Experiments with worsted weight acrylic

My stash of 5/2 cotton is getting low.  So, in desperation, I tried some of the cheap acrylic we have around the house.  What kind of band would it make?  I had used acrylic for some early tablet weaving experiments many years ago.  Those tended not to go well.  But whatever, because I wanted a tablet weaving fix.

It's not that bad.  In fact, it's pretty decent.  The band is of course very thick, but it feels and looks reasonable.  Whew.  I can weave even when the weaving-yarn stash is running low.  It's definitely a different feel from weaving with finer cotton yarn, though, and not necessarily in a good way.

I found the pattern on pinterest, no attribution or original source attached.  I re-graphed it in GTT to make sure I understood what was going on.  Yep.  I changed the direction of the border cards and that was about the only change I made.

This pattern slowly accumulates twist.  So it's not quite as fun as the one I did last time.  It was still pretty fun and also easy to weave.

I did find a place within 50 miles from me that had some cheap crochet cotton for sale.  I bought some so I can make the belts that I have been commissioned to make (well, requested to make by friends and family members, nothing professional in spite of using fancy words like commissioned).  I think I will need to do some mail order to replenish my supplies with better materials.  Either that, or take a road trip to some weaving supply stores that are around 100 miles away and do some serious shopping.

In other exciting news, a friend saw my bands and wanted to learn how to tablet weave.  I made some charming cereal-box tablets and a pizza-box shuttle and showed him the basics.  He has previous loom-weaving experience, so found it a fairly easy transition.  He has completed his first band!  I am so proud, even though all I did was point the way and he did the rest.  Now a few other friends want to learn.  They have their own cards, but haven't had the chance, or maybe the courage, to give it a try.

My friend did a basic zigzag using a pattern draft in Candace Crockett's book on Card Weaving.  Sigh.  Yet another drafting convention to learn.

For Candace Crockett, the left-facing arrow is S threaded (Z card orientation) and the right-facing arrow is Z-threaded (S card orientation).  She writes something about how things are threaded front-to-back or back-to-front when the cards face left.  We did that, and of course the pattern then appeared on the bottom of the band instead of the top.  No problem -- flip the deck and keep working.  Anyway, I'm not sure if her version of front-to-back, back-to-front is different from mine (as in, which end of the thread is supposed to be closest to the weaver?) or if I mis-read what she was writing.

But anyway, now I know how Crockett's pattern drafts are written (I think).  Cards face left, lettered clockwise, going from card 1 on the left with higher-number cards on the right, starting to weave with AD on top, and the arrows as mentioned above (left arrow is S-threaded, right arrow is Z-threaded).

For the teaching band, we cut warp threads and threaded each tablet individually.  I thought it would be good to do the most tedious warping method first, so that future warping would be easier.  With the pattern my friend chose, we could have done a continuous warp.  However, we would have had to rotate cards both horizontally and vertically to get everything in the right orientation before weaving.  I thought it would be easier to have everything in the weaving orientation, so that the pack of cards all looked the same.  It would make it easier to keep track of things and notice errors.

Cereal box cards work really well.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Given the dimensions of the box I used, we ended up with 12 cards that were 3" square.  We used a hole punch for holes that were about 1/2" from each side,  I didn't round the corners, punch a center hole, or anything else fancy.  Pizza-box shuttles work just fine, too.  As soon as we had another empty cereal box, I made another set of cards, just for fun.  I'll probably weave a band with them soon.  I left the original cereal-box tablets and pizza-box shuttle with my friend.

My friend weaves like the women seen in some of the old paintings.  I had brought over the PVC loom.  Instead of using it in a backstrap orientation, with the weaving side close to him and the far side away, he sat so he wove the band from left to right instead of from near to far.  It was interesting.  That might have been due to the space we had available to work, of course.  Again, it's something I am going to try just to see how it differs from the usual orientation I've been using.

I am not sure what I will weave next.  Probably one of the belts that I've been requested to do.  One requires a bit of charting before I start.  The other will be from a draft I found on pinterest.  It is great to have all these random GTT charts showing up on pinterest, but dang, I would love to know where they came from.  Someone is or was very prolific, and it would be cool to know who it is.

Two Decks (Running S Band)

Another band has been woven, with another bad photo to share.

I found the pattern draft on a Finnish website.  It's the second draft from the top.  The person uses \ and / to indicate S and Z threading direction.  The draft shows ABCD going from bottom to top.  I did it with cards facing left, numbered with 1 at the left and 10 at the right, and AD at the top when I began weaving.

