Snartemo II band

It is finished!  Well, except for the blocking.

I like it.  It was quick to weave and it's a charmingly effective pattern.  My band is roughly 12mm (a bit less than 1/2") wide and a bit more the 150cm (roughly 60") long.  There wasn't quite enough room to fit in one more 52-row pattern repeat so I stopped where I was.

I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but it might end up being a gift.

I don't know if I'll bother with the tubular edging if/when I do it again.  It is cute, though.  And it's not like it really took much extra time to do.  This band was fun enough that I'd be willing to make it again.

I'm not sure what's next.  Several bands are whispering to me.

Snartemo II and a 7-strand fingerloop braid sampler

Here's a little one-color 7-strand braid I was playing around with.  I tried different things along the length (with a few repeats).  Although the photo is pretty crappy, I will list the variations I tried.  Most were unorthodox braids.  I was working V-fell, where the pinky finger is the operator finger and the index finger of the other hand holds the traveling loop.  I mostly picked up the traveling loop from above, which reversed the loop (and not from below, which reverses it with the opposite twist).

I did the square/round braid when I wanted to separate braids that I thought would be too similar.  I also did a bit of the braid where you don't go through any loops at all, kind of a pigtail braid.  Then there were the unorthodox skip-a-loop-or-two braids.  Skip the loop next to the index finger.  Only go through the loop next to the index finger.  Go through the two loops next to the index finger.  Go through the pinky and middle finger but skip the ring finger.  Etc.

It was interesting seeing the slight differences.  In general, the more loops one goes through, the wider/looser/flatter the braid.  Sometimes there's a small groove down the center of the braid, while other times the middle stands high.  The depth of the groove on the backside was sometimes a bit deeper/shallower, too.

None are bad braids.  The two Crickmore variations (triangular and D-shaped) are distinctive from each other and from the other ones I tried.  Ditto for the Guajiro braids, though i don't think I did the version where you skip the pinky and middle finger but go through the ring finger loop.

I also warped up a new tablet-woven band.  This is Snartemo II, though of course I'm working in cotton (the usual #10 crochet thread for the warp and finer crochet thread for the weft) rather than wool, as the original probably was.  I also decided to weave it in blue and white rather than red and yellow.

I'm using the chart/description from Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, because of course I am.  Their version has 17 tablets.  The center 12 tablets are the pattern tablets, and they are 2-threaded.  There are 3 edge tablets on the left and 2 on the right, all 4-threaded.  The 3 tablets of the left edge are woven with a tubular selvedge.  The pattern is pretty simple -- 26F/26B, not counting the edges which are always turned forward.

Here is a description of how they determined that this was the probable technique used for the band.  They worked through some other possibilities and showed that the other ones probably weren't the techniques used and that this version, in their opinion, most closely matched the archaeological specimen.

Anyway, it's fun, easy, fast, etc.  I'm enjoying it so far.  The pic is of one of the first repeats.

Hallstatt 3/HallTex 152 tablet-woven band (2-thread technique)

It is finished!  Well, not blocked yet.  But it's off the tablets.  It ended up being roughly 1cm wide, roughly 160cm long.  Each 3-diamond repeat is roughly 6cm long.

I used the chart from Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, from the Swan River Crafts blog.  They wrote that the original was made from wool (mine is from #10 crochet cotton) and was 1.4 cm wide.

I like it a lot.  Well, 2-hole, of course I like it!  It was fun to weave.  The backside looks nice, too.  Interestingly, it has a slight spiral twist, probably because the edge tablets are asymmetric (3 on one side, 1 on the other).  Hopefully it'll block out, and ditto for any other irregularities.

I have no idea what I'll do with this band.  Maybe it'll be a gift.   I like the color combo and will use that in future bands.

It is interesting to me that I keep getting pattern/motif elongation.  The weft is packed pretty tightly (it's quite wedged in when I have to unweave).  It's not pulled too tightly across the band, I don't think (if I loosen it up much more, the edge tablets start look strange and I still can't beat it much harder).  I don't think I have the tension too tight, and I don't want it to be much looser because then it's hard to beat and the threads start getting wonky and inconsistent  (too tight is also hard to beat and of course stretches the weft out more).  The weft thread is a lot finer than the warp thread so that's not the issue.  Maybe it's something about cotton.  Or about a warp-weighted loom.  Or just some variable I haven't recognized yet, or some technique I need to improve/modify.  Hmmm.

