A band with a spiral motif (kivrim)

I  haven't done a kivrim pattern in a long time.  I wanted something quick and cheerful and noticed this very typical spiral style pattern motif on an internet photo.  I charted it up (just to understand the pattern since there are plenty of existing charts out there) and then got started.

It went quickly and was fun.  I've come a long way since my first running-dog/rams-horn band...

I think I did about 108 pattern repeats, for a band that is about 1/2" wide and 63" long.  The warp is the usual Aunt Lydia's #10 crochet cotton and the weft is some leftover black doily-knitting thread.

I think I'll keep this one in my repertoire.

I'm not sure what I'll do next.  I want to finish a spinning project and maybe knit a quick doily.  Any number of tablet-weaving projects are whispering at me, and ditto for braiding.

This would have been finished sooner except that one of my cats likes to sit on the band (actually, the unwoven tensioned warp) not long after I start weaving.  At that point I switch to a different project until she's done with her nap.  I've learned from experience that getting a cat off the weaving is a dangerous thing to do since the cats think it's a fine game and bring out their claws to tangle the warp and potentially shred my fingers.

It's hard to find solid info about the history of the kivrim technique.  I know it's not really seen in old European and North African tablet weaving.  It's definitely known from 19th century to early 20th century Anatolia.  But when did it really appear and how widespread was it?  Did other tablet-weaving cultures do anything similar?

Kivrim still seems like a sub-category of diagonals-technique patterns to me.  The things that seem to be characteristic (at least what I see so far) are (a) the bands often have a unique threading on each tablet as opposed to a more generic threading sequence (such as ABAB or AABB); and (b) some of the tablets are balanced in their turning while others accumulate twist (though this is not completely diagnostic since other techniques may -- or may not -- do the same).

Monotonous Monochrome tablet weaving (the Thin Blue Band)

Well, it's done.  Yay!  By the end, I was very tired of it.  I started with roughly 3 yards of warp and ended up with about 83" of band.  I could have eked out another few inches, but Yet Another warp thread had frayed and broke, and I was tired of replacing them.

The band's width varies from about 7/8" to about 15/16", which is a bit more than I like to see.  Hopefully some of that will go away when I block it.  Ditto for the wavy lines which are a result of how I tensioned it and advanced the warp.

As I wrote in the previous post, this is the pattern seen in the Museum of London band 449 (according to Grace Crowfoot) and also in the pre-Roman El Cigarralejo pattern (according to Aisling).  It consists of 4-threaded tablets that alternate orientations -- 3Z and then 3S (or vice versa).  I used 30 tablets.  My aim was to get it to be >1" but obviously that didn't happen.  It's a nice looking band anyway.

I used my Robin & Russ Handweaver tablets since I didn't know how many tablets I'd thread up when I started.  The thread is the same teal thin cotton 2-ply I've been using, as gifts for a friend.  The combination of large tablets and thin loosely-plied yarn was not a great one.  It was hard to turn the tablets and clear the shed, and eventually the thread started to fray and pill.  My weaving area has a thin layer of blue lint and cotton-plus-cat-fur pills under where the band was being woven.

I think the R&R tablets are going to be retired unless I'm doing a project where I don't have enough tablets of a smaller size.  Some are getting worn out, but the real reason is that I do truly prefer the smaller tablets.  I probably have a few Linda Hendrickson tablets around that have extra holes for Andean pebble weave, but those are special purpose tablets that aren't going to be in general use.  Plus I bought them to support one of the wonderful people who publicize and teach the various techniques of tablet-weaving.

I'm not sure what I'll do next.  The Mammen 3/1 twill band is calling to me (Aisling's chart, probably).  Or maybe I need to do more cords or the double-face Durham seal tag patterns.  Or play with the little 3D-printed rigid heddle someone gave me.  Or do more inkle weaving or backstrap weaving.  Etc.  I'm also gonna be doing a bit more spinning and knitting as the weather cools.

I might try to make more stuff from the teal and gold my friend supplied.  We'll see.  Right now I'm irritated at it, so it's all gonna be in timeout for a while.