I did this with a continuous warp.  It only has two colors, so I used both ends of each ball of thread.  That turned out to be a giant hassle.  The two ends of course wind around each other, and eventually this creates a tangle that has to be undone.  Ugh.

My cat was there to assist, as usual, and was less than helpful, again as usual.  He would pop a thread or two off the warping posts (i.e. clamps) every now and then.  He sat on the threads.  He batted around the cards.  And so on.

But I finally got it done.  After a lot of very careful checking and card-re-arranging, weaving finally commenced.

So far, when I've done a continuous warp, I've woven on the clamps that the warp is wrapped around.  I tried that, but things kept popping off the clamps.  Also, the tension wasn't quite as even as I liked.  Apparently, it's fairly easy for me to vary the tension while warping, which of course leads to uneven tension when weaving.  So I took the weaving off the clamps and draped it over my little loom.  After that, the weaving went smoothly.  I do like using weights on the warp instead of having the warp fixed (either on clamps or on an inkle loom).  (Hmm, I should re-try backstrap weaving at some point to see how that compares to having the warp tied to weights that are draped over something.)

The above photo (the second one for this post) shows the band after two motifs have been woven.  Isn't it cute?  I really like it!

I use the bamboo skewers at the beginning to make sure I've threaded and arranged all the cards properly.  It also gives me a good beginning to the band so that I can start it with a consistent and reasonable width.

This pattern seems related to the kivrim-style patterns and also to diagonal-type patterns in general.  It is easily done by splitting the deck into two packs that turn independently of each other.

The weaving was rhythmic, pleasant, and quite fast.  Each pack had an 8F-8B turning sequence, with one pack offset from the other by 4 rows.  I like how complex the band looks considering how very easy it is to set up and weave.  There's the purple spiral meandering through the center of the band, separating the orange into S and h motifs.  I don't really have a name for the band, but Running S seems as good a name as any.

The band width is fairly consistent throughout.  The weft spacing is less so, unfortunately.  I don't know how much is my frustration with the first few motifs while I was still weaving between the two clamps.

What have I learned with this band?

I really like this style of pattern.  It has a simple threading sequence.  It has two (or more) blocks that turn in different ways to generate a more-complex-looking result.  It is neutral in twist, with equal amounts of forward and backward turning.

I like using a weighted warp.

Continuous warping can be a pain to do under the wrong circumstances, no doubt due to operator error.  It seriously would have been faster to cut warps and then thread each tablet individually.  When I buy more thread, I should make sure I have multiples of the cone/skein/ball so I can use one cone/skein/ball per tablet hole if/when I next do continuous warping.

Mostly I learned that this band was a ton of fun and I want to do more patterns using these kinds of techniques.

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My other tablet-weaving trick this week is to finally download Guntram's Tablet-Weaving Thingy (GTT), a well-known tablet-weaving design software.  I wasn't sure it would work with Windows 7, but thought it was worth a try.  I've seen so many interesting patterns on the 'net that are shown in a gtt format.

It took a little while, but I'm now able to get the program to do stuff.  It turned out that the secrets of how to get it to work could be found in the manual.  Who knew?  For fun, I am using the program to re-draft the patterns I've been doing.  I'm also playing around with my own ideas.  We'll see if anything comes of it besides a bit of fun.

Soon I should start a collection of links for this blog, hopefully more comprehensive and better organized than I am finding elsewhere.  There's a lot out there, and I find more every time I search.  I like a lot of the non-English-language sites, too.  Maybe I should also add a list of tablet-weaving terms in various languages to aid in our searching.  And ditto for other narrow wares.  But not today.

Little Chevrons

And another band is done!  And the usual lousy photos have been taken!

This is from the Mim's Muddle pattern I mentioned yesterday.

I think it turned out fairly well.  Both the band width and the consistency of weft spacing are getting to be pretty good except for the spot where I ran out of the green crochet cotton I was using as weft and changed to a different green crochet cotton.  So I will continue to work on consistency when changing weft.

The reverse side is different but also attractive.

I tried the idea I had about offsetting the diagonal lines by two so it would look like a little tree.  I didn't like it, so unwove and continued with the original pattern.

I turned all cards forward continuously, occasionally working out the extra twist from the warp.  I knew there might be an effect from half the cards being S-threaded and half Z-threaded.  Indeed there was!  It wasn't much, but slowly, extra twist accumulated in the thread that was plied in the same direction as the weaving, while some twist was removed from the one that went in the opposite direction.  By the end of the weaving, the un-twisting side of the unwoven warp was slightly longer than the extra-twisting side.

