Some of my tablet-weaving tablets

This isn't all of them.  People give them to me.  Or they are samples.  Or I like them and want to buy them and try them, or maybe just admire them.

They are posed against a ruler to show the variation in sizes -- from about 1" to about 3.5" (or maybe 3.25").  In age they range from the 1980s/1990s to 2026.  (I'm not sure where my meter stick is, but the foot-long ruler gives a pretty good sense of size no matter what the units are.) 

When I first started tablet-weaving, I bought a few packs of tablet-weaving tablets from Robin & Russ Handweavers.  Those are 3.25"-ish, I think.  That was a very common size for tablets then, and in fact, still is a very common available size.  I used them exclusively for many years since I didn't know any other sizes existed.  I mean, sure, I could have bought the same size tablets but with different company logos on them, but why bother?  I still see some Mary Meigs Atwater tablets around on the used-sales sites -- I wonder how old those are, and if there are older branded tablet weaving cards around?

When someone gave me some smaller tablets several years ago, it was something of a revelation.  Wow, so much easier!  I have small hands.  The smaller cards are easier for me to hold and manipulate.  The threads are easier to release if they get caught up in the corners of adjacent cards.  And there's also a bit less waste at the end of the warp.

The 3D printed tablets were made by a friend.  They are incredibly adorable and fun to use.  At some point, I'll try to get a bunch that all match in their design but are different colors, since different color tablets would be excellent for identifying groups of tablets at a glance.  (i.e. which tablets are numbers 16-22, when they end up needing to be turned in a different direction from their neighbors?)

The Lacis tablets are pretty nice because they are fairly small, and because they are plastic of some sort.  The holes don't wear out as quickly.  I expect someday that they'll become brittle with age and start breaking, but for now, they're nice to use.

I haven't tried the wooden tablets yet, mostly because the sets are fairly small and I've mostly been doing patterns lately that require more tablets than are in the wooden sets.

For some of these tablets, I only have 1.  Or 8.  Or 10, or 25.  I can use them but only for some patterns.  It's nice to have several dozen tablets of a particular type so I can make wider bands.

Someday I'll drag out more of my tablets to photograph.  By then I might have even more than I do now.  I don't buy every brand I see, but I do acquire ones that are cute and interesting and/or different from what I currently have.  I also make them myself, especially when teaching others to tablet weave.  Old cereal boxes have cardboard that works pretty well for that purpose.  I can easily get a set of 12 tablets per box.

I guess I'm a collector of tablet-weaving tablets these days.  Oh, well, could be worse!

Another little distraction -- the tablet-woven band from the Brooklyn-Museum, New York, Inv. No. 15.445

I've been thinking about this rather charming 2-hole pattern for a while.

So I warped it up and decided to use it as a vehicle for exploration and learning.

As you can see, the left side of the band (near the beginning) is narrower and the diamonds are more elongated.  I've been playing with how tight I pull the weft to see the effects on the aspect ratio of the diamonds.  In the middle or a bit to the right, the weft is so loose that it's leaving little bloops along the edges.  Dunno if the band will spread out more or it that's kind of it.  However, the diamonds are not nearly as elongated.  The far right of the above shows how tight I'm currently pulling the weft, which is still loose-ish but not so loose as to have big bloops.

I like the wider band with diamonds that are not as elongated, so that's what I'll keep doing.  I'll probably do a bit more experimenting before trying to settle down to one width.

Dunno if I'll make the far end of the band do something similar (i.e. narrow down) to pretend I meant to do it that way.  Probably not, though I'll see what I feel like doing when I get there.

Another thing that I'm experimenting with is only turning the edge tablets when the weft is about to go through it/them.  That means they turn once every other row, alternating right and left edges.  It's supposed to help with being able to beat the weft in harder.  I think it does that -- the first pattern repeats on this band have the edges turning every row, with the later ones being every other row.  I think there's a bit of a difference.  So that will be useful for a lot of future projects in various techniques.

This band is from Tablet Woven Bands from Egypt by Silvia Aisling Ungerechts, p. 44-45, the tablet-woven band from the Brooklyn-Museum, New York, Inv. No. 15.445.  I recharted it, of course, to make sure I understood what I was doing.

The original band is here: https://brooklynmuseum.org/objects/9178.  The red is wool (almost certainly madder-dyed) and the yellow is linen and probably was once a lot closer to white.  It is labeled as being from Coptic Egypt, 5th-6th century CE.  The original is 3/4" wide but mine is probably a bit wider, not that I care.  I mean, I could get mine to be 3/4" wide, but that would affect the appearance of the lozenges/diamonds.  Chances are that I'd need to use a different material (either fiber content or thickness or how it's spun or what the weft is or some combo) to get mine to look more like the original.  Or perhaps stick it in the ground in Egypt for 1500 years or so.

Mine is the usual big-box-store #10 crochet cotton, both warp and weft.  There are 32 tablets -- 30 2-holed pattern tablets, and 1 4-holed edge tablet on each side.  The pattern is a basic F/B turning sequence, nothing fancy.

