Another simple tablet-woven band (Double X Double O) and Bonus Fingerlooping (3-loop experiment)

I saw a photo of a band and wanted to re-create it.  Attempt #1 is not quite right, but it's still reasonably attractive.  I knew it wasn't quite right but forgot that I wanted to adjust my chart.  I had already warped it up when I remembered, which seems very silly when I say that but that's more or less how it happened.

This is a very simple pattern.  I call it Double X Double O.  Maybe I'll do some variations on this in the future.   I do like having the two-tone background color.

I've charted up attempt #2 and will probably try again.  Not that I need to re-create what I saw, but it's an interesting exercise.

I'm still having issues with different motifs being different lengths.  As far as I can tell, the width is the same and I'm beating the weft the same.  But apparently not.  Or the cotton is more stretched out in some areas than others.  Or it's something about where the weight is, how close my weaving is to the cards, how twisted the edge cards are, how long the band sat under tension before weaving (though I tried to let it sit for a while each time).  Or maybe it'll go away after blocking.

I kept the weight fairly low compared to what I usually do for this many cards, and I kept the weft fairly loose in order to widen the band (to reduce the apparent elongation of the motifs).  The unblocked length is about 63" and the unblocked width is about 7/8" wide.  It's destined for a gift.

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Next up is a fingerloop braid.  I decided it was time to try a new-to-me way to make longer braids.  I've done the crochet-chain method before (I think I came up with it on the fly), but wanted to try other methods from Ingrid Crickmore's website.

I am doing 3 loops, all different colors, fairly short.  I'm doing a flat braid (twist the left-hand loop, don't twist the right-hand loop) using the V-fell method.  I did the method of making a slip knot, braiding one end, then undoing the slip knot and braiding the other end.

In terms of tension, it's pretty consistent.  I can see the join, though, because I know where to look and because there is a slight color pattern disruption.  The pattern is symmetric around the joining point.

But I don't have a flat braid.  Huh?  It looks like an unorthodox braid, even, with one side slightly domed with a V-type pattern and another side with a more interwoven look.  It is almost but not quite triangular in cross-section.  It has a gentle spiral along the length of the braid which is actually rather attractive.  If it's unorthodox, that would also explain why the braid isn't flat.  Is it even possible to make an unorthodox 3-loop braid?

So what did I do?  My guess is that I wasn't paying attention and came up with yet another variation on a 3-loop braid.  I thought I was using my middle finger on one hand, going through the middle-finger loop on the other hand, and picking up the index finger loop from that other hand.  But what was I really doing?  And what should I have been doing?

I should set this up again and actually watch what my hands are doing.

And I need to play around more with doing braids this way so that the center join is less obvious, and also to see what exactly happens to flat braids at the center (i.e., does it open up from the other side of the braid, in which case I'll reverse the crossed loop vs non-crossed hands?).  Until then, though, I think I feel comfortable doing single-color square braids.

As always, attempt #1 just goes to show what a noob I am.  I like the results but am rather mystified as to how I got there, and it wasn't quite what I was trying to do.  On to attempt #2!  (Check out the further exposition from Ingrid Crickmore, here.  Apparently she has worked through these issues already.  Except for the part where she was making a mystery braid, though she probably did that, too, at various points in her self-education.

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My list of things I want to do is SOOOO long.  Dunno what I'll get to next.

Adventures in finger dexterity (9-loop fingerloop braid)

A 9-loop V-fell square fingerlooped braid.  Instructions here, though I didn't really need them since the 9-loop is pretty easily extrapolated from the 7- and 5-loop square braids.  The website does show how to hold one's thumb as well as giving a reminder about which thumb loop is the upper/outside loop (in order to twist or not-twist it properly and in order to transfer the index finger loop to the thumb properly).

I kept dropping loops and my fingers weren't sure they wanted to walk the loops.  Which is all quite normal for a new-to-me braid,  I was definitely starting to get better by the end.

Next time I might do this as a flat braid instead of a square, since the principles are the same.  At this point, making this braid is pretty slow given my current lack of finger dexterity.  I'm sure it'll get better with practice!

Ingrid Crickmore recommended trying the 9-loop square before getting too fast/comfortable with the 7-loop braid, since there are indeed some new finger muscles that have to be encouraged to play along.

Yay.

So... I will continue to play around with all the structures I have practiced so far, along with having some color fun (different color loops, bicolor loops, various forms of loop-switching).  And when I'm in the mood for something new, I will play around with some of the other structures I haven't tried yet such as the Spanish braids and the Grene Dorge braids and unorthodox variations, etc.  Eventually I'll find another person who knows how to do fingerloop braiding and see how the multi-person braids work.

