Band weaving at Sätergläntan

I have once before tried to learn band weaving - with very poor result. So I decided I would give it one more  chance and signed up for a course at Sätergläntan. 

And Sätergläntan always delivers: this was a week of pure joy thanks to our teacher Elisabeth Johansson. Elisabeth led a week starting with braided bands continuing with simple woven bands and then patterned bands on a rigid heddle (with backstrap). The week also included the basics of setting up your warp, different types of yarns for different kinds of bands  and so on. There were also traditional small looms for bandweaving for those who wanted to try that out.

I stuck to the rigid heddle since my main goal was to learn how that worked. And I had a really enjoyable week. Of course my bands do not look perfect, they are uneven and contain mistakes. BUT they were great fun to make.

At the end of the week I also learned how to make/weave a napped edging (kavelfrans in Swedish) often used on traditional mittens. This will be useful for decorating knitted mittens in the old traditional way.

We also got to see some old woven bands. Below are some bands from a private collection. They are incredibly detailed (most of them are ca 20 mm wide) and use very complicated patterns.

Bonus: this was my view out the window while weaving: