Sulawesi adventures

I was in the mood for something new, and Sulawesi caught my interest.

What people refer to as Sulawesi tablet weaving is an interesting 3-color variant on double-face.  People in that part of the world also do double-face tablet weaving, though I don't know if the people who do this also do the more typical 2-color double-face.  Oh, probably, along with doing threaded-in plain weaving for borders and such.

With Sulawesi-style, tablets work in pairs.  Two tablets always have the same orientation and turn the same (2 tablets that have / or \ orientation turn forward or backwards together twice.  This means that one can chart it out using a single box to represent 2 tablets and 2 turns.  Or not -- one can also chart out every single tablet and turn.  Being able to use the box methods means that ideas can quickly be sketched out and charted out.  (The same sketches can often be used for other tablet-weaving techniques, too.)

Also with Sulawesi-style, the colors have a particular pattern.  There is a main motif color, a background color (or anti-motif), and an accompanying color.  The accompanying color has two threads, one on each side of the others.  (i.e.  MABA).  The tablets are oriented / / \ \ / / \ \ etc., i.e., alternating the orientation of each pair.  The colors go up and down in little zigzags -- for the motif color, for example, it goes in hole C D D C C D D C etc., all across the band, while the background color goes in hole A B B A A B B A all across.  Obviously this would easily lend itself to continuous warping techniques.

There's also some fun stuff the weavers there do with tubular edges and finishing the ends, but I'm mostly concerned with the basic tablet-weaving technique for now.

I have no idea how old this technique is.  There's not a lot of info on old artifacts and ethnography only goes so far back and is limited in what it covers.  I found a few 19th century artifacts online in the Yale University Art Gallery museum website but so far that's about it.  I'll keep looking.  The 19th century bands were often woven in cotton, by the way.  And in addition to Sulawesi, terms like "mamasa" and "toraja"  and "pallawa" turn up more links.

I also found a video, where the cards are flipped to change colors (rather than turning the other direction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4GSQu7dD0U.  It's not clear exactly what pattern the weaver is making in the video, but the band shown at the end is the same technique (though it looks like the background color is the same as the accompanying color and/or it's 3-threaded).

Sagawoolcraft.com is a blog and website with a lot of interesting Sulawesi-technique tablet weaving and charted motifs.  So that's where I started.  She charts slightly differently from how I do, but if I ignore her tablet labels and tablet set-up, it works out the same as with the Karisto/Pasanen charting conventions I prefer.  She likes having A at the top of the warping chart going down to D at the bottom, with D closest to the weaver and A towards the unwoven warp.  Karisto/Pasanen conventions have D at the top of the warping chart going down to A at the bottom, with A closest to the weaver and D closer to the unwoven warp.  Both start the pattern weaving chart from the bottom and both number the tablets from left to right across the band.

I recharted it (using one of the online charting websites) to be sure.  And then I made up some of my own motifs because it was fun and easy.  So...  I guess I'll be doing a mix of motifs from wherever I find them along with my own motifs.

There are examples online in other places on the Internet, of course.

Anyway...  I decided on a small band for my first effort.  It has 8 pairs of tablets (16 pattern tablets) with one extra tablet per edge (18 tablets total).  The edge tablets are threaded in colors A A B B, in colors different from the main band, to help me keep straight the direction the double-face turning needs to go in.  At this point, I prefer to turn cards forwards and backwards instead of flipping them, so of course that's what I did.

And.....  it's fun!  A little fiddly, but not horrible with so few pattern tablets, and it's pretty easy to see right away if you're doing it right.  My very first motif has been woven (and it's one of my own designs -- nothing fancy but I did it myself), and it's lovely!  I'm chuffed.  I'll probably do mix-and-match motifs rather than the same one(s) all the way down the band.  I do like a lot of the Saga Wool Craft motifs so why not add some of hers as well as my own designs?

These bands can be done with three or two threads per tablet, too.  If 3-threaded, then omit the background (anti-motif) color.  If 2-threaded, then omit the two accompanying threads.

