolv heddles to fit it, belt shuttle, sharp scissors, and note-taking materials.
-Landscape images (either paper or digital) for inspiration. Yarns in the colors of your photos, including textured, variegated, or novelty yarns that represent the colors/textures in your image. (Instructor will have some yarns available, but please bring what you have.)
Optional: Pickup stick (a knitting needle or chopstick will do) and a laptop or tablet
Instructor
Annie MacHaleAt the age of seventeen, Annie MacHale first discovered the inkle loom, sparking a lifelong love affair. She built her first loom in 1976 with the help of her dad and a library book. Since then, she’s woven miles of bands, including over 1,200 guitar straps. She loves to play with colors and patterns and the inkle loom provides a very satisfying way to do this.
Annie is known to many through her blog, ASpinnerWeaver.com. The popularity of her patterns shared there led to the 2019 publication of a book, “In Celebration of Plain Weave: Color and Design Inspiration for Inkle Weavers”. This was followed by another book in 2021, “Three-Color Pickup for Inkle Weavers: A Modern Look at an Ancient Baltic-Style Technique,” in which she shares a rare, older Lithuanian technique that has fallen out of use. In her workshops she shares her decades of experience as a weaver working exclusively on inkle looms, her unique insight into working with color, and her discovery of three-color pickup.