This is clearly a small motif that can be added to many other bands.  Borders, of course.  Adding several more groups of 4 tablets to zigzag across the band.  Changing the 1/3 pattern of the arrows to 2/2 blocks (probably totally different colors from the solid-color tablets), and possibly offsetting those.  And so on.

These little bands are fairly quick to warp up and also quick to weave.  I think I am in the mood for something a little more complex for the next band.

Fun With Drafting Conventions

So, the next tablet-weaving band is the Chevron pattern from Mim's Muddle.  (Yeah, the link to the Chevron pattern goes to a pdf file, and it's labeled chevon instead of chevron.  Whatever)

Luckily, there is also a page on the drafting conventions used for the patterns on the website.

Good.

Note that ABCD run top to bottom.  The cards are labeled clockwise with the ABCD.  The S and Z refer to threading directions.  And the cards all face right, but are numbered left to right.  So card 1 is on the left and card 10 is on the right, and all of them face right rather than left.  Also, one starts weaving with AD at the top.

This is an easy little pattern of arrows or chevrons.  It is turned forward continuously.  I will probably work out extra twist rather than do reversals when the twist builds up.

I am thinking of making the chevrons offset for part of the band instead of having it be symmetric.  We shall see.

Eventually I'll probably be able to read my weaving and not need the numbers and threading and which-way conventions, but for now, it is helpful.  I can handle different systems as long as I know.  Eventually I should be able to know even without clear labels and explanation pages and what-not.  Given the plethora of interesting yet now-semi-anonymous patterns on the 'net, that seems to be a worthwhile goal.

Onward with chevrons!  I'm sure I'll have help.  The cats have already helped.  As usual, their assistance was not actually helpful in the way that most people define the word.  But they are cats, and their definitions are different from mine.

The Fun of It All

My most recent project -- a very quick and fun little band that ended up being something totally different from what I thought I was going to weave.

Forgive the terrible photography -- I'll add something better eventually.

Anyway, the above band came from Steinmaus' website, one of the threaded-in patterns.  I used the pattern of the innermost 4 tablets, which are of a small XO pattern.  I added one border tablet on each side for 6 tablets, a small band.

I did 4-8 turns with bamboo skewers to start the band, as usual.  The way I had lined up the tablets must have been different from what the pattern called for, because I got the cute little pattern above.  I liked it a lot, much better than the XO I was trying for, so I stayed with it for the whole band.  Fun!

Steinmaus' charts use left and right arrows to indicate threading direction.  The left-pointing arrow means to thread from back to front when the cards are facing left, which is Z for the thread direction and S for the card direction, depending on what terminology makes you happy.  The right-pointing arrow means to thread from front to back when the cards are facing left, which is S for thread direction and Z for card direction.  The diagrams also show ABCD from top to bottom instead of bottom to top.

I lined up the cards facing left, with AD at the top.  I did 4 turns forward followed by 4 turns backward.  Obviously one needs a different starting position to get the XO of the original pattern.  Oh, well, who cares?  I prefer the band I got.

I show both sides in the photo above.  The front/top side has red blips between the motifs, while the back side has little red chains between the motifs.  For both, the weft shows through in the middle of the red motif where the turning direction changes.  I really like the way that looks.  The motifs themselves look like little flowers, or perhaps snowflakes or stars or bugs or space invaders.  Because the turning direction changes in the middle of the motif, the red motifs float slightly above the gray background.

It seems obvious that one can generate all kinds of different patterns by varying the forward and back turning sequence as well as the turning points.  That's one reason why tablet weaving fascinates me so much.  There are so many lovely variations on such simple threading patterns, whether threaded-in or from all-cards-the-same.  It's wonderfully mind-boggling.  Such a simple concept, tablet weaving.  And yet, such complexity arises from it.  I'm still so close to the beginning of the journey.  A huge world awaits, stretching endlessly no matter how far I travel along this road.

After doing the more complex bands this past month, the 4F4B turning sequence for this one was a snap.  This was a very fast weaving project, even with all the helpers who wove a few motifs here and there.  The cat, as usual, was a terrible weaving assistant.  He sat underneath the band on the PVC loom, his body wedged between the pieces of PVC, his ears up in the warp, and his claws helpfully reaching out for the weft and shuttle.  I will add a photo if I can get one.

As with the other bands I've done recently, this used 5/2 perle cotton weaving yarn for the warp and green crochet cotton for the weft.  I ended up with about 5' of band.  I have not yet decided how to finish the ends.