I taught another class recently.  I wasn't sure what to teach so I took my cue from the attendees.  It ended up being twisted cords and the 4-strand Fill the Gap braid.  They had fun and so did I.

More monochrome tablet weaving

This is the start of a belt/band/strap for a friend.  I've done this pattern before -- it's used in the Band from Cigarralejo and also the Museum of London Braid 449.  It's very simple yet effective -- use a multiple of three tablets, 4-threaded, and alternate three Z-oriented tablets with three S-oriented tablets.

I'm using the same teal cotton I've been using for the last few bands, and it will be a gift to go along with the other teal and teal/gold bands.  This is fairly fine thread -- even with 30 4-threaded tablets, the band is barely an inch wide (give or take a few mm).  I did a fairly long warp, too, about 3 yards (9 feet).  The final band will probably be at least 7' (2m) long.  The weft is the same thread as the warp.

I'm using my big tablets (from Robin & Russ Handweavers) since I wasn't sure how many tablets I'd need and I have more of these than any other tablets.  It confirms that I really do strongly prefer smaller tablets.  These big ones are harder for my small hands to hold and turn.  There will also be a little bit more waste at the end, not that it really matters given how long the band is gonna be anyway.

It's kind of a hassle keeping all of the threads from tangling, and also a bit of a hassle keeping the shed clear and open.  Although I like the band, I'm not exactly enjoying Life when the threads tangle or get caught on the tablets.  It should get easier as I keep weaving, I hope.  Luckily I am patient and by now have adequate skill on weaving back mistakes even when a tablet goes wild and needs some individual assistance.  Also, one warp thread seems to be a whole lot shorter than it should be.  Dunno how that happened, but it'll have to be dealt with once I get there.  It's not a big deal, just something to be aware of.

The band has a really nice feel to it.  I like how it drapes.  It's not too stiff while still feeling very sturdy.  I hope the recipient likes it and I hope it ends up being both durable and useful.

I seem to recall someone on the 'net did this texture pattern based on a medieval portrait (i.e. an interpretation of a painting rather than figuring it out from an actual artifact), and that weaver called it a "seat belt pattern" because presumably it reminded the weaver of a car seat belt.  But I can't find that post again to see whose portrait it was.  Not that it matters.

I'm not sure what I'll do next.  The double-face seal tags (from the article everyone references, that also has the tablet-woven cord in it) are calling to me.  They'd probably look better in finer threads, sigh, though they'll probably be sufficiently attractive in thicker thread if that's what I choose to do.  I don't know if I want to move on to silk sewing thread just yet but I do have some finer cottons.  Plus I don't care if I match the size of the historic sample since that's not my goal.  I'm just here to have fun.  But maybe some other technique or pattern will catch my eye and I'll do that instead. I did agree to teach some braiding sometime in September, so I'd better do a quick review to figure out what I want to teach.

Another Antinoe band (two-hole diamond-and-dots)

This band is in the Louvre, here: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010049695 and here: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010046880

The label says that's it's from Antinoe (i.e. Coptic Egypt), estimated to be from sometime between 395 and 641 CE.  There is no other info about it, I don't think.

The band and chart are in Aisling's new book on Tablet Woven Bands from Egypt.  I had intended to maybe do the slightly larger Brooklyn-museum band that is nearby in the book, but when I saw this one, I was overcome by its charms and had to drop everything to make it my next project.

It is indeed extremely charming.  I like it a lot, both sides of the band.  The original was made from red wool and white/natural linen, with something slightly more greenish as the edge tablet.  Mine is from the usual cheap big-box-store #10 cotton, in red, white, and sage green.  The weft is a finer red cotton.

The original is apparently 2.2cm wide.  Mine is 1.4cm wide  (5/8").  Mind ended up about 67" long (roughly 167cm).

The photo is of the unblocked band, so some of the motifs are still a bit elongated from the weaving tension.  It shows mostly the front but also the back of the band.

Two-hole is so much fun.  I love the texture of it.  The motifs in this band look like little polka-dots in a diamond mesh.  I'm looking forward to making the Brooklyn band someday -- it's a little wider and the motifs are more like diamonds than polka-dots.  But it too is seriously swoon-worthy in its cuteness.  Both of these will probably stay in my repertoire since they're fairly quick and straightforward to weave.

