A monochromatic sampler band (plus a few comments and speculations)

 

I was poking around the internet, re-visiting some of my favorite tablet-weaving sites.  One of them is this old (but still wonderful) page from Thora (Carolyn Priest-Dorman): https://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/3recipes.html.  These are 14th-15th century tablet-woven braids found in London that were described by Grace Crowfoot.  The middle one (Braid 450) I recognized as the one Mervi Pasanen (I think it was Mervi) was weaving in a Facebook post (with video!) in the Lautaunat/Tablet Weaving page on Facebook on December 30, 2018.  She even credits it as a "medieval silk belt, 14th century London," so I'm pretty sure she's using the same instructions.  It's here: https://www.facebook.com/Lautanauhat/videos/2241382072561960

Hmm.  The belt is described by Grace Crowfoot in this reference: Crowfoot, Elisabeth; Pritchard, Frances; and Staniland, Kay. Textiles and Clothing c. 1150-c. 1450. Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, 4. London: HMSO, 1992.   Which, thanks to the miracle that is the Internet, I was able to find.

Crowfoot describes the braid thus (I'm including the photo that is Fig 100B, too):

In the text near the braids photographed as Fig. 100, she describes the braid as a "lozenge pattern," that was "possibly monochrome."  The braid next to it, Fig 100A, is also described as a lozenge pattern "with at least two colors."  That braid, Braid 143, is later described as a "double-faced weave with lozenge pattern" in the paragraph above Braid 450's description.

Staniland 1975, 167 is in the bibliography as this:

Which, amazingly enough, I also found online.  Here is the entirety of references to tablet weaving on p. 167 in the "excavated textiles" section:

I have not yet figured out if there are further references, nor how the numbers (e.g. 594) compare to the number Grace Crowfoot uses.  I haven't yet found the braid online in some Museum of London database, though I might still go deep-diving for more info.

Anyway.

The double-face surface appearance of braid 450 can be achieved much more easily than Crowfoot specifies.  If one just sets the tablets with alternating S and Z orientations, it is regular double-face -- FFBB.

Also, it looks similar to some of the two-hole brick-patterned bands I've been making.

So, I have questions.  Is this genuinely a four-hole pattern?  I suppose one can count the fringe ends and be fairly certain of it --16 vs 32 ends.   And, how did Crowfoot decide that it was made by alternating FFBB tablets with BBFF tablets instead of being straight double-face?  Elsewhere in the same section of the reference, as I quoted above, she actually calls out some double-face tablets, so she knows what double-face is, for sure.

I charted up both possibilities.   For Crowfoot's band, the FFBB threads are twisting around the weft in an ABCD order, while the BBFF ones are twisting in a DCBA order.  In a monochrome band where all the threads are the same, it makes no difference.  For a colorful band (or one with threads that have different textures), you can get the exact same order of threads by how you thread the tablets.  It would be rather a pain, but it's not hard.  Maybe doing it this way leads to subtle differences in the band's appearance?  Or is a way of balancing out irregularities in the threads while keeping the warping simple?

Obviously some real-world experimentation was called for.

I haven't really played around with double-face yet, so this was a good opportunity to do so.  Also, while I was being all monochromatic, I might as well see what the other two bands on Carolyn Priest-Dorman's page are like.  One of them (braid 449) has the same structure of the El Cigarralejo band I recently did, and I thought it would be fun to see what it looked like in a flat-colored smooth yarn instead of the heathery and slightly fuzzy wool.  The other one (braid 423) uses two staggered packs that alternate being turned and being idled.  Well, that's a new trick to play with, so sure, why not?  After that, I'd see what I felt like doing.

As far as I can tell, there is little or no difference in the appearance of these two methods of making a band with a double-face surface.  Setting the tablets in alternating SZ and doing FFBB looks identical or nearly identical to setting them all as Z (or S) and turning the odd tablets as FFBB and the evens as BBFF.  Any slight difference could be due to the hassle of either dealing with multiple packs of tablets, or, as I did in another experiment, manipulating each tablet individually, as opposed to turning everything as a single pack.  I really do not see a "diagonal twill effect" that is any different in any version I tried.