What next?  Maybe some simple diamonds with a continuous warp.  Maybe it's time to play with Egyptian diagonals (and to figure out how/if Egyptian diagonals differ from other diagonal-type patterns such as Finnish diagonals and everything else).  Maybe I'll do another threaded-in pattern, or even this one over again but with a different turning pattern.  So many choices!

Tuhannen Kunniaksi band 1, finished!

The Tuhannen Kunniaksi band is finished.  I am quite happy with it!

In real life, the green is a little darker than it looks in the photo.  There is a bit more contrast between the blue and purple of the border tablets.

I ended up with probably about 4' of band, and it is more than 1" but less than 1.25" wide.  I did 6 full repeats of the 3-forward/3-back sets of pattern repeats.  The first one was woven using the chart for Band 1a, with half-turns.  The rest were using the chart for Band 1b, without half-turns.  I preferred the gentler curves of Band 1b for this particular band.

My edges and weft spacings are getting more consistent.  The first few repeats of the band are a bit wider than the rest of the band, but it's not by all that much.

I have not yet decided what to do with the ends, so they are still long and untrimmed.  I stopped where I did because I knew there wasn't room for another set of 6 or even 3 pattern repeats.

Let's see, what was new/different/educational about this band...

A lot was what I wrote in a previous post.  This is the most complex pattern I've done so far, with cards that turned forward and backward differently in each row.  It's the most cards I've used for a tablet weaving so far.  It has actual border cards that only turned forward for the entire band.  The chart used a new-to-me (I think) method of indicating how the cards were to be threaded.  It had half-turns.

I learned how to unweave.  That is a big, important thing for me.  I took out mistakes as I found them, and thus the band doesn't have messed-up areas.  I am starting to be able to read the threads and compare them to the diagram before throwing the weft and moving on to the next line in the chart.  That is useful, and should improve with future bands, I hope.

Doing the last few pattern repeats was tough.  I should see what it's like to use weights on each individual tablet.  A warp spreader of some sort might be useful, too.

I confirmed, yet again, that cats are terrible warping and weaving assistants.

Next up, I think, will be another simple threaded-in band with regular turnings so that other household members can do a bit of weaving.

Compare and Contrast

Yesterday I did one 6-repeat mirrored set of pattern repeats using chart 1a of the Tuhannen kunniaksi hook/wave band.  Chart 1a uses half-turns to make sharper corners on the motifs.  Today I tried chart 1b.  That has no half-turns, which makes the motifs more curvy.  A full 6-repeat mirrored set of chart 1b is shown below.

I like the curvy motifs better.  So I will continue on using chart 1b.

It's nice to know that half-turns are no big deal and easily accomplished.

I confirmed the reversal technique.  The chart shows the forward and mirrored repeats, and also shows pattern rows 1 (of the forward) and 10 (of the mirrored) between the two.  Yes, you need to insert those two rows before following the mirrored chart.  Otherwise, the hooks merge.  I felt confident trying it both ways now that I feel more comfortable with unweaving.

I am still playing around with weft spacings, how close together I want them, and all that.

On the whole, this is a fun and really pretty pattern.  I'm not sure if I want to keep doing the 3-forward, 3-back repeats, or if I just want to continuously go in the same direction.  I like both.

Today's Progress Report

Weaving is occurring!  I have done six repeats so far -- three one way and three the other way, for one six-repeat mirrored set.

Lessons so far:

I needed more weight to get a good shed.  So I have attached a filled water bottle to the set of other junk hanging from the back end of the warp.  If I don't start weighting each card individually or in groups, I should probably upgrade to a gallon jug, filled as necessary, for the next band.  For now, though, I want to be more or less consistent for the rest of this band.

I have figured out how to unweave!  Well, of course I would, with a pattern like this.  I did not feel well yesterday when I did the first pattern repeat, and thus Mistakes Were Made.  And then Fixed!  So I'm happy about that.

My weft spacing is still not consistent.  Oh, well, I'll continue to work on that.  I suspect it's like knitting, where it takes a certain amount of practice for one's gauge to settle down.

My width is not consistent yet.  The beginning repeat or so is a bit wider than the width I am doing now.  I'll see how it goes as I continue.

I like how it looks so far, though this is not a very good photo.

I am always absurdly pleased when I finish the 10 rows of the repeat and all the cards are back where they belong!

I am not sure about the mirroring.  It looks like the diagram wants me to do two transition rows before starting the mirror repeat.  I did that, as can be seen above. Then, I think, I just go straight back to the forward repeat when I change back to the original direction?  I guess I'll find out soon.  I'm not too worried since I can now unweave mistakes!  It might be slow and ugly before the shed opens up, but I can do it!