I wasn't able to do any tablet-weaving for the last several weeks due to other obligations.  I'm glad I can resume tablet-weaving and other fun stuff again.

I'm probably going to be teaching people how to do 4-loop fingerloop braiding (for the near-universal square/round cord) in a few weeks.  I hope the class ends up being reasonably fun, easy, and useful.  I could do other 4-loop fingerloop braids as well, or other methods for making the same braid structure, but I probably will keep it simple and focused on only this one topic.  I'll probably show two ways to do it, though.  Or at least present two ways even if one of them is mostly left as an exercise for the braider to do some other time.  (I'll probably start with the Makusua maize blossom braid from L-MBRIC because it's easier for me to keep track of where I am in the braid.)

Now back to my band....  what motif shall I do next?  How many more shall I make up?  Do I care about pattern flow throughout the band or is this mostly a sampler of whatever I feel like doing next?

Yet more 4-element braid experiments

This might be my final post on this particular braid.  Or not -- you never know!

The above is a fingerlooped braid.  It spirals Z for part of the way, then S, then back to Z.

For the method where you shift the index finger to the middle finger, then pick up the other-hand ring finger and put the middle finger loop onto the other-hand ring finger...

If Color A starts out on the index fingers and Color B starts out on the ring fingers, it will spiral Z.  If Color A starts out on the left hand and Color B starts out on the right hand, it will spiral S.

You can shift from S to Z or vice versa by waiting until the colors are arranged the way you like, then repeating a move.   So...  you do the first exchange (either right or left hand), which brings the yarns into the other configuration.  Then repeat that first exchange instead of doing the second exchange.  Keep going from there, as before, until you want to shift the other way.

I haven't tried it yet, but my guess is that it's the opposite for the version of this braid where one moves the ring finger loop to the middle finger, then swaps the other-hand index finger loop onto the ring finger with the middle finger loop going to the other-hand index finger.  That's because with the first method, the index finger loop goes under the ring finger loop, while it goes over the ring finger loop in the second method.  With both (if I'm thinking about it correctly), the switch/twist between index and ring fingers goes clockwise when the right index finger swaps with the left ring finger, and counterclockwise when the left index finger swaps with the right ring finger.

I tried doing the loop exchange in one move but I wasn't dexterous enough to be able to switch loops without one going through the other and without dropping something.  So the two-step method works best for me so far.  (Transfer loop to middle finger, then swap the two loops pretty much at the same time.)

So.  How was the Skjodehamn hood braid done?

The argument for fingerlooping -- it's a short braid, made from two strands of yarn per braiding element, and fingerlooping is pretty fast.

The argument against fingerlooping -- it is not clear if any of the other braids are fingerlooped.  They might be, but they might not be.  In general (with a lot of exceptions), I'd expect to see some 5-loop fingerloop braids somewhere in this outfit, since in general (with a lot of exceptions), odd-number fingerloop braids and especially 5-loop braids, are so common in areas that do fingerlooping.  On the other hand, most of the braids are made from two strands per element, which is an argument for strong consideration of fingerlooping.  One more argument against fingerlooping -- this braid is not mentioned in any of the medieval braiding manuals, as far as I know.  Though I don't know if it would have been considered too simple to record.

Whipcording -- there is no evidence for the existence of this method at this time.  It's possible that long lengths were wound onto sticks rather than heavy bobbins, but that grades into the freehand braiding methods.  Whipcording (hanging the braid from a hook, then passing the bobbins back and forth, preferably with two people) is pretty fast, especially for making long lengths of cord.  The argument against this method being used, in whatever form, is that these are short ties, hardly worth the effort of setting up anything with bobbins.

Disk/stand -- again, no evidence for the existence of this method at this time, and the arguments are similar to the ones about whipcording.  It's definitely possible -- maybe a small table or tablet (for tablet weaving) with a hole in the middle could have been used, with a counterweight for the growing braid and sticks or small bobbins holding the cords.  But again, it would be better for longer cords.  It's an idea for portability, though.  I'll have to think about it.  A plain tablet (or square piece of something with a hole in the middle) would be easier than moving threads in and out of slots.  It could be pretty fast and would require only one person.