The pattern is cute enough but I think I like the little diamond band from the Louvre better, at least so far.  I do love doing (and admiring) 2-hole tablet weaving so I'm not complaining!

Lots of little pinwheels

That went fast!

The band is about 1cm wide by about 170 cm long (3/8" x 68").  It is, of course, reversible.  The photos show both sides of the band.

I'll keep this pattern in my repertoire, to do in various color combinations.  It's a remarkably cute little band.

Here's a quick pic of the chart I made since I'm not sure if I'll delete it, make it public, keep it private, or whatever.  I used Twisted Threads to double-check after drawing it on a bit of graph paper, but honestly, the notation doesn't matter all that much -- this is a very simple pattern that you can chart out using whatever your favorite charting method is, using whatever colors you feel like using.  Turn all forward all the time.

Time for some little pinwheels

This is the start of my next tablet woven band.  It's probably less than 1cm in width.  It's very cute!  And also very easy and relaxing to weave.

I was looking at tablet weaving projects on Ravelry to see what cool things other people were doing and saw a band with this pattern.  It's been on my to-do list for a while, and, well, I decided that today was the day.  I charted it from the person's photo, but also found it a few times in the public patterns on Twisted Threads, and it's also in Tablets at Work (by Claudia Wollny), p.118, and no doubt on other websites and in other books/mags/etc.  The motif looks like little flowers or pinwheels, in my opinion.  The band is reversible, too.

Anyway, I quickly warped it up and started weaving.  I don't need to think, just turn the tablets and throw the weft, repeat until it's time to advance the warp and work out the twist, and then continue.

The band calls for 9 tablets, alternating / and \  orientation, 4-threaded, all-forward turning.  As usual, I'm using big-box-store #10 crochet cotton.  I'm not sure what the weft is -- it's some kind of cotton leftovers that could possibly be the same thing.

Dunno what I'll do with it when it's done.  Dunno if I'll turn my Twisted Threads chart public or keep it private or even delete it -- it's not like this is any kind of unique pattern.

My previous tablet has been soaked in water and wound around a cardboard tube to see if that'll straighten out the slight twist.  Not that it's related to anything else in this post, but I just wanted to mention it.

One reason I'm doing this quick little pinwheels band is because I really am thinking about doing a sampler of various double techniques.  And, because the Universe works this way, someone else has been posting about Icelandic double cloth, which is one of the things I want to explore with the sampler.  I don't understand how or why there's some kind of Collective Subconscious about tablet weaving but I do seem to be part of the hive mind in my own little way.  Eh, probably there are always people posting about all kinds of things, but I mostly notice the ones I've also been thinking about lately. The existence of a Collective Subconscious seems more cool, though.

I'm writing the following paragraphs to remind me of what I want to explore in this potential Doubles sampler.

Double face.  I want to get a rough gauge so I can plan out a different project.  In other words, how long a warp will I need in order to include my planned inscription and related motifs?  Will the warp need to be longer if I want to include everything, or is everything sufficiently short that I will need to add more motifs to get to my minimum desired length?

I want to do the \ / type double-face, and also the square-block double-face, where all the tablets have the same orientation.  For the square-block double-face, I want to see how many tablets I need to actually get squares -- 3? or 4?  Is my gauge/tension different for doing SZ vs ZZ double-face?

I want to look at different edge treatments and their effects on gauge -- all forward turning all the time, versus only turning the side where the weft is about to go through.

I want to explore the thing I've seen where tablets turn 180º to change colors.  Collingwood has a paragraph about this on p.199, I think, in a section talking about "working with half-turns between picks".  There's also something about hopsack using 4 threads per tablet on p.148.

Shelagh has a little something about turning tablets 180º in her pdf about doing one of the double-face Durham seal tags -- she calls it double-faced repp:  https://www.shelaghlewins.com/tablet_weaving/double_faced_repp/double_faced_repp.pdf but I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing.  Something to explore when I get there, I guess.

I want to do Icelandic double-cloth, and to see what motifs look like in this technique vs block-style double-face.  Claudia Wollny has a chapter on this method, and I think Collingwood's discussion starts on p.157, "warp-faced plain weave double cloth".  This too will be an opportunity to see if I need 3 or 4 tablets of each color to make a square block.

Collingwood talks about what might be a different method of doing double-cloth starting on p.129 in a section called "two-strand warp-twined double cloth".

I want to chart out a few capital letters for an inscription in my future different project, and maybe chart out a few specific motifs if I can't find something suitable that someone else has already charted out, plus maybe weave motifs where I have a chart but not what it looks like when woven.  I'll probably use one of Linda Hendrickson's charted alphabets which is why I want to come up with some capital letters to go along with the lower case letters.

I want to continue improving my set-up for doing continuous warping.

I have no plans to do 3/1 twill or Sulawesi or other related techniques for this sampler.  (everything is related to everything...)  The primary purpose is answering basic questions about SZ and ZZ double face and double cloth.

Maybe this is an entirely imaginary exercise.  But maybe I'll do it.

In the meantime, I'll be weaving little pinwheels.

