The second achievement, such as it is, is that this is a longer tablet-weaving project than I usually do. It'll probably close in on 3 meters by the time it's done. I'm getting tired of it so am taking this break and typing for a while instead. My fingers and wrists are a bit sore and I don't want to give myself an overuse injury. I'll probably keep weaving off and on, though. It's hard to resist doing just a few more inches, and then a few more, etc. Plus once I get it done, I can set up another band.
Why 3 meters? Because I'm using some small skeins of Anchor pearl cotton #3. I folded it in half and half again, and it was longer than 3 yards (when folded in fourths) but not by much. I wanted to make at least 2 meters of woven trim, meaning that I needed at least 3 yards of warp, so I shrugged and went with whatever length it was when folded in fourths. (Yeah, I mix my units. I can live with it, and all my readers are imaginary so their opinions don't matter.)
The other yarn is a much finer 2-ply cotton, probably around #20 or so, give or take a bit. I'm using it for the weft, too. I used it as weft in my previous teal and gold project, too. I suppose that's a third achievement -- although I do weave with finer threads, I haven't done so for a while. This is a weaving cotton, all limp and 2-ply, rather than the crisp multi-ply and/or cabled cottons I use for knitting doilies.
So, with two thicknesses of yarn, and one of them shinier than the other, the Falun band seemed like a good fit.
It's also a way of honoring Amica Sundström, one of the authors of the Historical Textiles blog, who passed away recently. I saw this band and the pattern for it on their blog. I've made it before, but it's a fun and easy pattern and I am fine with keeping it as a semi-regular pattern in my everyday repertoire.
This pattern has ten tablets and alternating / and \ tablet orientation (the original pattern specified \ and /, but I did it as / and \ this time, just for kicks). Two four-threaded thin-yard tablets alternate with two two-threaded thick-yarn tablets, for 3 stripes of thin yarn and 2 stripes of thick yarn. It's simple but cute.
I rigged up a warping path to make the thin yarn the same length as the thicker pearl cotton, got the tablets threaded, and off I went. Well, I had to move around some cards at first since apparently I wasn't paying attention as I warped and got some of the tablet orientations wrong. Luckily that's a very easy fix. I blame the cats for distracting me. Cats are terrible weaving assistants.
The thread tangled quite happily given half a chance, and even when I made strenuous attempts to keep it from tangling. (The cats made strenuous attempts to tangle it further, of course.) Some threads also had a bit of animal fur on them, which would felt a bit as I tried to untangle things and then further contribute to the tangling. It's gotten a lot easier as the remaining warp length shortened, but the first few times untwisting and advancing the warp weren't a lot of fun.
The thin thread is dark teal and the thick thread is old gold. Yes, they're meant for the friend who requested gold and teal and provided these threads for my use.
The band is going well. There's enough contrast between the two threads to make it all look good. It'll be excellent as trim or as a thin belt or strap. I have maybe a meter of warp left to go.
The warp thread broke about 4" in -- my fault, the thread got caught on something sharp and I tugged rather than trying to work it loose. I was worried that it might be the first of many warp breakages, but luckily it's all holding together so far.
The thicker yellow thread accumulates twist tension more rapidly than the thinner blue thread even though the yellow thread is two-holed and the blue thread is four-holed. I suppose it's because the yellow thread is thicker.
There are no photos yet, not even of the pin that's holding the thread ends from the broken warp. And yeah, I had thought I'd be doing the monochrome band next, but I'm doing this two-color band anyway.
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A friend recently told me that I seem to do a lot of production tablet-weaving (as opposed to only time-intensive intricate pieces, which is my friend's strong preference). There's a certain amount of truth to that claim. I do complicated stuff, but I also like to crank out yardage, where the fun of the band is in setting it up and then watching it grow, being able to weave in a meditative way without needing a ton of concentration for each turn of the tablets.
I do a lot of simple bands for other reasons, too. I suspect a lot of tablet-weaving throughout history was utilitarian, not designed for a wealthy person's cuffs but rather for everyday belts and straps and cords and warp-weighted loom selvedges. Speed and efficiency were probably important, whether for everyday bands or special bands. The best way to get faster is to get a lot of practice in weaving, so that a lot of it becomes second-nature. That way, when I do a more complex band, there's a lot of the basic weaving stuff that happens without me having to pay attention to every single detail, so I can concentrate on the fiddly stuff. Plus I can make lots of general-use tablet-weaving and freely distribute it among my friends, and not just make a limited number of performance pieces.
Also, the best way to get good at something like this is to do a lot of it. A fair amount of this skill is a physical thing, with my fingers knowing what to do -- how much tension for the weft, how hard to beat it down, how to turn the cards so it's easier to get a clean shed, etc. So, by doing a lot of bands, I automatically improve my weaving consistency. These quick bands give me more yardage than a slower band would and thus more weaving for my brain and hands to absorb. Again, that helps improve the overall quality of my weaving when I do the fiddly bands.
The same is true for fingerloop braiding. It gets better, more consistent, etc., the more I do. And ditto for just about everything else. It takes time and repetition, not just the top-level understanding of how it all works.
Which we all know, of course. But sometimes it's good to write it all out. Not that I'm hugely experienced with tablet-weaving (or fingerloop braiding, or some of the other things I do). Not yet. But I'm getting there.
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