Freehand/in-the-hand -- This is a low-tech way to do this braid, pretty easy to rediscover anytime you need to do so.  There are several ways to think about how you do it.  It's a little slower than fingerlooping, but requires very little set-up or thinking about it.  It too is very good for shorter braids, and entirely possible for longer braids if one has a way of dealing with the long ends (such as wrapping them around a stick or small bobbin).

Other methods?  I don't know!  I'm still a wee small braider, with so much left to learn and understand.

Of the ones above, freehand and fingerloop are the most plausible.  In my opinion.  Given my current level of ignorance, which is pretty high.  My guess is that the person who sewed the hood (and/or the person who wanted the ties) might well have grabbed a bit of yarn and banged out the cord right then and there.  It is possible, of course, that there was already a much longer length of this cord hanging around (done on a disk or through whipcording or freehand) and they just whacked off a couple of short pieces of it to make the ties.

I don't have a good enough pic of the cords, nor do I have sufficient knowledge about braiding or about the culture that made these specific braids, to rule out the various possibilities.

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I knew I had done a fingerlooping version of the 4-element braid before, and I tracked it down, yay!

It's the Makusua Maize Blossom braid of the Guajiro Indians (from northeast corner of Columbia, in South America), and it's in L-MBRIC 10, shown in the Illustrated Instruction Series (no. 10, of course, from 2007).  This one is similar to the Potosi method except that loops are swapped from hand to hand first, then shifted back to the original finger.

So, loops are on B and D fingers (calling them Lb, Ld, Rb, and Rd).  Ra takes ld.  Ld takes rb.  La takes rd.  Rd takes lb.  Shift loops a to b on both hands.  Tighten the structure every other step.  

They give the three basic color patterns that can be done with two colors.  For Z spirals -- Color A on both b fingers, color B on both d fingers.  For S spirals -- Color A on one hand, color B on the other hand.  For vertical (as with the above) -- the diagonals are the same (i.e. the b finger of one hand and the d finger of the other).

So maybe I'm not quite done with this topic.  I might try both this method and the Potosi method to see which one flows more smoothly and easily.  I've done the Makusua braid before but don't remember much about it beyond the fact that I've done it.

I don't know why I get hung up on these picky little details.  They're probably very basic to most people.  But it helps me to do and explore things, thinking about why and what.  It does help my overall understanding of the underlying principles, I guess, even if I have to do it the slow and hands-on way.

Masako Kinoshita describes the Makusua braid as "new as an L-M recipe", interesting.

See my posts from February 28, 2024 and February 29, 2024 for my first exposure to the Makusua braid.

(edited later to add -- the Makusua and Potosi methods are both quick and efficient, as is my own variation.)

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Maybe I'll move on to the six-strand Skjoldehamn braids soon.  These too were done with two strands of yarn per element.  They can be done freehand or, I believe, through fingerlooping.  There's no point to doing them with whipcording, I don't think.

I think my class is likely to be this 4-element braid from the Skjoldehamn hood as done with fingerlooping.  I'll probably show or at least talk about other ways to make the braid (freehand, disk, maybe a description of whipcording), and also encourage people to experiment with using more colors, doing other color patterns and/or monochrome cords, etc.

Or I'll do the 6-element braid, and if so, probably freehand since that way is easy to demonstrate, and it generalizes to a lot of other braids in this style.

It's interesting that most or all the braids on the outfit use even numbers.  I wonder if that means something?  Ditto for the use of two strands per braiding element for most or all of the braids.

More 4-strand braiding silliness

The rightmost braid is the one mentioned in the previous post.  The leftmost braid is a repeat of the fingerlooping methods.  Again, I tried both methods -- move the index finger to the middle finger vs move the ring finger to the middle finger.

They're pretty much identical from a braid structure standpoint -- the index and ring finger on one hand switch clockwise, and the index and ring finger on the other hand switch counterclockwise.  With one, the index finger loop goes over the ring finger loop; with the other, the ring finger loop goes over the index finger loop.