Dunno what I'll do next.  Maybe I'll warp up another quick tablet-weaving project and also crank out a few fingerloop braids.  Or cast on for a sweater or afghan or something.  Or spin up a few things so I can justify going to a fiber festival and buying something.  Or all of the above.

A mid-summer band (Halllstatt 3/HallTex 152)

I finally stopped dithering and warped up a new tablet-weaving project.  The winner is Hallstatt 3 aka HallTex 152, the 2-hole version charted by Maikki Karisto and woven by Mervi Pasanen here (and no doubt in a few other places but this is the chart I'm using right now): https://swanrivercrafts.com/2016/09/30/new-research-on-hallstatt-3-tablet-woven-band-halltex152/

I had initially thought about using different colors, but decided that I liked the ones that are usually shown.  So I'm using #10 big-box-store crochet cotton, in yellow, green, and dark red.  The weft is, as usual, leftover doily-knitting cotton thread, probably #20 or #30, in a medium-light green (it was already on the shuttle from the last project).

I've done a few repeats and really like how it looks.  I'm fiddling around with weft tension as I often do near the beginning of a band, trying to see how loose/tight I want things.  I don't want the diamonds to be too elongated if I can help it.

I always forget how happy it makes me to see a nice tablet-weaving pattern grow under my hands, knowing that I did that.

I still want to play around with bi-color loops and patterns for 7-strand braids, both orthodox and different kinds of unorthodox.  I also think it's time to learn the Spanish braid.  The instructions make sense when I look at the description and/or watch the video, but I was having trouble making it work since I didn't have a good working angle with where I had attached my loops.  Oh, well.  Deep breath -- many of the braids I've been doing this year have been a bit mystifying when I first tried them.  I'm patient and will try again, and I'm quite sure I'll get the hang of it soon enough.  Plus my "mistakes" will also make useful braids so I should try to record what I did in case I want to do it again.

I'm also in the mood to do some inkle bands.  And lots more tablet-weaving.  And knitting/spinning/etc.

So, this band is kind of interesting in its asymmetry.  It features yellow checkerboard diamond motifs on a green/red (or green/brown, I'm not sure) background.

The checkerboards are all alike.  Even those are a bit weird for two-hole.  Typically, from what I've seen in later patterns, two-hole patterns tend to work in blocks of two tablets and two turns.  This one also has some blocks of three tablets (though still two turns).

The edge cards are asymmetric -- one card on one side, and three cards on the other.  This is not atypical since it's meant to be sewn to the edge of clothing or something.  There are no tubular edges, but this isn't too surprising since the Hallstatt bands are significantly older than the Finnish Iron Age bands that often include tubular edges, and they are also from a different culture.

The distance between the checkerboards varies.  Sometimes there are 4 F/4B turns between them, sometimes 5F/5B turns.  It has 2 checkerboards with 4/4 between them and then 1 checkerboard with 5/5.  This number -- 13 -- is the same as the number of red and green threads.  Dunno if that's meaningful or just a coincidence.  Dunno if the different gaps between the checkerboards is deliberate or not.

The sections of red and green background colors that the checkerboards are on is asymmetric -- there are 2 greens and 3 reds on one half, 2 reds and 3 greens on the other.   This one I do kind of understand, since this means that one uses the same number of threads of each background color (13 of each, as mentioned above).

I'm doing it as charted.  It looks lovely.  (I'm not going to write about other candidates on my to-do list since there are so many...)

I'm getting low on some of the colors of this crochet cotton.  Once I'm almost out, I'll switch to the next batch of thread I have and will use the rest for simple bands, inkle bands, braids, weft, and/or crocheted snowflakes.  But really, the thread is OK even though it's not uber-high quality.  Most of my bands end up pretty similar in width to the archaeologic examples.  The thread is reasonably consistent and not too full of knots or anything.  I do want to use wool, silk, and linen eventually.  I have some, but not in any kind of color range.  Though I'm fine with monochrome bands, of course!

Cats are not particularly good weaving assistants, but it all worked out, at least so far.