On the whole, now that I've done a 9-loop square braid and found it easy to understand, I feel pretty comfortable with my knowledge and my ability to make a lot of the common fingerlooped braids that have been documented.  I'm no longer a complete noob even if I'm still barely past the beginning of the journey.  There's still so much to learn and to think about.  I am grateful to the people who have written books (and booklets) and put up websites about fingerloop braids.  It's been enormously helpful.

I also have a tablet-weaving band project I'm nearing the end of.  It's very simple but still kind of cute.  It's intended as a gift.  I'll probably add photos later today or in my next post.

Fingerlooping along with 5-loop bicolor-loop braids

Here is the braid I did yesterday.  Part of it is a standard V-fell 5-loop square braid (orthodox), and part of it is a standard V-feel 5-loop unorthodox braid (the common one where the only loop gone through is the one next to the traveling loop).  It looked pretty much the same from the side I was looking at, so I didn't quite notice until I got to the end and saw that the backside was different.  Both are nice braids, but I wasn't intending on doing a mixed braid like this.

The intention was to do the "edge plus one solid loop" 5-loop triangle braid on this page.  The other braid is described elsewhere on Ingrid Crickmore's website here as a "bicolor striping plus contrast loop(s)" square braid.

I'm not sure how well the photo shows fronts and backs.  Oh, well, I'll know it when I see it, and this blog is meant for my own purposes rather than to entertain the masses.

I decided that it would be easier to cut more thread and make another braid instead of unbraiding the above.  I switched it around a little bit -- a, b, and c on one hand are the dark color (blue).  The other hand has bicolor loops (blue/red) with red uppermost.  I just did a plain V-fell 5-loop square braid.

I like how it turned out.  Though I wasn't able to keep the tension consistent throughout, which I didn't quite realize until after I was done and had soaked the braid in warm water for a while.  Something to keep working on, I suppose.  I did zone out while braiding this pair of braids, but luckily I didn't switch to a different structure or color pattern while not paying attention.

Although the triangle braid is fun to make, I prefer the color pattern on the square braid.  As seems typical with unorthodox braids, the top and bottom are not symmetric/identical.  That's cool, but it bothered me with this particular color set-up.

Now to think about what I want to do next...

Gotta pay attention...

When making a fingerlooped braid, it is better if one pays attention, so that one doesn't forget what's going on and switch to a different braid structure in the middle of it all.

Harumph.

Oh, well, it's a nice little sampler.  It'll be easier to do another braid rather than try to unbraid this one.

The downside of doing a lot of different braids, I guess.

Back to basics -- another two-hole two-color brick-patterned tablet-woven band

Well, "basics" for me, that is.  I keep making this pattern.  I like it and I like the results and I've given away pretty much all of the other ones I've done.  This one is also destined to be given away.

Happy sigh.  I do like this pattern.  The photo doesn't clearly show how yellow the background really is.  It's very much University of Oregon green and yellow, which I didn't fully realize until I was already weaving.

The band hasn't been blocked yet, but I measured it as 3/8" (11mm) wide and 68" (172cm) long.  There are 14 tablets, 4 of which are 4-threaded edge tablets (two per side) and 10 of which are pattern tablets that have 2 threads per tablet.

I'll probably warp up another few of these soon-ish, since there are people who want me to make a band for them.

I'm also intrigued by a dead-simple band from Archaeological Textiles Review 55.  It's "a reconstructed tablet-woven band from Drabesu Liepinas burial ground" from an article on the use of color in Latvian textiles from the 3rd to 14th centuries, with the band apparently being from an 11th century grave.  There's nothing even remotely complex about it, just a simple threaded-in dotted pattern that is always turned forward.  Also, there's no guarantee that a reconstructed band accurately reproduces the archaeologic find.  But I find the band pleasing to look at it, and it would be quick to weave.

My cheap-cotton stash is starting to get low.  I'm not sure if I'll backfill colors that run out, or just make the switch to better quality materials.  If it's the second, I'll use the cheap stuff in increasingly weird color combos until I run out, interspersing tablet-weaving, inkle-weaving, and braiding.  We'll see!  It is a relatively nice weight to weave with and the cotton is at least slightly shiny.  It's relatively economic, too.

I'm not sure what's next, but probably more fingerloop braiding mixed with tablet weaving (and other things I do that aren't narrow wares and thus aren't included in this blog).

Guajiro Rattail Braids (7-loop fingerloop braids)

Another 7-loop braid sampler...