Either one can spiral S or Z; it depends on the arrangement of the colors vs how the loops switch.  Do I remember which is which?  Umm, no.  But it was obvious when I'd mess up by switching the twist directions by accident, and then switching back.  I got both S and Z spirals with each of the methods.

Too bad the contrast on the left two braids is so low, because they were very informative.  Both are in green and blue, with the fatter braid being fingerlooped and the thinner one single-strand freehand braided.

The middle one happened after I poked around on the 'net and my own books and stuff.  It's a different method than the other freehand methods I wrote about earlier, though of course they're all kind of the same and it's mostly about the way my brain understands what is going on.

For the middle one -- think of these four elements being arranged in a circle instead of flat.  Instead of 1 2 3 4, we have NW SW SE NE.   As with fingerlooping and disk braiding, we're going to swap NW and SE in one direction, and then swap NE and SW in the other.

So... cross NW over SE, then cross NE over SW.  Twist your wrists and move your fingers (and strands) as appropriate to make sure that the pairs of elements crossing each other don't interfere with the currently-passive elements or vice versa.  As with the other braids, the spiral direction (and color pattern in general) depends on the arrangement of the colors vs the direction of the crossing twists.  One can, of course, cross under rather than over, but for me, the cross-over twist of my fingers felt more natural than the cross-under.

Here's a paracord video that shows it, though with the color arrangement that leads to vertical stripes rather than a spiral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWWA6MQXGE and it can also be seen fairly well on Sally Pointer's video (the second braid, starting about halfway through the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwVXwH_w2ng

Am I done?  Maybe.  I'm probably not going to explore disk/stand braiding or whipcording because the how-to for those is pretty straightforward.  I am going to try to pay attention to figure out which color arrangements lead to which spiral direction.  It should be pretty obvious pretty quickly.

Whipcording (aka Viking whipcord or interlocking or slinging) -- as far as I know, there's no unambiguous evidence of this method being used before the 17th century.  Honestly, though, whipcording just seems to be doing this braid with wooden bobbins to hold the excess length of unbraided yarn, plus hanging it from something high so it can be worked downwards vertically, plus adding a second person if so desired to make it a game (by tossing pairs of bobbins back and forth).  It would be useful if making long lengths of cord.  But for something that's roughly 8" long, like the Skjoldehamn hood ties?  I'm thinking freehand or fingerloop since either can be done pretty spontaneously.

Dunno if and when I'll explore more 4-strand braiding stuff, such as other braid structures.  I'm also not going to track the history of these braids, because they tend to be pretty universal over time and space, going way way back.  People are clever.

So one possibility for a class is this braid, period.  I could do the fingerloop method and only that.  Or I could do fingerloop and freehand.  Or even fingerloop, freehand, and disk.  It would be in the context of the Skjoldehamn hood ties, with a general discussion of this braid throughout history.

If I did a second class, it would be the 6 strand pigtail-type braid used decoratively on the cuffs, necklines, etc., in the Skjoldehamn outfit, both freehand and fingerlooped.

So ends today's ramblings on this particular 4-strand braid structure.  Maybe.  There might well be an upcoming post on the 6 strand braid and maybe an example of the 4-strand braid showing which color placements lead to which patterns, so my poor little goldfish brain has something to return to later.

The Skjoldehamn hood braid (some experiments)

I'm still playing around with the braids that were used as ties on the Skjoldehamn outfit.  Today I tried a few things with the 4-element cords that are part of the hood.

Here is a small pic of the hood, screen-shotted from archive.org's copy of the thesis pdf.

And here is a small pic of the ties along with a diagram that traces the path of each element in the braid.

These are both from https://web.archive.org/web/20220225172743/https://kaupafar.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Nye-tanker-om-Skjoldehamnfunnet.pdf with the cords being discussed on p.47-48.

