Red Triangles (6th century Coptic tablet woven band from Whitworth Art Gallery)

My latest band is another simple threaded-in pattern.
 

It's the pattern used in the tablet woven band from the Whitworth Art Gallery that is thought to be one of the 6th century Coptic textiles.  The original is wool but I used cotton.  Someday I'll have a stash of colorful wool with which to tablet-weave...  Gotta drag out the dyepots someday and/or find an affordable source.

I love that the band is so well preserved.  Not only is the pattern clear, but the colors are still quite discernable!  Red triangles on a green background, with edges in blue, red, and yellow (though the yellow might once have been white, or at least natural-colored).  It's a small, cheerful, and effective pattern.

So I threaded it up and wove it.  All turnings are forward, nothing challenging whatsoever, but it was still fun to crank through it.  Since I used a warp-weighted loom, I untwist everything when advancing the warp.

I ended up with a band of about 1/2" wide and 88" long (13mm by 224cm), unblocked.  The original is apparently 11mm wide, not that I care.

The reverse side is slightly different (as can be seen in the photo) yet also quite attractive.

The band is described and charted in a few places.  Not that one needs a chart when such a good photo is available, but I wouldn't have known about this band if not for the photos and descriptions I found online.  Silvia Aisling Ungerechts wrote about it (with a chart) in this pdf, in what seems to have originally been a series of articles in Twist from 2020.  I've already done one other band from the set that is described, the cute little white X motif on a red background.  It's also here from L'Atelier de Micky, where it's described as being from Antinoupolis/Antinoè.

Although it would have been interesting to try yet again to do the technique described by Micky where one removes twist by pairing identically-threaded Z and S oriented tablets, I wasn't in the mood to do so.  So this still remains a technique that I will try again someday to see if it's worth adding to my everyday repertoire.

This pattern would be an excellent one for a beginner, even if one occasionally reversed the turning directions to avoid excessive twist build-up.

I'll probably do more bands based on motifs and techniques from these Coptic textiles.  Even with simple patterns, it's kind of cool to know that one is doing the same twists and turns as was done by an anonymous tablet-weaver (and the tablet-weaving community) so many centuries ago.

What did I learn?

Cats are terrible weaving assistants.  Good thing they're cute.

Simple patterns can be very effective.  Well, I already knew that, but it's still a good reminder.  Chances are that they were more commonly done in antiquity than we realize, and that the bands tended not to be preserved since they weren't the fancier, more time-consuming work that one might save for rich people and/or their graves.  Or they don't get published in the modern literature as often as the fancier work.

There's a lot of cool stuff preserved in museums and probably also in obscure archaeology writings in various languages.  I am grateful to the people who comb through existing artifacts and archaeologic reports to find and publicize these fabulous things.  (I'd love to see similar work for braids, cordage, other narrow wares, knots, etc., though of course there's a fair amount of that already out there, too.)

What's next?  I'm not sure.  A two-hole pattern?  More threaded-in patterns?  Something colorful or something more monotone?  Some other technique such as double-face or 3/1-twill?  Something else such as inkle bands or braids/cords?  I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for.

Zigzags with a Red Stripe

 I guess I'm into zigzags this month....

My weaving area is available again.  I wanted something quick.  Some of the easy four-threaded forward-and-back patterns in Tablet Woven Treasures have been calling to me.

So that's what I made.

This is the 27. Kaukola, Kekomäki band.  I liked the red, yellow, and blue of the pattern in the book, so that's what I chose to use, too.  Well, my colors are the nearest equivalent in my cotton stash, not natural-dyed wool, but other than that...

It was easy and I like the results.  I think this would look good in other color combinations, too.  Maybe green instead of red?  And with purple diagonals on a white background?  Also, I'm not sure the tubular selvedges add that much to the design.  Maybe next time I'll drop the edge tablets to two each and skip the tubular part.

I warped up about 3 yards, and ended up with about 85" (207cm) plus fringes and what-not before blocking.  The width is roughly 12mm (with a few spots being closer to 11 or 13 mm).  The weft was some fine crochet cotton that happened to be on my shuttle.  It ran out about 2-3 repeats before the end of the band and then I finished with something comparable though not exactly identical.  I'm glad it's all used up now since it likes to kink up and twist back on itself, sometimes on the edges or underside of the band without me noticing, sigh.

I'm not sure what's next.  I'm thinking about doing another even simpler threaded-in pattern that is based on another archaeologic find.  Also, someone asked me if I'd done any of the Hallstatt patterns.  No, not yet.  Everyone weaves them, and although they're adorable, there are other patterns that I find more alluring.  I hadn't remembered that one of them is now thought to be a two-hole pattern.  Well.  It's a lot cuter as a two-hole design!  Maybe I need to weave that one, quite possibly in the same colors as I used for this pattern.  The original has a greenish and a brownish section.  The green could be replaced by blue, and the brown by red.  The light-colored motifs could be white or, more probably, yellow.  Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen have a good chart I can work from, and so does Sylvia.  I think Elewys does, too.  Or I could re-chart it myself.