Soon I have to either reverse the edge direction or take out the accumulated twist.  I haven't decided which way to do it yet.

For now, I am doing the version of the pattern with half-turns.  I haven't decided if/when to switch to the one without half-turns.  I like the softened curves in the band that was shown in the pattern post.  But I like the sharper and better-defined angles, too.

A darker green would have looked nicer, but this is the green I happen to have.  So there.  If I keep on weaving, I'll add more to the stash.

Tuhannen Kunniaksi tablet woven band

On to the next project!

I will be trying one of the gift patterns from Mervi Pasanen and Maikki Karisto, posted on the blog Hibernaatiopesäke to mark the occasion of the 1000th like for their Facebook page.  Google Translate tells me that the name means something like Thousand Honor, which is close enough to make a good name for the band.

The band has an attractive hook pattern (is there a name for this?) that I find quite appealing.  There are two variations given, one with half-turns and one without.  I like both of them!

I am continuing to use my stash of 5/2 perle weaving cotton.  The hooks will be green on a yellow background.  The borders will be blue with purple blips.  Hey, I'm getting low on some colors and have an abundance of others.  Anyway, I think it should look OK.

I like the way that the designers did their demos bands with 3 repeats in one direction followed by 3 mirrored repeats.  I think I will copy that.

Here are new things I am learning and/or having to cope with:

Tablet orientations!  The diagrams show tablet orientation (\ or /) instead of thread orientation (S or Z) or other indicators.  I usually just go by whatever the designer indicates in their explanation, so it wasn't a problem.  But this is the first time I'm aware of that I have explicitly used a diagram that shows card orientation instead of referring to the threads.

Border cards!  Yes, this will be my first time using actual border cards.  I think I will turn forward continuously until the twist gets to be too much, then turn backwards, all independently of the rest of the band.

Moving packs of tablets!  Some will turn forward and some backwards, and this will change from round to round.  Some tablets will have an equal number of turns forward and backward, while others won't.  However, mirroring the repeats should take care of things in the long run.

Half-turns!  I haven't done those before.  I am still dithering about which pattern variation to use, half-turns or not.  I'll probably do the half-turns since they are new for me.

Twenty cards!  I am a novice, and this is my first time with this many cards.  Usually I've done 12 or fewer.  There are a LOT more ends to deal with!  It's a lot harder to turn this big pack evenly.  I'm actually looking forward to separating small packs to turn separately from each other.

The way I tensioned before, by tying all the strands into one big overhand knot, does not seem like it will work with this many strands.

So I am trying a new method of holding everything.  I'm using a pencil (a small piece of dowel, actually) and two C-clamps to hold the business end of the warp.  I have re-arranged my PVC loom to just consist of the back half, and I am draping the warp over that to weigh down.  Ideally, I'd like to weigh each individual card or groups of cards.  However, my local hardware store did not have a sufficient number of anything to use as a consistent weight.  I was thinking using an eye-bolt with a nut, with one or more washers to add on to each bolt for extra weight.

Why I Mis-thread Cards!  Well, one reason why.  I turn the card so it is in the correct orientation, not noticing that I am actually turning the card so it faces right instead of left (or vice versa).  That doesn't matter as much for some kinds of patterns, and won't matter as much after I gain more expertise.  But it explains why I would find mis-threaded cards upon double-checking when I was pretty sure I had threaded them correctly.  I had, except for the part about the card being in the correct orientation when I was threading it.  Now I know, so it's something I'll be aware of in the future.

Here is something I already knew:

Cats are TERRIBLE warping assistants.  'Nuff said.  Though it will probably be my mantra for each and every project.

The warp is cut, threaded, on my new loom set-up, and ready to go.  I did a few picks with skewers and all seems OK.  Now comes the fun part.  Or frustrating.  Or both.  More learning experiences are in store!

Another band done, plus photos!

The Oseberg-style band is finished.  It went pretty quickly.  It was a lot of fun to do.  It was very easy, and thus relaxing and fun to watch the band get longer.  Other family members helped.  We all want to warp up this band in a few other colors to see how it looks.

It's nothing fancy.  But it's very, very cute.

Both sides really do look good.  You can see where I tried a reversal in the middle of the pattern.  It's OK, but I prefer it all going the same way.  I stopped every now and then to work out the extra twist.

This is a good beginner pattern, in my opinion.

I ended up with maybe 4' of band.  I did a twisted fringe for the edges.

What did I learn with this project?  Uhhhh.....  I had to change the weft in the middle of the project.  My tension changed a bit for an inch or so.  Oh, well.  In general, the edges and the weft spacings are fairly consistent, given my current skill levels.  I'll continue to work on that, of course.