Google translation from the Norwegian text gives the thesis description of these cords as such (somewhat edited): 

"The braid here measures 19 cm including one tassel of 2.5 cm, and is approx. 0.4 cm thick. It is braided from two pairs of S threads in olive green yarn and two pair of S threads in brown-red yarn. The colors wind in spirals (clockwise) down the braid...

"The green tassel is a highly felted/felted weave fabric (of unknown bond) enveloping the outermost part of it. The tassel is sewn on irregular stitches in green Z2S yarn. The round braids are sewn to the hood with both golden and dark grey-brown yarn in Z2S. Since the right side braid is not preserved in its entirety (only 6 cm is preserved) it is uncertain how long this originally was..."

Løvlid seems to think that the ties went under the chin. Other people think that they tied in the back, to adjust the way the hood fit at the back of the head and to keep the top of the hood from flopping forward onto the face.

My first braid (shown in the previous post and also the rightmost braid in the above photo) was done using the above diagram -- outermost thread goes under 2 elements and around 1, first the left than the right.

I did that again today.  (it's the second braid from the right, above)  It's nice but still slightly awkward (though less awkward than the first time).  Then I went poking around on the internet and my books.

It's possible to do this using a disk -- I think it's the very first braid in Rodrick Owens' 250 Braids book.

It's also possible to do this in the opposite way.  Instead of going under 2 elements then around and over, you can go over 2 and around and under.  It didn't seem to be all that much faster than the first method.

But I also found Laverne Waddington's description, which gave me yet another method for making this cord.

Her freehand method  (for 4 cords lined up as 1 2 3 4) is for 2 to cross over 3 and 4, 1 crosses over the cord that is now in the 2 position.   Then, 3 crosses over 2 and 1, with 4 then crossing over the cord that is now in the 3 position.  This is the middle braid in the above photo.  It's a little looser than the previous method, but a lot of that might be because it's the first time I tried it.  There's a nice rhythm to it.

She also showed a fingerlooping method, yay!  She learned it from Hilda in Potosi and Julia, (the post doesn't give further details beyond identifying them as her weaving teachers).  Since the cords on the Skjoldehamn hood are made with 2 strands per element, it is not at all impossible that they were made from fingerlooping.

Here is Waddington's tutorial on both the freehand and fingerloop methods: https://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/tutorials/tutorial-4-strand-braid/

I first tried the method for spiral-4 braids from Ingrid Crickmore's website, which is a braid that is well known in historic (and modern) fingerloop sources.  Hmmm, close.  That's the second photo from the left.  I'm pretty sure I twisted the loops as I picked them up with the traveling finger.  The braid is pretty loose, which is partly due to using loops instead of single strands of yarn.  Crickmore says that this one needs careful tightening, so I'm sure a lot of it was just me braiding quickly without paying too much attention.

Here are Crickmore's descriptions of the spiral braids: https://loopbraider.com/2019/12/28/spirals-and-2-loops/ and https://loopbraider.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/part-2_4-loop_spiralbraid.pdf

Then I tried Waddington's method, which doesn't take any loops through any other loops.  That's it!  I tried a few variations, too, to compare.  This is shown in the leftmost braid.

The fingerloop method that seems to be equivalent to the Skjoldehamn braid is as follows.

Put loops on index fingers and ring fingers.  Have both of Color A on the left hand and both of Color B on the right hand.  (One can get different color patterns by making different choices, of course.)

Shift the loop on the right ring finger to the right middle finger.  Put the loop on the left index finger onto the right ring finger.  Use that left index finger to pick up the loop on the right middle finger.

Then do the other hand.  Shift the loop on the left ring finger to the left middle finger.  Put the loop on the right index finger onto the left ring finger, then use that right index finger to pick up the loop on the left middle finger.

Repeat.

I also tried putting the index finger loop onto the middle finger, then moving the ring finger loop to the other hand, then shifting the middle finger down.  This braid, while perfectly charming, does not give the same pattern.  You can see that in the middle of the braid pictured above.  I also did a little bit of the regular spiral loop (one loop through the other) without twisting the loop, just to double check.

When I was doing it according to the instructions from Hilda and Julia, the braid looks right and is reasonably well-tensioned.