So that's interesting.  Why did Crowfoot determine that the band was made with this very laborious method vs the much easier method of turning the entire pack of cards the exact same way?  I will see if I can find out any more info online, and then maybe ask some of the more experienced tablet-weavers out there.

One more question -- Was the band all warped up at the same time, with all the tablets in the same orientation, and then half the tablets were flipped (and then rotated as necessary) to give alternating orientation before weaving?  It's not quite the same if the four threads are different colors, I don't think, but it is for two colors.  Maybe it is for four colors as well, but I'm not wrapping my brain around it properly and I'm not going to warp it up right now to double-check.  I will keep this possibility in mind as I look online, too.

While I was playing around with these two forms of creating a double-face type of appearance, I also experimenting with the effect of weft tension and a bit with warp tension.  As I expected, a looser tension enabled me to keep the weft threads closer together.  That made things a little closer to square, though consequently the weft bleps were a little more obvious.  So...  for future projects when I want to do double-face, I can control some of the technique's characteristic motif elongation to some extent, though I'll also want to consider how contrast-y the weft color is.

So that's braid 450, plus some exploration of double-face with alternating SZ tablets.  I forgot to do some regular FFBB double-face when I had the cards all in the same orientation, oops, but that's a fairly minor thing.

Then it was playtime.  Braid 423, with two packs, half of which idle per turn, was kind of fun.  It's a bit slow and fiddly, but not at all difficult.  So now I can confidently tackle the Cambridge Diamonds pattern if I ever want to do so, which I might very well because it's kind of cute.  Again, the appearance of this band is not dissimilar to the appearance of some of the two-hole brick patterns described by Karisto and Pasanen.  I did not mess around with weft tension, which could prove interesting.

While I was perusing Collingwood Chapter 10, on the subject of some tablets idling or getting extra turns, I tried out some of the ideas he presented about idling tablets.  That was OK.  I would have needed to do larger areas to bring out the textural differences and/or use a thread that was shinier and more tightly twisted to make the contrast more obvious.  It can also be a bit fiddly to do.  It's a fairly intriguing idea, though.  I do want to explore it again someday -- chapter 10 is full of crazy-complex stuff.

I later did a few sections where I'd change the directions of different tablets to make shapes that were defined by S or Z tablets.  That works, for sure.  A lot of people (such as Claudia Wollny) seem to use the term "structure weave" for this latter technique, which is mostly a diagonals-type technique in one color.

I also wove a bit of Braid 449 (monochromatic rather than two colors) just to complete the trifecta of braids on Priest-Dorman's website.  Yup, I like making this braid, and perhaps I should make it in two colors someday.

I had some space left, so it was time to do a bit of 3/1 twill since I haven't done that before, either.  To my delight, it's very straightforward whether the twill lines climb to the left or the right.  It, umm, works better if all the tablets are oriented the same rather than alternating SZ, at least for the charts and explanations I was using.  But to learn that was also educational.

I can't remember if I did much else.  The band itself is not particularly attractive, but that wasn't its purpose.  I learned a lot from doing it.  I now feel confident about doing double-face or 3/1 twill patterns whenever I want to, knowing that the underlying structure is something I have already done.  I'm ready to do the Cambridge diamonds pattern whenever I want, and also to play around with other ideas involving idling tablets.  And I have some questions about Braid 450 and thus some research to do.  Even so, I know I can make something that looks like that band whenever I want, whether or not my method is the one Crowfoot claims it is.

A couple of other cool things for the future:  There are several other cords in the Crowfoot article, with tubular tablet weaving, finger-looping, and plaiting.  Fun times!  She also describes tabby-woven narrow wares, an interesting decorative trim for garters, and of course other tablet-weaving techniques for the narrow wares (such as brocade).