Here are some photos of the completed Running Dog (or Kivrim, etc.) band.

I am not sure what I will do next.  Another Oseberg narrow band in other colors?  A simple diamond pattern?  Something similar to the Running Dog pattern, with cards going in different directions?  Another threaded-in pattern or something that can use a continuous warp?  Or maybe I should drag out the inkle or tape loom or marudai or something and play with a different craft.

I really am in a tablet-weaving mood, though.

Small Oseberg-style Band

I am doing another small tablet-woven band.  It is a threaded-in pattern with all cards turning in the same direction.

It is a band in the style of a small tablet-woven band from Oseberg, according to Silvia Aisling.  She wrote about it here and gives the draft for it in this pdf.

I am doing it with 8 cards, omitting the two cards at the outer border.  I am using white and blue instead of Silvia Aisling's white and orange.  The weft is the same thin green crochet cotton I used for the last band.  For this band, I am trying to keep the edges and weft spacing consistent as best I can.

This is an extremely charming pattern that looks good on both sides.

Since other family members want to play, too, I wanted a nice simple pattern for them to try.  I think this is a good one.

Photos will be added eventually, I'm sure!

I am getting faster at making/cutting the warp and getting it threaded in.  I only had to re-thread a few cards for S/Z mistakes, and all was fine by the time I started.  I got the tension fixed pretty quickly, so the weaving started without many headaches.  This looks good from the very first repeat.

 I am enjoying this band a lot and will probably make it again in other color combinations.

I seem to be using the terms card and tablet somewhat interchangeably.  Oh, well.  It doesn't bother me, but my future mythical readers might want to keep that in mind.

Completed -- My first Kivrim/Running Dog band!

I will add a photo eventually.

It is done!

I ended up with a band that is about 5 feet long.   Most of it is pretty reasonable.  The first 6 or so repeats were where I was having a lot of problems with learning the pattern and being able to open the shed properly and all that.  After that, the rest looks good, with only one or two of the pattern repeats being a bit wonky.  With one of the wonky repeats, the cards started flopping around, I couldn't figure out how to unweave, and I just put the cards back in order and started over.  With the other one, I think I forgot to put the weft through before turning the cards again.

The last half of the band has fairly consistent edges and fairly consistent weft spacings.  The first half has more inconsistent weft spacings.  It shows me how this pattern varies with the weft spacing -- more angular for longer spacing, more rounded for tighter spacing.

I finished the ends with a twisted fringe.  I took 2 threads from each card and twisted them.  I took the other 2 threads from the card and twisted those.  Then I tied the two twisted pairs together.  They self-plied.  Yay.

I think this pattern would look pretty cool with two colors, so one would end up with the white (or equivalent) spiraling on a solid background.

This was an enjoyable and very educational project.  I used weighted warps on a loom, I did a pattern with cards twisting in different directions, I paid attention to how I finished the band, I did a pattern with no reversals at all (requiring me to untwist some cards), and so on.  I continued to gain experience with weaving consistency, both the edges and the weft spacing.  I have tablet-woven a pattern that I have long admired.  I'm still a novice, but less of a novice than I was when I started this band.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the band, but that doesn't matter.

I'm not totally sure what is next, but I'm pretty sure it will be a threaded-in pattern that has a simple all forward X times, all back X times turning sequence.  Other family members want to help, not just the cats.  A simple and repetitive turning sequence probably the easiest one for them to do.

Getting closer to done

I am nearing the end of my kivrim band.  It is going well.  I have not achieved perfect consistency, but simply being aware of the issue is helping.  I keep not doing any reversals, but that's OK.

Here is a photo.  It is the band on the loom, duh.

I have removed the weights so I can move the band along.  You can see a bunch of pattern repeats of slightly different angularities as well as my lovely green weft on the shuttle.  I am a terrible photographer, so a lot of details are indistinct.  Oh, well, sorry about that.

My tablets are from Robin & Russ Handweavers, purchased back when they were alive and the store was still in business.  This is the same Russell E. Groff who published a little booklet of threaded-in tablet weaving designs.  Of course I own that little booklet, too.

Hopefully my next post about this band will be when it is done.  Since this is a Noob Blog, I will show all the bad spots.  Probably.  Unless I get too embarrassed, even though I promised this blog would show my evolution starting as a near-novice who made all the usual mistakes.  Overall, though, I am pleased with the band.  The thing of having different cards turn in different directions is not at all difficult.  I feel comfortable about trying more complex patterns of this genre.  Which was one of the main objectives of doing this band, of course.  Also, it is a striking pattern even when woven by a Noob.