(And now that I'm re-watching the video.....   They walk the loop from the index finger to the middle finger, place the other-hand ring finger loop on the index finger, then put the middle-finger loop on the other-hand ring finger. WELL!  Something new to try, and to see how it compares to what I've been doing.)

All of my braids were relatively short, with pretty much no obvious tension change from start to finish.  Dunno how much of that is because I've been doing this for a while, vs the shortness of the braids, vs the braid structure.

But it seems entirely reasonable that the Skjoldehamn hood ties were made using fingerlooping, with freehand braiding also being a reasonable choice.

A few questions -- the description says that the braids were done from two pairs of S threads.  Were these two single-ply yarns?  Or one plied yarn?  Or two 2-plied yarns?  The picture is fuzzy enough that I can't tell.

I wonder what color these were originally?  Brown-red and olive green could be red and yellow, orange and blue, etc.  Or brown-red and olive green, of course!

What I learned:

There are indeed several ways to do 4 loop fingerloop braids, depending on how one transfers loops from hand to hand.  I knew that about other fingerloop braids I've done, and also about other 4-loop fingerloop braids, but I don't know if I had explored ways to do this kind of braid where loops are only exchanged between two fingers rather than traveling around the entire hand.  I wonder how this will generalize to braids with more elements?  Maybe the Potosi method (on 6 strands) would work for the Hedeby braid?  Hmmm.

There are a lot of ways to make this simple 4-element braid (which I already knew -- this is a very ubiquitous world-wide braid, used in several different textile and textile-related crafts).

There are at least 3 ways to make the braid freehand, and probably several others I haven't explored yet.

Since it is possible, quick, and efficient to make this braid using fingerloop methods, it raises the odds of some or all of the other 2-strand multi-element braids on the outfit being fingerlooped, too.  Of course, they might all have been done freehand.  Or some of each.

Some blog commenters are awfully demanding.  Though tone doesn't come through in writing and some of the commenters write as if English wasn't their first language.  I'll try to be charitable.  Waddington and Crickmore are both unfailingly polite, friendly, and helpful.

I will continue to explore the Potosi and Potosi-inspired fingerloop methods to make sure they give the same structure as well as exploring other variations I might accidentally create.  I should try the disk method (I'd use a marudai if it was me, but if this is a class, they'll probably use disks.  I'll see how much of a pain it is to use an 8-slot disk.).  I'll look through my books and the 'net to see what else I can find.  And I'll make sure the fingerloop method works for the 6-strand Skjoldehamn braids.  I'm nearly positive it does, but heck, I'm nearly positive about a lot of things that turn out to be totally wrong.  

I have plenty of ideas for teaching a class or two.  Or more.

Edited to add -- photo will go in later.  But I tried the Potosi fingerloop method again, both the video version (move index finger loop to middle finger) and my version (move ring finger loop to middle finger).  They have the same kind of structure.  My version is a little tighter.  The video version is a little easier to keep track of in terms of what move needs to happen next.  And the video version spirals Z while my version spirals S.  I'll confirm that tomorrow in case I did something else like mix up the thread color placement.

A few easy braids from the Skjoldehamn outfit

I'm probably teaching a class next month.  There are several in my rotation already, but maybe I feel like doing something new.

I've seen some interesting six-element braids in the past few months, shown to me by friends.  One is from one of the Sion knitted relic purses.  The purse my friend is knitting has what looks to be a six element square fingerlooped braid.  (I tried making it a few months ago and it seems to look like the pics, so hey, probably a good first approximation.)

Another six-element braid was shown to me by a different friend who is using braids sewn down over seams as a decorative statement, very common in certain times and places.  That friend was using ideas from the Skjoldehamn find and other similar-era finds.

I found a thesis that discussed the textiles of the Skjoldehamn find, including semi-decent pictures and also diagrams of the braids.

And off I go...

