Pirtanauha-generator

Suomeksi täällä!

Weaving pirtanauha bands with a backstrap rigid heddle is a traditional Finnish craft. These bands have been used as belts, apron ties and sock garters. Weaving a simple band is easy and fun. You only need a rigid heddle, a shuttle and yarn, preferably tightly wound cotton or wool. When weaving, one end of the “loom” is tied to something like a door handle and the other end to your belt. The weaving is done tightly so that the weft yarn is not visible in the finished band. That way the pattern is produced by the warp only.

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This generator allows you to try how different order of colours on the heddle changes the look of the final band. As the bands tend to be symmetrical, the dropdown menu contains only half of the warp yarns, the middle yarn being on the top. The table below assumes that there is a slit in the middle of the rigid heddle but you can also use a heddle that has a hole in the middle. In the final band the holes form one “row” of stitches and the slits another. The best way to understand this is to try out creating a patteern yourself! (Warning! The generator is not designed for mobile devices but people have managed to use it when the device is turned horizontal.)

When you want to try out weaving a band, I can recommend these Youtube videos that I used to teach myself this technique:

How to measure and cut the warp yarns using chair legs. Note the way the yarn is criss-crossed between the chair legs to keep the strands in order!

How to handle the shuttle and the weft yarn and how to weave.