When searching around online for other photos of this pattern, I see that it has a lot of names -- Kivrim, Running Dog, Widderhorn, and Ram's Horn.  I like those names.  They are charmingly evocative of the romance of tablet weaving and narrow wares.  I don't know if the names refer to only this pattern, or to an entire class of patterns.  I know that I've more often seen Ram's Horn applied to this motif when there are two of them, mirror-imaged.

Another Noob Progress Report

Still no photos, but continuing progress!

I am not sure what I'm doing, but I'm having better luck getting the shed to open cleanly.  My weaving is speeding up and finding a rhythm.

My edges are OK, though I'm sure an experienced person would wince.  The edges should continue to improve with practice.

My weft spacing (or whatever it is called) is not yet all that consistent.  Some kivrim pattern repeats are longer and more angular than others.  That will be something to work on.

I think a cat chewed on one of the dangling ends.  Two threads on one card have been severed about 6" from the end.  So this band will end when I reach the end of that card's threads.  Oops.

I like my colors -- black, white, pink.  I like how the pattern looks.  The loom is working well enough to hold things in place.

I am weaving continuously in the same direction rather than reversing the pattern.  When the twist builds up in the cards that are always going the same direction, I remove the weight from the back of the warp to untwist those cards' threads.  I seem to do that every 4 pattern repeats or so.

If I get bored before running out of warp, I might try reversing the pattern, both at the end of the repeat and maybe in the middle to see how it looks.  Or maybe not.

What shall I try next?  I am thinking a threaded-in pattern with simple all-forward/all-back turning so that other family members can try this.  They are watching me work and think it looks interesting.

After that?  I want to try more patterns like the one I've done -- diagonals or other pattern types with some cards going forward and some back with each turn.

That is all.  (and yes, it's boring, but it's a place to write down my notes/thoughts as I progress.)

More natterings from the noob

Weaving is occurring!

This is far from perfect.  For the first repeat, I did the wrong turnings.  It is charming but not the Kivrim I was trying to achieve.

For the next few turnings, I had tremendous trouble getting a good open shed.  The cards kept getting tangled.  So the pattern is not at all clear.

So I carefully straightened out each card and its threads, and then re-tensioned everything.  I added one of my extra C-clamps to the kumihimo weights, which gives me close to the right tension   Also, the braid finally became long enough to clip to itself.

Success!  The next several pattern repeats have been good.  Well, except for when I lose concentration and forget to turn both packs of cards before putting the shuttle through the shed.  That's only once or twice, though.

It's still tricky to get the shed nice and open when I am using two packs of cards.  I don't know why or what to do about it yet.  I've started re-uniting the two packs for the section where they all turn together, separating them again for the section where they turn separately.

I wonder if I would prefer to do card-flipping rather than having two packs?  I will try that at some point.  Not just yet, though.

It is, as always, very gratifying to see the pattern developing.  It is so cute!

We won't talk about edges or anything like that.  I figure consistency will come with time and experience, assuming I stick with this for a while.  I am not going to try to un-weave mistakes, not yet.  That will be in some future band, probably.

I will add photos soon, especially now that I have some good repeats available to photograph.  Not that it matters much, since no one is reading this blog except for me.  I'm writing for myself for now, not only to entertain mythical future readers.  These are my thoughts as I fight my way through the problems I encounter as I learn and hopefully improve.   This is what is happening to one novice tablet weaver as I discover the true meaning behind the bland advice and warnings that are given in various books, articles, blogs, websites, etc.

The loom seems to work well enough.

I am such a noob!

OK, so I have a bit of time and want to play with my new little PVC loom.

I feel like such a newbie!  Of course, it's fun.  I am learning through making mistakes and all that.  So many blogs have such wonderful tales of success, though.  Or at least interesting mistakes.  I am still in the stage of making all the beginner mistakes.  That is a necessary stage, of course.  Should I even be writing about it?  Or shall I wait until I look more knowledgeable and competent than I currently am?  Since I am writing about it, I guess that's the answer.

OK, then.

I am doing a Kivrim-style tablet weaving pattern, since I've not yet done a pattern that has some (but not all) of the cards either getting flipped or turned in different directions from the rest of the pack.  I found a draft on the 'net somewhere, and off I go.

Cutting the warp comes first, I guess.  The last few bands have been done with continuous warping.  This is a threaded-in pattern, so needs specific lengths cut and threaded.

