Until last night, I would have said that the 1/4" twill tape (of which I have several hundred feet that has been soda-washed and dyed a lovely turquoise) that I purchased in January was a bust. The garlands that I made with it have worked pretty well but have been prone to foldovers. Last night, I decided to see if smaller looplets than I have been using would be less foldover prone with this lightweight twill.
My earlier twill garlands all had 5-7 inch looplets (where the size is the length of the looplet top-string). I decided to see if smaller looplets with the 1/4" twill would be less prone to foldovers. I have wanted a garland with smaller looplets for really windy days; so, I thought I'd give it a go with this particular twill. I quickly whipped up a twill garland with 3" top-string looplets. The bottoms are 6". It worked great. No foldovers. Lots and lots of 3 to 4 inch bubbles were produced.
This looplet size seems ideal for this particular twill. The design was optimized for speedy construction. The garlands' top and bottom are each a single length of the 1/4" twill. I used hot-melt glue and a mini glue-gun to join the bottom and top strings.
There is a 1-inch space between loops. For a 12-loop garland, I measured out 51 inches of twill. That provides a one-inch leader at either side of the top plus one-inch space between loops and a 3-inch top for the loops. For the bottom, I cut an 85-inch length of twill which provides one-inch for the space between each looplet and a six-inch section for the looplet opening.
Construction[]
The diagram below shows the basic design. In the diagram 'G' is the gap width. This is the space between looplets. 'Leader' is some extra fabric used to make a leader that you use to attach to your wand. For the top piece, the space between the gaps (G) is your looplet size. Let's call that T (for top). For the small looplet garland, I used T= 3". B is the space between gaps for the bottom part of the looplet. I like to have the looplet bottom be twice the length of the top. So, for the small-looplet garland, I use 6" for B.
Calculating the material[]
Here are the formulas for determining how much material you need to construct a garland with the basic design showed above.
L= leader length; G= Gap between loops; T= looplet top-string length; N = number of loops, B=bottom looplet length
Top length = 2L + ((N+1)*G) + NT Bottom length: = ((N+1)*G) + NB
Example[]
Here are the calculations for a garland with 12 3" looplets (whose bottoms are 6" long) and a 1" gap and a one inch of leader N = 12; G = 1"; L = 1"; T = 3"; B = 6"
Length of top piece = (2*1) + ((12+1) * 1) + 12*3 = 2 + 13 + 36 = 51"
Length of bottom piece = (13 * 1) + 12*6 = 13 + 72 = 85"