The article from the Staniland reference shows some knots a few pages earlier!  They're all in leather, from the section on Medieval Leather by Jennifer Jones.

I'm not sure what I will be doing next.  More two-hole?  More samplers?  Something besides tablet-weaving?  We'll see...  The tablet-weaving area has been disassembled for the next week or so, requiring some improvisation if I want to do tablet-weaving.

A non-two-hole interlude (diagonals-type band)

This is one of the patterns in Applesies and Fox Noses by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen.  It is pattern 8, Fine Crooked Knees and Small Applesies.  Umm, OK.  It is a very striking pattern, in my opinion.  It's been on my want-to-do list for a long time.  Since I am still dithering about which two-hole (or other) pattern I want to do next, I shrugged and made this one.

I chose cotton from the #10 crochet cotton stash, in a dark color, a medium-ish contrast color, and a light contrast color that is more or less in the same color family as the medium-ish color.  In this case, it meant black, teal, and sage.  The edges turned forward continuously, while the others went forward and back in pattern.  I used white or off-white #20 or #30 cotton for the weft since it was already on the shuttle.  I kind of like the little edge dots one gets from using a contrasting color for the weft.

It is a balanced pattern.  I love this style of pattern, with blocks of tablets having the same set of turns as other blocks, either mirrored or offset, and with the turns balanced.  If that makes sense, because I'm not sure how else to describe it.  (The S-sign pattern, also in this book, is similar in its underlying principles.)

The band is based on 7s (or 14s which of course is just 2x14).  Fourteen tablets.  Fourteen rows in the pattern.  Reversal patterns based on seven  (either 7-7 or 4-3-3-4).

It's in the category of diagonals-type patterns, even with all the odd numbers.  Some people say that Egyptian Diagonals, in the way the term was originally used in English-language card weaving books, always involves moving cards from F to B and vice versa in blocks of two, meaning two cards and two picks.  Obviously that is not required, since this pattern has blocks of three tablets, going from F to B after three picks.

Anyway.  It was fun and relatively quick to make once the underlying logic settled in.  It is a very striking pattern, and I'd be willing to make it again.  It would look amazing in silk, not that I have any.

The smoothness of the band is a bit of a contrast to the pebbly texture of two-hole bands.

It's about 61.5" long and 0.5" wide pre-blocking.  I think the backside is also quite attractive.

And now I'm back to dithering.  There are a couple of two-hole patterns that are whispering to me, and ditto for some monochrome things (some two-hole, some not), plus there are plenty of other wonderful patterns and pattern ideas out there.  Yes, I can do my own patterns if I want to, and I have.  But there are a lot of cool examples out there already, whether they're already charted up or if I need to re-chart them based on a photo or description or partial chart.

Small two-hole band from Antinoè grave C 333

As the title proclaims, this is a cute little two-hole band from a pattern found in Antinoè grave C 333.  I found the pattern in these two places:  here and here.  It is a two-hole threaded-in 4F4B pattern (with the edge tablets turned in one direction only) with a small trick on one of the rows.

The band is described as being from a group of artifacts known as Coptic Egypt textiles, dated from 3rd-7th century.  The original was made from red wool and natural/white linen and was sewn onto a fragment of a turquoise wool men's coat.  It was roughly 8mm wide (mine is 8-9mm wide).  I used cotton, red and cream (close to white but not blindingly so).

It is kind of adorable.  The pattern is quite effective.  My little X motifs are a bit elongated compared to the original and to the re-creation on aisling.biz, but eh, that's OK.  I wonder if it has to do with me using cotton rather than wool, or something about the tension I use?

This is the first time I've done the trick of pushing down warp threads at a particular pick.  I'm glad I chose a matching red cotton for the weft, so that it remains unobtrusive!  It makes me laugh a bit to consider all the times I've mistakenly caught the wrong thread on the wrong side of the weft.  Now I'm doing it on purpose.

