Which loom for your first band

From the bench · November 2026

The weaves post picked the band: tablet, inkle stripes, or Baltic pickup. The loom is the next decision, and it comes down to three numbers — the band width you want to end with, the warp length the frame can hold, and how the shed opens. None of the three weaves requires a specific loom; all three travel between them. The difference is what the loom makes easy.

The three looms, side by side

	Rigid heddle	Inkle loom	Backstrap
The width	Schacht's Cricket comes in 10″ and 15″, Ashford's SampleIt in 10″ and 16″ — real cloth width, wide bands included	narrow bands, the width of the shed	any width you can tension between your body and a door
The warp ceiling	enough for scarves, not just bands	the warp planner's tables: an Inklette holds about 1.8 m, a full inkle loom 2.8 m	you are the frame — long is possible, short is easier
The shed	the heddle lifts one set, you catch the other — one heddle makes both sheds (the sheds post)	a string heddle on every even end, the odd ends open; two sheds by hand	the same two-shed logic, your chest does the tensioning
The buy	the Cricket ships with an 8-dent reed (Schacht spindle co.), the SampleIt a 7.5-dent (Ashford dealer listings)	peg looms, small and inexpensive	nothing: a stick, a strap, a cord

Which one is yours?

You want bands and only bands, cheap and portable: an inkle loom. The starter stripe draft — 39 ends in five runs, 5/2 cotton — warps on any of them, and the warp planner reports the longest band the frame finishes before you wind a single end (inkle take-up runs 15%).
You want bands now, cloth later: a 10″ rigid heddle. Bands at the left edge, scarves when you get ambitious — the Cricket 10″ is the entry Schacht builds for exactly this range.
You want the cheapest possible first band this week: backstrap. The Baltic pickup draft — 9 pattern threads on 16 rows — is a pickup exercise as much as a loom exercise, and backstrap is how pickup is learned traditionally.
You want to turn cards: tablet weaving needs looms least of all — the cards are the loom, the frame only tensions.

Wind the warp, thread the heddle, and make the first band. — the bench crew