I took myself off to Ballarat for a solo writing retreat last week. It was a nice to not have to restrict myself to a carry on bag and handbag. That meant, of course, that I spent the week before imagining myself packing an unfeasible amount of craft stuff to do in the evenings.

Fortunately, when it came to packing common sense did prevail, and I decided to take a long-neglected inkle band, some cotton and band weaving reeds, a small embroidery kit and some card-making supplies. Though I thought I’d gravitate toward making more cards first, instead I gravitated toward weaving.

I finished the band on the small reed and completed another on a larger one:

Then I was ready to try something more challenging. I decided to try runic weaving. The instructions in the Weavers Inkle Pattern Directory assume you’re using an inkle loom and have some warp sticks on hand. I just fiddled about until I worked out how to do it using the backstrap method.

It woke the itch to weave. And a little end-of-year present arrived unexpectedly early this week, so I’ve got bigger plans fermenting in my head for the weekend.