And it's done! Seventy pattern repeats, not quite 6 feet long, roughly half an inch wide. As usual, I might have been able to get one or two more pattern repeats done if I'd really struggled, but I decided not to.
I am not sure what I'm going to do with all the small bits of leftover thread that are accumulating... Probably throw most of them out since they're short, but maybe a few can go into the braiding stash. Or get used as skein ties. Or something like that.
I really like this band. By the end, the pattern was mostly in my muscle memory, so the weaving went a bit more smoothly and more quickly. I still had to unweave a few mistakes here and there.
Two-hole tablet weaving is a lot of fun. I can see how it relates to other tablet-weaving techniques such as double-face and diagonals.
What did I learn?
Well, most importantly, what I wrote in the previous post -- for this band, it really helped to loosen the weft. That made the little pebbles show up quite clearly and made the motifs seem less elongated. (Not that I mind if they're elongated, but obviously if a diagonal has the same length but a different width, it changes the apparent elongation.) I had to pay some attention to just how loose -- loose enough to see the pebbly bits, but not so loose that the weft was clearly visible.
Another thing, which I probably already knew, is that when the weaving shed gets fairly short, turning the cards in the tight space causes the band to spread out. That of course affects its width and the distance between picks. I can mitigate some of it but not all of it, because it affects a few rows of weaving, not just the most recent. That was part of the reason I stopped the band when I did, since I was already starting to see that effect and it would have only gotten worse. Smaller cards would have been better -- maybe it's time to buy or make some since I only have ten of them and a lot of bands use more cards.
I also gained a bit of confidence in my ability to take the diagonal lines of a pattern and convert it into a tablet-weaving chart. Thank you to Randi Stoltz for providing the diagonal-line chart so I didn't have to do it myself from Sophie Krafft's drawings. I also appreciate Stoltz calling attention to this interesting collection of motifs. Maybe I'll do some of the other motifs from the fragments that Stoltz has called attention to. Some look like good ones for two-hole while others would work well with regular 4-hole diagonal or kivrim-ish or other techniques. As far as I know, a lot of the Oseberg tablet-woven bands were made using brocade techniques, so that too is another possibility for playing with the motifs and/or re-creating some of the known bands.
If I make this band again, I'll be sure to change the color of the border. The yellow zigzag is the most obvious element, and it's only when one gets closer that the red net-like motifs start to stand out. I know this -- that the lightest color is often the one that is most noticeable, but I keep thinking that the darkest/brightest color might be different this time. Duller colors (gray vs white, for example) can reduce the effect, but it does depend on the pattern and on the actual colors used.
As usual, cats are terrible weaving assistants. Good thing they're cute.
I wonder what technique was used when creating the item that contained original motif? I might have to do some research to find out, if it's even been reported. It does lend itself quite well to two-hole tablet weaving, though.
What's next? I guess I'll find out! But probably more two-hole patterns until I get bored or until the lure of the Next Thing gets too hard to ignore.
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