That is done.  I put two clamps on edges of a table and wound around them, one round per thread.  However, the different colors are slightly different lengths.  Apparently, I was using a different amount of force as I wound each color around the C-clamps.  I blame the cats who were helping.

Then I threaded the tablets, carefully looking to see which way to do it.  S, Z, etc.  Then I realized I did it backwards and re-threaded the tablets.  Sigh.  I know that every pattern writer has his/her own notation method, card orientation, and so on.  So this is a good reminder to be patient during this part of the process.

Cats are not nearly as helpful as they imagine.  I do not need any felines to sit on the cards, nor on the copy of the threading pattern, nor on the warp.  The warp threads do not need to be treated as exciting new cat toys.  I do not need to roll a chair out of the way to move a cat, then realize that some of the warp threads have wrapped around the chair wheels.  I am an idiot.

Now on to the loom part.  I am having trouble with tension.  I am using all my kumihimo weights on the back end of the warp, but everything seems to slide around too much anyway.  It's hard to keep the threads under consistent tension -- some threads seem looser than others.  Also, the photo of the band on the loom in the original web link looks lovely, but it's not clear what I should be doing to start the band, when it is not long enough to wrap around the front PVC piece to clip to itself.

All of these seem like issues that any new-ish weaver has to solve, so I will do that even though my solutions will evolve as I learn more.  I put a loop of yarn on the front end of the loom, have knotted the ends of the braid, and have hooked that to the loom with an S-hook.  I am wrapping part of the warp around the back end of loom before dropping the warp over the end of the table and weighing it down.  That is helping, but it is possible I simply need more weight.  I have also clamped the loom to the table to reduce the shifting around.

I have followed the advice to use pieces of wood (bamboo skewers since that was the first thing I grabbed) to make sure the pattern is threaded in properly.  Several turns forward -- yep!

Since this is a newbie-ish band, I am using the thread that is already on my shuttle for weft.  Green goes with black and pink, right?

If this ends up being too annoying, I will set up my C-clamps and use those to hold the cards and the two ends of the warp.  But I would like to try using this style of loom, with weights on the ends of the warp instead of the warp being tied to something.

Since I appear to have the tablets set up properly, the next step will be to weave with the real weft.  Ooohhhh......  I don't know if I'll get to it today, but hopefully I'll do it soon.

Maybe someday I'll get around to adding photos.  But apparently that won't be today.

Fun with PVC

Today I made myself a little PVC tablet-weaving loom, using Alice Schlein's instructions for the PVC hybrid loom on her Weaverly blog.

It went together quite easily!  The hardest part was hauling the 10' length of PVC pipe throughout the store.  The store clerk snickered every time I dropped it or banged it into something.  The teenager accompanying me was mortified.  Too bad -- if you worry too much about being embarrassed, you risk missing out on a lot of potentially fun things.

I followed the blog's advice and got a PVC pipe cutter, too.  That took a few minutes to figure out.  But soon enough, I was marking out measurements and cutting PVC.  After the pieces were cut, the assembly was extremely rapid.  I don't plan to glue anything -- I want this to come apart for easy transport.

The next few days look pretty busy, but I will try to warp up a few tablets to take my new little loom for a test drive.  Usually, I use a couple of C-clamps and weave between them, or I tie one end to a doorknob and the other end gets attached to my waist.  It will be interesting to try this little loom.

Depending on how well this works, I might make Sharon Kersten's PVC Inkle Loom from the March 2009 issue of Handwoven.  Inexpensive, easily-transported looms are a fun concept.

It cost about $10-12 plus the cost of the PVC cutter (another $12 or so).  I have 30" of PVC left along with some L and T connectors from the bags of each that I bought.

I am a terrible photographer, but I will try to add photos sooner or later.

The Obligatory Intro Post

I have a knitting blog.  But I do more than knitting.  So this blog will be for my adventures in narrow wares -- kumihimo and other braiding, inkle and tape loom weaving, tablet weaving, backstrap weaving, knotting, luceting, fingerlooping, or anything else that seems to fit this category and doesn't really fit the knit/spin/dye category.

I have no idea if this blog will be active, sporadic, or immediately moribund.

Why now?  Because I think I'm about to enter another phase of creating narrow wares, and maybe this time I'll document it in real life instead of only in the past tense.  (I will still inflict bad photos of past-tense items if I want to, of course.)

If I had to describe my general skill, I'd label myself as a near novice.  I'm much more competent and experienced with knitting, crochet, spinning, and dyeing.  I am not really a weaver at all except for narrow wares, and I've only dabbled a bit in the various arts used to create them.

So we'll see what happens.