These are the Yaliwanasu braids from the Guajiro Indians.  I've already played with the 4-loop braids, and now it's time for the 7-loop braids!

Yaliwanasu is translated as Rattail, but really, it's some other kind of local rodent rather than a rat.

Three different braids are described.  All are done with V-fell hand positions, where the operator finger is the pinky.

The first is a pigtail-type braid, similar to the one I did earlier (Tollemarche 62 aka A Lace Broad Party), except that this is done V-fell rather than A-fell.  In other words, the pinky finger is the operator finger, and the traveling loop is on the index finger of the other hand.

The second has the operator finger (the pinky) go through the pinky-finger loop of the opposite hand, skip the ring- and middle-fingers, and pick up the index finger upper loop (to reverse/cross the loop) as the traveling loop.  Walk the loops and repeat with the other hand, etc.

The third is like the second, except that the operator finger goes through the pinky and ring fingers instead of just the pinky finger.

I then did a braid where I skipped the pinky and ring fingers and went through the middle finger before taking the index finger.  It looks a lot like the previous one except not as flat.  Both are oblong or trapezoid-ish braid cross-sections with one side (the bottom, wider side) looking like a pigtail braid and the other (upper, narrower side) looking like two Vs.  (Braid 2 has one side looking like a pigtail and the other looking like a compact interlacement.)

Finally, I repeated the Guajiro braids (2, 3, 1) to double-check, and then stopped.

My fingers were not happy about moving loops.  Drop drop drop -- I eventually transferred them by hand to keep things more or less in order.  I was using a slightly different hand position from usual, plus I was using acrylic.  But clearly my fingers need more exercise!  It also took a while to figure out exactly what I was supposed to be doing.  The instructions are a little bit unclear about which loops are the upper or lower, especially since the general instructions say that taking the upper loop leaves the loop open and taking the lower loop leaves the loop closed, while the specific braid instructions say the opposite (to take the upper loop in order to cross the loop).  The general instructions do say something about how outer-inner corresponds to upper-lower for this particular braid.  Eventually I just did something that seemed to work and then just tried to kept it consistent.

 All of the braids are perfectly cute.

The messed-up areas of the braid are where I indeed messed up.  For braid 3, it seemed like it was harder to keep the braid tension consistent without any extra loops popping out.  Just being aware of it was enough to keep it under control.

So now I've done all the Guajiro braids that were described in L-M BRIC Illustrated Instruction Series  #10.  Yay.  There are several others described in the newsletter but not in the illustrated instruction series.  Hmm, what next?

Today's fingerloop braids (6 loop and 7 loop square braids)

Well, yesterday's and today's braids.  I did sets of two braids since these will be given away as gifts and the giftee requested pairs of braids if I was going to do shorter lengths (i.e. less than 1-2 yards).

This first one is a 6-loop square braid, as described here by Ingrid Crickmore, except, of course, that I did it as a square braid instead of a flat braid.

I chose the "3 Ws" pattern -- the A fingers get color A, the B fingers get color B, and the C fingers get color C.  I used the V-fell braiding orientation, using the little or pinky finger of one hand, going through the loops on the other hand, and picking up the index-finger loop of that other hand, reversed, to bring back.  Shift the loops and continue.

It's very cute and I hadn't remembered that I'd already used that color combination and basic pattern in a different braid not long ago (a 5-loop square braid shown in the February 21, 2024 post)!  The two braids are different in thickness and have a slightly different hand.  The 3 color Vs are stacked more evenly, of course.

This is the second even-number mixed-square braid I've done, I think.  I did one earlier with 4 loops (a 3-loop square on one side, a 5-loop square on the other).  They're an interesting variant to add to my repertoire.  I should do some of the flat braids, too, since I do like many of the color arrangements that are shown on Ingrid Crickmore's website (and want to design my own, too).  I'll no doubt do the 8-loop mixed braid at some point, and beyond.

This second pic is a 7-loop square braid, also done in the V-fell orientation.  Six loops are dark purple and one is light purple.  It's definitely larger than 5-loop square braids!

Both are nice braids, and I'm starting to get more dexterous when moving loops from finger to finger, at least with V-fell.

It's time to play more with colors, I think.  And also to explore other braid structures.  And do more flat braids, since I want to see if I can get the tension on those a bit tighter without collapsing the braid into a square again.

I'm still a newbie, but it's interesting to look back and see how I've progressed in the last month and a bit.

I won't be teaching the 7-loop Celtic braid at the end of the month, alas.  They wanted something simpler.  So I'll teach the 2-strand fingerloop braid again, yay!  I'm also teaching the 7-strand Fill the Gap disk braid again.