I'm also feeling the urge to do some other things -- braids, slings, sprang, netting, basketry, and some of the simpler things in Collingwood's The Maker's Hand.  Plus all the non-narrow-ware stuff.  Plus I have a few other tablet weaving patterns that I might want to do before I start the sampler, of this same simple type (i.e. fairly straightforward and not requiring a lot of individual tablet manipulation).

Real Life is rather busy, though, and it takes precedence over all the just-for-fun stuff.  Hopefully I can get through enough Real Life things to squeeze in some time to play.

I like zig-zags

I was randomly looking at pics of tablet woven bands and saw one that I thought a friend of mine would like.  So I decided to weave a copy -- same pattern, same colors, etc.  I recharted it to make sure I understood what was going on, then warped and wove.

It's a very striking pattern.  Well, a simple pattern, but the three colors and how they're arranged make for a sharp and striking-looking band.

The pattern is from someone's project on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Patrick-Zein/warp-6-lingonberry-belt

The little blips in the edging are kind of a medium sage/olive green color.  The other colors are red, black, and white.

This pattern is of course just like so many other zig-zag patterns out there, but the colors really help it stand out.  I'd like to try it in other color combos.  It could also be interesting as a 3-hole pattern.

I used the usual big-box store #10 crochet cotton.  I think the weft was leftover crochet cotton from previous tablet-woven bands rather than leftover doily-knitting cotton.  It was red to match the edges.

This band has a bit of torque to it, probably because the edges all lean in the same direction rather than alternating.  I think I'll alternate them next time I do this kind of band (i.e., / \ / for the three edge tablets).  There are 12 tablets total, 6 for the center and 3 for each edge.  The central pattern tablets are 10F/10B and the edge tablets always turn forward.

The unblocked band is about 1/2" wide and about 65" long.

I had thought my next project was going to be a sampler of "double" techniques.  I guess not!  Another exploration of zig-zags is always a fun thing to do.  I have no idea what my next project will be.

Flash (in a flash)

Well, not quite in a flash, but still fairly quick.  Once it was warped up, all went smoothly.  Warping didn't take all that long, either, considering that there were 27 tablets.

The photo above is unblocked.

The band is about 1-1/8" wide (30mm) and about 63" long (160 cm).  It is indeed reversible -- the photo shows both sides of the band.

I enjoyed making this and should keep it in my repertoire for future commissions.  It's a very easy pattern that looks more complicated than it is.

As I wrote in my previous post, this is the Flash pattern by Catherine Weaver, from her blog: https://www.tabletweavingintheoryandpractice.co.uk/2024/06/flash.html.  Her version is 17 tablets, but I adapted it to be wider by adding 10 more tablets to get another set of 2 pattern motif stripes.  (each stripe is 5 tablets wide, and the stripes alternate twist directions and colors and zigzag placement.)

The color contrast is not quite strong enough but the colors do go well together.

This is the first band I've done in several months.  And, alas, the first one done since the household's most helpful (not) feline weaving assistant passed away last September.  The other feline weaving assistants are not as spry as they used to be and had some trouble getting to the weaving area.  The band is not completely covered in cat hair, and I didn't have a ton of feline assistance that needed to be undone.  It's bittersweet to not need to fend off cats and pick off fluffs of cat fur while warping and weaving.  They did keep me company, at least, even if they didn't sit on the warp.

Dunno what's next.  I guess I'll find out when it happens.  There are things I want to do, but real life takes precedence and there are other things going on that are higher priority for now.  Darn it.

Space! and a bit of Time!

It's been a busy few months.  My little weaving area has been in storage for way longer than planned.

But finally, I've managed to find some time and the weaving area was available, and now I'm set up again for a bit of weaving.

I'm doing a very simple pattern, Flash, by Catherine Weaver, from her blog: https://www.tabletweavingintheoryandpractice.co.uk/2024/06/flash.html

I expanded it by another 10 tablets (another set of alternating light/dark pattern motifs) because I wanted a wider band.  I'm not sure who will end up with it, but it could be a strap for a musical instrument or a case/bag/purse, or a belt, etc., as well as just being used for trim.  So I wanted something that was at least an inch or so wide since that seemed like a more useful width for its eventual purpose.  Having it be reversible was important, and I also wanted something that would be quick to weave.  Usually I set up something like stripes, but this pattern caught my eye.  It's only slightly more complicated than stripes and still has a stripe-like feel.

The colors in the original are red and yellow.  I'm using teal and sage, in my usual big-box-store #10 crochet cotton.  Why teal and sage?  They have good color contrast, I have a fair amount of each color, and I don't use these colors as often, especially for historic patterns, so this is a good opportunity to use them for something cute.  Plus the two colors look good together.

It's going well.  I do like the rhythm of tablet weaving, even something as simple as this.  I'd make this pattern again because it's very striking, lots of bang for the buck.

I took a photo of the band-in-progress but the light is wrong so it's hard to see the pattern motifs.  Eh, not so important.  I'd rather get a post out on this blog (the first in MONTHS!!!) rather than spend a lot of time on my nearly non-existent photo skills.  Therefore, this post is text only, no pics.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep doing stuff after this band is finished.