I have no idea what I'll do next.  As usual.

Cambridge Diamonds

This is a famous historic band from England.  It uses pack-idling, as does the also-from-England Felixstowe band.  There's some question about whether it's Saxon or Medieval, but I don't care.

Cambridge Diamonds has been on my to-do list for a while.  So finally I did it.  There must be something in the air, since I think I've seen mention of at least 3-4 other people either doing the same band or recently finishing it.  It's one of those patterns that most people eventually weave.

I chose blue, white, and green for my colors, and I think it's a good color combination for this pattern.

For whatever reason, this band gave me more trouble than it should have.  It would go along well for a while, then suddenly start giving me uneven color lines and missing bloops and color peek-throughs and what-not.  I believe that the threads were catching on tablet edges even though I tried very carefully to make sure that the shed was doing what it should be doing before I put the weft through there, and this both messed up the tension and caused various threads to end up in the wrong shed.  I had to unweave several times, once because a couple of tablets actually had caught badly enough for the two tablets to switch places.  I knew something was quite wrong but it took a little while to figure it out.  I was also using less weight than I often do for a pattern with this many threads, and maybe that too contributed to the threads catching on various tablet corners.

I hope some of the uneven spots settle down a bit with my usual wet blocking.

I used Shelagh Lewins' chart, both the one in the pdf in her website here: https://www.shelaghlewins.com/tablet_weaving/Cambridge_diamonds/Cambridge_diamonds.pdf and the twisted threads chart here: https://twistedthreads.org/pattern/nQZCXTQdxTaZZgbzd

The unblocked band is 63" long (162cm) and about 1/2" wide (1.25cm).

I'm not sure what I'll do next.  Do I need more practice in multi-pack patterns to improve my shed-clearing abilities?  Or do I want to do something different because this band was kind of annoying at times?  I don't want to swear off of pack-idling patterns because I think they're all kinds of cool, but I don't think my next project is gonna involve pack-idling.

Another teal and gold tablet woven band (17th century Falun silk ribbon pattern)

It is done, yay.  All 2.7 meters of it (108-ish inches).  It's roughly 9mm wide, not quite 3/8".  The broken warp threads are properly darned in, and now it awaits a quick wet-block.

I like how it turned out.  It's nothing dramatic, but it should be a pleasant and hopefully useful piece of trim for the person I'm giving it to.

I'm not sure what I want to do next.  Another teal plus or minus gold band or braid?  Or something else entirely?

Achievements unlocked (a tablet weaving post)

Dunno if it's a real achievement, but I broke a warp thread in my current tablet-weaving project.  I knew in theory what to do, and I did it, and yay, it worked!  I'll darn in and hide the loose ends when the band is finished.

The second achievement, such as it is, is that this is a longer tablet-weaving project than I usually do.  It'll probably close in on 3 meters by the time it's done.  I'm getting tired of it so am taking this break and typing for a while instead.  My fingers and wrists are a bit sore and I don't want to give myself an overuse injury.  I'll probably keep weaving off and on, though.  It's hard to resist doing just a few more inches, and then a few more, etc.  Plus once I get it done, I can set up another band.

Why 3 meters?  Because I'm using some small skeins of Anchor pearl cotton #3.  I folded it in half and half again, and it was longer than 3 yards (when folded in fourths) but not by much.  I wanted to make at least 2 meters of woven trim, meaning that I needed at least 3 yards of warp, so I shrugged and went with whatever length it was when folded in fourths.  (Yeah, I mix my units.  I can live with it, and all my readers are imaginary so their opinions don't matter.)

The other yarn is a much finer 2-ply cotton, probably around #20 or so, give or take a bit.  I'm using it for the weft, too.  I used it as weft in my previous teal and gold project, too.  I suppose that's a third achievement -- although I do weave with finer threads, I haven't done so for a while.  This is a weaving cotton, all limp and 2-ply, rather than the crisp multi-ply and/or cabled cottons I use for knitting doilies.

So, with two thicknesses of yarn, and one of them shinier than the other, the Falun band seemed like a good fit.

