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.
No comments:
Post a Comment