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!