And of course it's always fun to continue making two-hole brick-patterned designs.  So I can't say for sure what the next few bands will be.

Felixstowe Tablet-Woven Band (chevron stripes and pack-idling)

It is done!

I successfully re-charted it and then was able to weave something that looked like it was supposed to look.  Interestingly, the right half of my chart matched Crowfoot's chart but the left half was different.  It's still entirely possible that I don't understand Crowfoot's charting style.

I did add a 14th tablet.  As Collingwood points out (and experience had already shown), one needs an even number of tablets for this pack-idling technique.  Rather, one needs the left edge and right edge to turn at different times in order to catch each edge tablet's threads with the weft. That can be done with an even number of tablets, or by having one of the odd tablets join the evens or vice versa, or by adding edge tablets that turn all the time.  With an even number of tablets, the chevron turns out to be slightly asymmetric, but that's OK.  The chevron points are nice and sharp and the asymmetry is not all that obvious unless one looks for it.

To re-cap, this is a re-creation of the Felixstowe band, which is a short piece of tablet weaving found inside of a belt buckle of probable late Medieval age in England.  It is described, sketched, and charted in Crowfoot, Grace M. "A Medieval Tablet Woven Braid from a Buckle found at Felixstowe." Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology  XXV:2 (1950): 201-204.

Crowfoot sketched and charted thirteen tablets while noting that the band's edges are not well-preserved.  I'm not sure what was done to successfully weave a replica using the chart she gives.

She is pretty sure that the band is woven from linen or possibly from hemp.  I, as usual, used cotton.  I'm pretty sure I used cotton rug warp, probably 8/4 but I'm not sure.  I had two cones each of the light and dark purple so it was easy to warp up using a continuous method.

I really like how the band turned out.  It has a nice heft and would be very suitable as a belt -- thick and sturdy, flexible, not too elastic/stretchy, the same pattern on both sides, and a very well-defined pattern at that.  Mine turned out to be about 1/2" wide (14mm) and a bit more than 5' (155cm) long.  The first inch or so is a bit wonky, but I can hide that if/when I stitch that end to a buckle to turn this into a belt.

I'll probably weave this again in the same and different colors/thread.  I may also play around and design a few patterns of my own.  There's also the Cambridge Diamond pattern, which is another historic band that uses this pack-idling technique.

Oh, wow, bless the internet and generous museums -- I found the Felixstowe belt online, yay!  Or at least the buckle and the woven replica of the actual band.

I think this link goes to the entry at the Norwich Castle Museum.  If that doesn't work, try this: https://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/collections/collections-object-page?id=NWHCM+%3a+1894.76.697.  Its accession number is NWHCM 1894.76.697.

Here are the pics of the buckle alone (or more specifically, the copper alloy decorated strap fitting and strap end), and of the buckle with the band replica displayed in the museum.  I can't get a high enough resolution on the belt pic to see how the replica weaver dealt with having an odd number of tablets, but it kind of looks like he/she slid one of the odds to the evens pack or vice-versa.

What did I learn?

Continuous warping went quite well, though that's not really anything new.  I didn't bother to label the tablets before warping, which meant that I had to use the tablet slant and thread position to know where I was in the weaving.  Not that this is a new thing for me or that it's a problem, but it does take slightly longer to keep track of accurate positioning of the tablets during weaving than it does when the tablets are numbered and labeled.

Pack-idling makes for an interesting texture and interesting color possibilities.  Again, I already knew this to some extent.  This is my first full band using this technique and it won't be my last.

A couple of things I noticed during the weaving: The pack that is forward vs backward makes a small difference since, for me, the tablets were more likely to tangle one way vs the other.  (I ended up having the / cards closer to me and the \ cards farther from me.)  I'm not sure why it made a difference, but it seemed to.   Another thing I noticed: It's easier to keep the packs from tangling after there's a bit of twist in the warp.  When I worked out the twist, it took several turns of painstakingly separating tangled cards before things started to behave better.  More tension helped but didn't eliminate the problem.  Also, things were a bit uneven for a few turns when I started weaving again after advancing the warp.  My guess is that it's impossible to precisely match the tension for each card after working out the twist and re-hanging the weights and there's also a slight difference in tension between the woven band and the unwoven warp.  I think that most of that will relax out and/or block out, though, plus it's not all that obvious unless I go looking for it.

I learned a lot more about pack-idling by doing this weaving.  Things that were sort of theoretical became a lot more understandable with my hands on the actual warp and weft.  I also gained some confidence in re-charting (or designing) this style of pattern.

Something that is interesting:  After Collingwood describes this style of tablet-weaving on p.121-122,  he goes on to describe how to do it with two threads per tablet.  He writes that the two-strand version of four-thread pack-idling "can be worked with all of the tablets in one pack".  I'm pretty sure his description of how to do it matches the technique for the two-hole brick patterns I have been weaving so often lately.