No photos, but I'm sure there will be some soon enough.  This is going pretty quickly and smoothly so far, as long as I pay attention and don't get distracted.

D-shaped 7-loop fingerloop braid (2 ways)

It's been a while since I've posted!  I've been busy.  I've been doing some fingerloop braiding and other narrow wares, but nothing all that exotic, so I haven't posted.  I've also taught more people how to do various types of fingerloop braiding.

Today I decided to watch Ingrid Crickmore's video to see the braid she calls a D-shaped 7-loop braid (https://loopbraider.com/2015/04/21/uo-dshaped-7tut/)  I can't remember if I've done this braid already, but if not, then I definitely played with it today!

If I haven't done the braid before, it's because she doesn't give instructions on her website for how to do it.  One has to watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOFL5qigiU0&ab_channel=IngridCrickmore.  I mean, it's a fine video, but a few sentences or a diagram would have been MUCH faster.

But now the video has been watched, and the braid has been braided.  It's very cute.  Of course.  And it will be entirely easy to play around with all kinds of color/texture variations.

I've tried to fold the braid in the pic so one can see both sides of the braid, and also see where I switched back and forth between unreversed and reversed loops.  Those are the "2 ways" referred to in the blog post title and also in the video.  I used acrylic worsted weight yarn, though the white yarn is a little thinner than the blue and the green.

Ingrid Crickmore on her video said that reversing was best done by coming over the top of the braid rather than the bottom -- she seemed to think that the first twist direction made a more pleasing braid.  That is interesting since twist direction was one of the things I thought might be a variable for fingerloop braiding variations.  Yup.  It might be a very minor variable, but I guess it can make at least a subtle difference.

This is an unorthodox braid, meaning that the operator finger doesn't go through all the loops before picking up the traveling loop.  With the V-fell method that Crickmore uses, the pinky finger goes through the pinky and ring finger loops of the other hand, then over the middle finger loop, before picking up the index finger loop.  Loops can be picked up either unreversed or reversed without changing the overall appearance of the braid all that much (not counting colors, of course).

I used bi-color loops, obviously, in the same arrangement that the video uses.  There are a lot of fun color variations on the website.  I'm looking forward to playing with them.  I'll also play around with other 7-loop unorthodox braids, of course.  I've already done some -- there are a lot of different things to play around with.

One of the things I've been teaching lately is a 5-loop unorthodox braid, the braid that so many people worldwide seem to do.  I was looking at instructions for a brode lace of v bowes (https://fingerloop.org/patterns.html#n01) and realized that it was a different unorthodox braid that I had initially assumed.  For the brode lace of v bowes, which in the Medieval manuscripts is done with the A-fell technique, one skips the loop next to the traveling loop.  But it's also easy to skip the loop next to the operator finger and go through the loop next to the traveling loop instead.  Both look perfectly respectable, though I think I might slightly prefer the appearance of the first one (where you skip the loop next to the traveling loop).

Just as an aside, for the unorthodox braids where you skip the loop closest to the operator finger and go through the loop closest to the traveling loop, Ingrid Crickmore refers to them as triangle braids.  The braids she refers to as D-shaped braids skip the loop closest to the traveling loop.  Or so I currently understand.  I think.

I'll have to take pics of my little 5-loop samplers and add them to the blog, either revising this post or making a new one.  I did give most of them away, though.  Maybe I'll make a new one.  I usually do several braids to show people -- pigtail (i.e. don't go through any loops), brode lace of v bowes, divided, square/round, flat, the unorthodox braid where I go through the loop next to the traveling loop instead of next to the operator finger, and so on.  People like the divided braid to use as a hanging loop or buttonhole, etc.

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Aisling's tablet weaving book finally arrived.  Yay!  Tablet -Woven Bands from Egypt of the early Byzantine era (395-641) and later, by Silvia "Aisling" Ungerechts.  This is the color version, purchased from a European vendor.  The USA version was in black and white (which I don't think was known before the publisher delivered copies to USA vendors) and the charts had zero contrast and thus were unusable.  The color one is fine.  I've done a few of these bands already (ones that are on her website or were in her TWIST articles about a few of these bands).  I'm looking forward to exploring more!