Braids are used in several places on this outfit.  The Skjoldehamn hood has a couple of 4-element braided cords used as ties.  Six-element braids are used decoratively around the cuffs and neckline.  A twelve-element braid is used as a belt and something similar is used as a drawstring for the trousers.  Plus ends of other bands are also braided, and possibly more I'm forgetting.

Most of the braids are made using doubled or tripled strands of yarn.  Doubled strands always make me suspect fingerlooping, but there's no obvious evidence (such as braid tightness being different from one end to the other).  So it's possible, but it's also possible the braids are all made in the hand, or by using disks or bobbins/whipcords or something else entirely.

I think the four element and six element braids would be reasonably easy to teach.  So I found my acrylic stash and tried them out.  I used one strand, not double stranded like I believe the originals were.  Also, the originals are made from thin wool yarn and I'm using worsted-weight acrylic.  Plus nevermind about natural dyes vs modern industrial dyes.

The bottom braid in this pic is from the hood.  It's a four-element braid.  I think it's either the same as or very similar to the ones one always sees around the world.

If the four elements are laid out as 1 2 3 4 --  element 1 goes under 2 and 3, then over 3 (to assume the new position 2); then element 4 goes under 3 and 2, and over 2 to become the new position 3.

It's a little awkward to do, so I might try going over-around-under instead of under-around-over to see if that flows better while still looking the same.

The photo of the hood tie in the thesis looks pretty much like my cords, with one end in an overhand knot and the other having loops (or maybe just ends) that are hid by a tassel cover.  Was it fingerlooped?  I'm not sure -- I'll have to see if the structure matches any of the four-element fingerloop braids I know, and then see what it looks like and how easy it is to braid compared to banging it out freehand.

The other two braids have the same structure.  One is more tightly braided and monochrome than the other, but they're identical other than that.  There are six elements.   The right hand outermost element goes over two elements into the middle.  The left hand outermost element goes over three elements (to cross the previous element) into the middle.  Repeat.  I think this type of braid is referred to as a plait, but honestly, I don't really know the current braiding terminology.  I know this one can be done as a fingerloop, but it's plenty fast as a freehand braid.

I also looked at the Hedeby apron braid, mostly because it too is a 6 element braid of a similar time and place.  That one is not fingerlooped, I don't think, since it consists of single stranded elements (of 2-ply wool), not double/triple.  This one has the rightmost element go over 2, and then the left goes under 2 and over the just-moved strand.  It has a more W like appearance (the 6 element plait above has a V like appearance).  I could do the Hedeby 6 element plait in a different class.  It's not much more complicated than the Skjoldehamn 6 element plait.

Here are the references I'm finding useful so far, more or less.  I was given links to youtube videos from my friend using braids as decorative elements over seam lines.   Videos are slow but they can help me confirm that I understand what's going on.  Or at least the video person has the same understanding or misunderstanding that I do.

2009 master's thesis: https://web.archive.org/web/20220225172743/https://kaupafar.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Nye-tanker-om-Skjoldehamnfunnet.pdf

also see https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/11552101/skjoldehamn-find-pennsic-expo-conv-svcscom and https://www.medieval-baltic.us/skjold.html (this second link is more for how to make the hood, since it seems a bit different from how most of my friends make it)

Hedeby: https://clothofstars.blogspot.com/2023/08/sca-6-strand-hedeby-braid.html and https://urd.priv.no/viking/smokkr.html#ev-haithabu and of course https://blog.eibeck.de/2014/plait-from-the-hedeby-apron-dress-fragment.html

The videos are from Wyrd Kindred https://www.youtube.com/@WyrdKindred

I think there are more links out there that I've found in the past, and also more links in general.  But the above were of some use today.

Sion purse pic here: https://www.kornbluthphoto.com/SionPurse269.html  The braid really looks like a square 6, which means a square 5 on one hand and a square 7 on the other.  But I'll do more experiments later.  My friend mostly cared about the knitted motifs, which are cute, but which are more well known and studied than the cords.

I hope the above kind of makes sense and helps me figure out what I was thinking about when I went exploring and experimenting today.

