Since my last blog post, I have bought a few books. Applesies and Fox Noses, by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, is a lot of fun. I bought it a while back even though I haven't made much from it yet. I also follow the Facebook page and the blog, and of course look at the pretty pictures and download the gift patterns (such as the Tuhannen Kunniaksi band that is shown in my older blog posts). Recently I picked up Claudia Wollny's new book, Tablets at Work. Again, I'm enjoying it a lot. I highly recommend both books to anyone who is looking for good tablet weaving books that are very clearly written with excellent charts and explanations.
I've added a few braiding books to my library, too, but that'll be some future post. Ditto for any kind of detailed review of the tablet-weaving books.
So... With all this new inspiration, I decided to Try Something New. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do something with double-weaving or something with diagonals (aka Egyptian Diagonals or Finnish Diagonals). Both start with the same threading -- 2 threads of Color A and 2 of Color B, with the colors adjacent to each other (in other words, AABB), so I warped up some tablets and dithered.
I'm still using the 5/2 cotton perle, so continuous warping is still kind of a pain since I'm running thread from both ends of each ball. But I managed. I'm not totally sure how long the warp is, maybe 8 feet or so?
I want to play around with double-weaving since it looks very straightforward and I haven't tried it yet. It'll be fun to graph little designs and letters and such as well as using other people's charts and graphs.
I guess I've done diagonal-type patterns already since a lot of the GTT patterns one sees online are in that family. Or they're in the kivrim family, or both, and anyway I've definitely done a kivrim pattern as well as the Tuhannen Kunniakski pattern with Finnish diagonals. Claudia Wollny sees diagonals and kivrim as two different techniques, whereas I had previously considered them to be variations on a similar theme, namely the theme of changing turning directions of a subset of cards at different times in order to develop strong diagonal lines (including such things as diamonds, spirals, zigzags, etc.). I'll be reading Claudia's chapters again more carefully so I can think about how and why she treats them as two separate pattern families. I'll also consider how random online GTT patterns and Finnish patterns fit into the categories, especially for patterns where turning directions can change every round. Traditional Egyptian diagonal patterns only change turning directions after two rounds, with 2 cards changing at a time, as far as I'm aware.
Anyway!
I was in a diagonals mood, so diagonals it was! I wanted something very simple. Although the basic pattern I wanted to weave is in a lot of different places, I used the charts from Applesies and Fox Noses, p. 57, Number 18, Spiky Gardens. It has 12 cards for the center pattern with 2 border cards on each side, for 16 cards total. I liked the triangles and wasn't in the mood for reversals, so I followed the chart on p. 59 and skipped the charts showing how to do reversals on p. 60.
Charting conventions: I probably wrote this down in a previous blog post, but here it is again. Applesies and Fox Noses charts show tablet directions (/ and \) rather than threading directions (S and Z). The cards face right, with the AD line along the top to begin, and the cards are numbered from left to right. Changes in turning direction are shown by shading the areas where the cards are turning towards the weaver (backwards), while the plain areas are turned away from the weaver (forwards). I really like this charting style. It feels very intuitive.
At this point, I want to mention Mervi Pasananen's video on how to do a continuous warp where one is cutting the end of the loop instead of weaving on a continuous loop without cutting any ends. The pattern I chose accumulates twist, so I knew I wanted to be able to manipulate each card individually so I could get rid of excess twist every now and then.
It was still a pain separating out each set of four threads so I could tie a small overhand knot at each end. My cats insisted on helping, which of course made it even more exciting. A loom-weaving friend of mine says that warping is always a pain, no matter what, so I'm trying not to feel too discouraged that it takes me a while to get everything set up.
On to weaving! And then unweaving. And then weaving! And then unweaving. Etc., but finally things clicked, and now progress is being made. I still do some occasional unweaving but the band is definitely growing while the unused warp is getting shorter and shorter.
The above photo shows how it looked after the first few pattern repeats. The garish colors (yellow and aqua for the diagonals, darker blue and purple for the border cards) actually look pretty good. Well, a lot of bands really do benefit from a strong color contrast.
My weft is some random medium-blue crochet cotton left over from a doily I knit a while back. It is thinner than the warp, maybe a #10 or #20 cotton?
The pattern is really quite easy as long as one stays focused. I don't need the chart at all unless I'm trying to figure out where I am after doing a bit of unweaving.
The back isn't quite as nice -- there are a few places where I clearly missed the border threads so that the weft thread goes underneath instead of through the shed. But I don't care.
My edges are not perfect, but they're not terrible. The width is relatively consistent and so is the weft spacing. I am pleased with the strong lines of the triangles.
I've done about 10 or 11 repeats so far and expect another 4 to 6 before I run out of room to turn the cards.
I have no idea what I will do with this band. Maybe a guitar/ukulele/instrument strap? Or a carrying strap for a spinning wheel? Or a belt? I don't know how long it'll be when I'm done and that may well be a determining factor. It is a bit more than 1" wide.
Things I've learned (so far, because it's not done yet!) or that are new/different/educational:
For the first time, I needed to swap out an individual thread after continuous warping. The thread had a knot in it. Yikes! Luckily, Linda Hendrickson shows how to deal with that in her video on continuous warping. One waits until the warp is finished. Then one threads in a new length into the proper hole in the card, threaded in the proper direction, and then pulls out the old thread with the knot.
I needed to be careful about keeping track of turning directions, since the pattern is so easy that one can fall into a mindless rhythm and forget where one was in the pattern. For me, I needed to be sure I was weaving two picks before moving cards from the forward to the backward pack or vice versa. I put something on one side of the band so I knew where the shuttle needed to be before changing cards around. When that changed, I moved the item to the other side of the band. Yes, I know that is obvious to someone with more experience. I am not that someone.
I really understood, for the first time, how to predict what color would next show up on the band for each card. I mean, I kind of knew it, but it still seemed a bit mysterious to me. It no longer seems mysterious.
For the first time, I paid no attention to the numbers or letters on the card. I only looked at tablet orientation and the placement of the different threads.
Lots of unweaving has happened, so I gained more experience in that vital skill.
Cats are still less than helpful as warping assistants.
Egyptian/Finnish/Whatever diagonals are fun and, at least for this simple pattern, very straightforward to weave. It would not be difficult to design my own patterns if I want something beyond the many wonderful patterns that are already out there.
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Hopefully I'll post again when the band is finished. I want to try some double-weaving next. Hopefully that'll happen soon and hopefully it'll be documented on this blog. And yeah, that's true for other blogs, too. Life happens, and taking photos or writing things down ends up not being a high priority.
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