The chart given is a bit weird.  It is supposed to be read top to bottom, left to right, with S and Z used for thread directions.  But that doesn't seem to line up with the forward/backward turning directions given on the chart.  Clearly I am confused and/or not quite understanding the charting conventions used.  So I re-charted it to make sure I understood what was going on.  Obviously I came up with something that more or less resembles the original!

I'd make this again.  It's a little more fiddly than some of the patterns I've been doing lately, but not too annoyingly so.  Heck, it's been a while since I've made anything too fiddly, so I'm not complaining!  I am feeling the urge to do something more fiddly again, though.  We shall see.

I'm not sure what I'll make next.  I'm feeling an itch to start another tablet-weaving project, so no doubt a decision will be made soon enough.

Continuing the theme of two-hole tablet-weaving

 Here are the most recent bands.

This one is worsted-weight acrylic, probably something like Red Heart.  I wanted to re-do the band I did in wool, the one from Tablet-Woven Treasures where the \ pattern tablets are threaded AC and the / pattern tablets threaded in BD.

For about half the band, one of the tablets was threaded BC instead of AC.  Oops.  It's pretty subtle, even after I changed the threading.

For an acrylic band, it's not bad.

Someone on a Facebook group mentioned this one.  It appealed to me so I followed the links to see what I could find out.  The description and chart are here.  Apparently it's from a 2022 Advent Calendar on the Historical Textiles website/blog.  It's apparently from 17th century Falun (Sweden).  I was immediately charmed and had to try it.

It's very cute.  It alternates two tablets threaded in all 4 holes with a thin yarn, with two tablets threaded in only 2 holes with thick yarn.  The original was silk but since I don't have silk, that wasn't going to happen.

I found some random leftover pink cotton to use.  The darker pink is a bit thicker than #10 to my eye -- was it perl cotton, maybe?  The lighter pink looks like DMC Cebelia, probably #30 but maybe #20.  The weft is the same light pink thread.

The two thicknesses don't show enough contrast to my eye, but I do like the color and texture contrast.  It's a very elegant little band.

I'm almost certainly going to do this one again.  It could easily be made wider by adding tablets in multiples of four (2 four-threaded and 2 two-threaded).  I like the idea of using different colors for the stripes.  I should also try making the two-hole yarn quite a bit thicker than the four-hole yarn.  I think it would look good in wool, too.

It would seem that I'm not over my obsession with stripes.  Good thing that it can run in parallel (haha) with my other current obsessions.

---------------

In Collingwood's Techniques of Tablet Weaving, he talks about patterns where textural contrast occurs by idling some tablets while turning others.  I've been mulling this over.  There are also the types of patterns and ideas in the "structure weave" chapter in Claudia Wollny's Tablets at Work.  The El Cigarralejo band and the Draft 14 band I did fall under that category, I guess.  So apparently monochromatic bands are still calling to me.  Though so are two-hole bands.  Chances are I'll do a few more two-hole patterns before doing more than superficially exploring other techniques.

Also, and also completely unrelatedly, I've been thinking about possibly creating a quickie class about doing one braid using three different techniques.  The simple four-strand (two loop) fingerlooped braid that I showed in my previous post about simple cords can also be done on a disk/marudai or as a free-end braid in the hand.  Hmmm.

I also found another source for the finger-crocheted cord (aka two strand chain sinnet aka ABOK 2896 aka Zipper Sinnet).  In Tassels: The Fanciful Embellishment by Nancy Welch, in the chapter on cords and braids, she shows something she calls Finger Crocheted Cords.  She says that other names she knows this by is "monkey chain" and "idiot's delight".  The drawings are a little different from the one in Montse Stanley's book, but I'm pretty sure this is the same cord.  Interesting...  And of course she also includes the same 4-strand braids I see elsewhere, done as free-end braiding.  She has a section on fingerlooped braids, too!  She refers to them as Slentre (and says it's called "puncetto" work in the Italian Alps).  I knew that Slentre referred to a style of fingerlooping (fingerloop braiding with some quirks), but I hadn't heard about puncetto involving any kind of fingerloop braiding techniques before.