One more note to myself -- my friends and I should try making a Skjoldehamn hood according to the methods in the thesis to see how it works compared to the methods my friends currently use.

It's nice to be back creating -- I've been busy these last few months.  What time and ambition I've had for creativity has mostly gone to playing in the kitchen, spinning, knitting, and gardening.

My braiding/weaving area is mostly off limits still, so I might not be able to start a new tablet woven band for another few weeks minimum.

Fajum graveyard sleeve fragment tablet-woven trim

'Tis done.

I really like it!

After my last post, I thought about things for a while.  I looked at the photo in the book, and decided that I wanted the band to be symmetric.  So I eliminated the rows that required me to push down on the white.  It's now a 34-row pattern.  And symmetric.

The weaving went fairly smoothly, except when it didn't.  Did I mention that cats are terrible weaving assistants?  Also, if I stopped paying attention, I'd turn something forward when it needed to go backwards, or vice versa, or I'd lose my place and have to figure out where I was.

But it's done and it looks lovely.  There's one teeny little error that no one will notice.  The pattern repeats at the beginning of the band are only subtly different from the rest of the band, so that too won't be a problem.

The band ended up almost 1cm wide.  I had thought it might be 8-9mm but it's in the 9-10mm range, so it is pretty close in size to the original.  It's about 170cm long (66-67" long, 3/8" wide) before blocking.  I did 30 pattern repeats.

I hope the red is stable and nothing leaks onto the white when it gets blocked and washed.  I might get some of that dye-catcher stuff to try to ensure it.  I'll also iron this since it's a little twisty, not surprising given the design. 

I'll probably keep this in my repertoire.  I think it offers a lot of bang for the buck, a very striking design that isn't super-simple but is still straightforward and fairly quick to weave.

The newest tablet-weaving project (Fajum graveyard fragment)

I've been busy with other things these past few weeks.  However, today I started a new band.  As often happens, it wasn't the band I had thought I was going to do next.  It is another one of the Coptic bands in Aisling's book Tablet Woven Bands from Egypt (by Silvia "Aisling" Ungerechts).  It's in the 3/1 Twill section on p.100-101.  The book says that this was a small tablet-woven band on the wrist of a sleeve fragment.  The origin was described as "from the graveyard of Fajum".  She estimates it to be 5th to 7th century and typically Coptic.  The band is currently in the archives of the Skulpturensammlung und Museum fur Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin, Inv. no. 11429.

The band has only 8 tablets, 2 of which are edge tablets.  The design is white zigzags on a blue background with red edges.  Although that sounds simple, 3/1 broken twill and tie-downs (or whatever the opposite of a float is called) are used to create crisp lines.

I recharted the pattern to make sure I understood it.  Aisling warns that she's not always perfect at noting thread orientation vs tablet orientation for her charts, but since she likes to chart top-down and I like to chart bottom-up it ended up being kind of moot.  She does have a row 37 in the chart that seems to be unnecessary.  Also, as charted, there ends up being a white blip on rows 1 and 36 which doesn't seem to be in the woven band that's in the photograph on page 100.  For those two rows, I push down the white thread before passing the shuttle through the shed.  I could have turned back and forward instead but that would have left a float, I believe, and the photo doesn't seem to show a float.

As suggested, I'm using white and blue for the zigzags and red for the edge, and a similar shade of blue for the weft.  I'm using a darker red since the brighter one was not as colorfast as it should have been when I last used it, yikes!  I've only done a few pattern repeats but I like it a lot so far.  It weaves up pretty quickly and seems very rhythmic.  So far it's fun rather than frustrating.

The original is wool and linen, but as usual, I'm doing cotton.  The original is about 1cm wide.  Mine is likely to be a bit thinner than that.

This band is somewhat similar to a band in Tablet Woven Treasures by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen.  It too is a narrow band with zigzags of different widths.  In their book, it's number 36. Kaukola, Kekomaki (KM 2489:5 H1), p. 176-177.  The graveyard in which this particular fragment was found is thought to have been used during the Crusader Era, 1100-1300.  So that's interesting.

Onward!