It's also a way of honoring Amica Sundström, one of the authors of the Historical Textiles blog, who passed away recently.  I saw this band and the pattern for it on their blog.  I've made it before, but it's a fun and easy pattern and I am fine with keeping it as a semi-regular pattern in my everyday repertoire.

This pattern has ten tablets and alternating / and \ tablet orientation (the original pattern specified \ and /, but I did it as / and \ this time, just for kicks).  Two four-threaded thin-yard tablets alternate with two two-threaded thick-yarn tablets, for 3 stripes of thin yarn and 2 stripes of thick yarn.  It's simple but cute.

I rigged up a warping path to make the thin yarn the same length as the thicker pearl cotton, got the tablets threaded, and off I went.  Well, I had to move around some cards at first since apparently I wasn't paying attention as I warped and got some of the tablet orientations wrong.  Luckily that's a very easy fix.  I blame the cats for distracting me.  Cats are terrible weaving assistants.

The thread tangled quite happily given half a chance, and even when I made strenuous attempts to keep it from tangling.  (The cats made strenuous attempts to tangle it further, of course.)  Some threads also had a bit of animal fur on them, which would felt a bit as I tried to untangle things and then further contribute to the tangling.  It's gotten a lot easier as the remaining warp length shortened, but the first few times untwisting and advancing the warp weren't a lot of fun.

The thin thread is dark teal and the thick thread is old gold.  Yes, they're meant for the friend who requested gold and teal and provided these threads for my use.

The band is going well.  There's enough contrast between the two threads to make it all look good.  It'll be excellent as trim or as a thin belt or strap.  I have maybe a meter of warp left to go.

The warp thread broke about 4" in -- my fault, the thread got caught on something sharp and I tugged rather than trying to work it loose.  I was worried that it might be the first of many warp breakages, but luckily it's all holding together so far.

The thicker yellow thread accumulates twist tension more rapidly than the thinner blue thread even though the yellow thread is two-holed and the blue thread is four-holed.  I suppose it's because the yellow thread is thicker.

There are no photos yet, not even of the pin that's holding the thread ends from the broken warp.  And yeah, I had thought I'd be doing the monochrome band next, but I'm doing this two-color band anyway.

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A friend recently told me that I seem to do a lot of production tablet-weaving (as opposed to only time-intensive intricate pieces, which is my friend's strong preference).  There's a certain amount of truth to that claim.  I do complicated stuff, but I also like to crank out yardage, where the fun of the band is in setting it up and then watching it grow, being able to weave in a meditative way without needing a ton of concentration for each turn of the tablets.

I do a lot of simple bands for other reasons, too.  I suspect a lot of tablet-weaving throughout history was utilitarian, not designed for a wealthy person's cuffs but rather for everyday belts and straps and cords and warp-weighted loom selvedges.  Speed and efficiency were probably important, whether for everyday bands or special bands.  The best way to get faster is to get a lot of practice in weaving, so that a lot of it becomes second-nature.  That way, when I do a more complex band, there's a lot of the basic weaving stuff that happens without me having to pay attention to every single detail, so I can concentrate on the fiddly stuff.  Plus I can make lots of general-use tablet-weaving and freely distribute it among my friends, and not just make a limited number of performance pieces.

Also, the best way to get good at something like this is to do a lot of it.  A fair amount of this skill is a physical thing, with my fingers knowing what to do -- how much tension for the weft, how hard to beat it down, how to turn the cards so it's easier to get a clean shed, etc.  So, by doing a lot of bands, I automatically improve my weaving consistency.  These quick bands give me more yardage than a slower band would and thus more weaving for my brain and hands to absorb.  Again, that helps improve the overall quality of my weaving when I do the fiddly bands.

The same is true for fingerloop braiding.  It gets better, more consistent, etc., the more I do.  And ditto for just about everything else.  It takes time and repetition, not just the top-level understanding of how it all works.

Which we all know, of course.  But sometimes it's good to write it all out.  Not that I'm hugely experienced with tablet-weaving (or fingerloop braiding, or some of the other things I do).  Not yet.  But I'm getting there.