Baltic Pickup for Inkle Weavers with Annie MacHale

Students looked at samples and discussed variations on the Baltic-style pickup technique. Students then warped their looms in class. They learned to weave using the finger method of picking and dropping threads out of their normal sequence to create the "floats" on the surface of the band, which in turn create a raised pattern.

At 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. She loves to play with color and pattern and finds the inkle loom a very satisfying way to do this. Annie is known to many through her blog, ASpinnerWeaver.com. The popularity of her patterns shared there has 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” in which she shares a rare, older Lithuanian technique which has fallen out of use.