Cats are terrible weaving assistants.  Furthermore, during shedding season, they will happily contribute fine floof to the weaving that is almost impossible to eliminate.  I did not bleed on the band nor did any feline chew through any threads nor put tooth-marks into any tablets.  I count that as a win.

I'm not sure what I'll make next.  I guess it'll be obvious by the next time I post here.  My tablet-weaving area will need to be packed up for a while so a new post (and band) might not happen right away.

I'm also thinking it's time that I organize my handwritten notes and charts.  I've done several dozen bands in the past few years and I often repeat patterns and/or give away the bands.  I have a nice graph-paper-lined composition book that I'll start using to record bands and also various ideas and plans, though I'll probably keep the loose sheets I've done so far in the folder they're already being kept in.  I already use hand-written notebooks like that for knitting projects and other things.  There's already a notebook that has kumihimo stuff recorded (mixed with natural dye experiments, doily and other knitted lace pattern charts, stranded colorwork patterns, etc.), but it's getting rather full.  So... a new notebook it is.  Yes, I use the internet (such as this blog), but I like the redundancy of low-tech no-electricity paper.

May's Tablet Weaving

I'm still tablet weaving!  I don't always remember or have the time to post each band.  So here are some photos and comments about weaving since my last post.

This first band looks very similar to one I posted last month.  It's based on the Staraja Ladoga zig-zag pattern.  Some people chart it as a two-hole pattern while others do four-hole.  Some people chart it with three pattern tablets, some four.  Some call for tubular edges, some don't.

I mostly followed the one from Mervi Pasanen and Marikki Karisto's Facebook page, except that I decided I didn't like how the tubular edges looked so didn't bother with them after the first few pattern repeats.  Other versions of this band have been charted by Aisling and Elewys (Elewys also did a four-thread version) and there are other versions as well.  My colors are the same as the previous zig-zag band -- red borders, and purple zigzags on a white background.

I like this, probably because I like the texture of two-hole patterns.  Both of my zigzag bands look good.  I haven't decided if I'm going to try the similar-ish Oseberg pattern (27D and/or 27J2, I believe) or not.  I don't have a lot of this purple thread left.

After that, I did a few more two-hole brick-patterned bands, just because.  Both are patterns I've woven before.  The spot band has red edges and spots on a blue background.  The other one is a monochrome pink band.  The person I gave the previous pink band to was using it as a belt (rather than trim) and commented that it was too wide to easily use as a belt.  This one is narrower, pretty much the same width as the original archaeologic artifact, and will hopefully be pleasing.

My current project is the Felixstowe band.  Or rather, started as the Felixstowe band.  The original band is a small strip of tablet-weaving found inside a buckle of presumed late-Medieval age (based on the ornamental style of the buckle).  Grace Crowfoot published a short article about it, including a sketch and a chart.  She interprets it as an example of the pack-idling technique.

Someone else wrote a blog post about making this band and doesn't say anything about Crowfoot's chart although (a) the chevrons are Vs rather than arrows/carets, and (b) it is obvious that one of the odd cards has joined in with the evens group or vice versa.

I used continuous warping for the cards, using some cotton rug warp where I have two skeins per color.  The tablets are very straightforward to warp with two light and two dark threads per tablet, with the colors in adjacent blocks rather than opposite.  Yay, that went well, even with the cats trying to help.  There are 13 tablets.  I cut the warp to hang it on my warp-weighted loom.  I wasn't tempted to try again to match tablets to automatically work out extra twist.

I've done pack-idling before.  It's slightly tedious but not difficult.

But. The chart doesn't match the sketch.  Or rather, I am not sure exactly what Crowfoot's charting conventions are, and my quick attempt to make my own chart from her sketch didn't work well, either.

So I guess this is going to be a learning experience.

The first learning moment -- the odd-pack card on the left side isn't caught up by the weft.  Aha!  So slide it into the evens pack, and then it is caught when the evens pack is turned.

However, I'm not getting clean diagonal chevrons.  I can't quite figure out how Crowfoot's chart matches her own sketch, even.  Those are two more learning moments, I suppose.  Unweaving is slightly tedious, and the cotton is showing signs of wear already.

I finally consulted Collingwood's The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, p.121-122.

Enlightenment!  He points out that one needs an even number of cards, for just that reason (of catching the weft on both sets of turns).  Crowfoot did say that the band she described was not in great shape and both sides were damaged.  So my guess is that there are edges that are gone and/or this band once had an even number of tablets.

Collingwood gives a chart for part of the chevron (as a diagonal stripe), so I will follow that and adapt it to hopefully end up with the chevron that the original band displays.  I should probably warp up one more tablet, too.

Or maybe I'll just switch to a diagonals or double face or 3/1 twill pattern or stripes/checks or something since the tablets are conveniently warped for any of those.

After this warp is dealt with, I am not sure what's next.  More two-hole?  Diagonals/double-face/twill?  A simple threaded-in pattern  (there's a Coptic pattern that's been calling to me, a dead simple threaded-in pattern of triangles)?  Something else?  We'll see!