The Seyðisfjörður band, in green

It's finished.  I like it, of course.  It's only 12mm wide (the original was 1.5cm), but that's OK.  It's about 166cm long.  I think it looks nice in the green and yellow.  The blue stripe in the edges is subtle but also nice.

I ended up doing two repeats of the flower/bud motif that matched the direction in the actual artifact, followed by two that faced the other direction.  Each flower/bud motif is separated by 3 X and 2 O motifs.  I did 13 full 64-stitch motifs and about 30 more of the 14th motif.  I could have eked out a few more rows, but decided it wasn't worth the hassle and it was at a reasonable stopping point.

Hopefully the recipient will like it.

This went pretty quickly and wasn't too fiddly, so it would be good to keep it in the repertoire.  This will be fun to try out in a thicker wool yarn someday.

What shall I do next?  Hmm, I'm not sure.

It's time for Seyðisfjörður!

The tablet-woven band found in Seyðisfjörður, that is.  It's interpreted to be the trim on a 9th-10th century smokkr.  It was found in a recent-ish Icelandic archaeological dig.  Everyone was making it back in late 2023.  Well, I guess now it's my turn.  It's intended as a gift for a friend.

Here's the link to a description of the find along with a pretty decent photo of the original band: https://fornleifur.blog.is/blog/fornleifur/entry/2284555/ 

Here's a description (and a reconstruction plus chart) from Aisling's website: https://aisling.biz/index.php/galerie/historisch/fruehmittelalter/333-die-borte-von-seydhisfjoerdhur.  She links to her Twisted Threads pattern page, too.

Elewys made this as well.  Her description and chart is here: http://ladyelewys.carpevinumpdx.com/2023/03/13/weave-along-with-elewys-ep-33-seydisfjordur-smokkr-weave/.   She credits at least part of the chart to Marcelo Oliveira.  I found a chart (maybe even the same chart) credited to Marcelo Oliveira on pinterest: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e8/87/bc/e887bc81473afb72031649725648288d.jpg

There are a few other versions floating around, too, along with minor variations on the little leaf and flower motifs.

I'm mostly using the Oliveira pinterest chart.  Aisling's Twisted Threads chart doesn't quite match the band in her photograph, and I'm not in the mood to rechart it myself.

The "Chart B" on Elewys's blog seems to match the flower/leaf orientation in the original photo, so I started with that.  I don't give a flying flip about pattern neutrality since I use a warp-weighted loom, but I'll probably do some of the flower/leaf motifs from Chart A, and might well chart up the inverse of both of them (i.e. stems going down instead of up).

My friend requested green and blue, so I changed the red of the original to green.  I added an extra edge tablet on each side (in green) to make the band a little wider.  Even so, I'm not gonna match the 1.5cm width of the original, not with Aunt Lydia's 10 crochet cotton.

So...  14 tablets -- 8 for the pattern, 3 on each side for the edges.  Each pattern repeat is 64 turns, though a lot of it is Xs and Os.

Oh, it's a two-hole pattern, too.  That's always fun!  The original, of course, was wool, and I'm still working through my cotton stash.

It's going well so far.  I like how it looks and it's relatively quick and straightforward to weave.  Hopefully my friend likes it.

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I taught the 4-loop Makusua/Maize Blossoms fingerloop braid over the weekend.  That too went well.

Sulawesi sampler tablet woven band (done!)

It's done!  You can't see all the motifs in the pic, but the ones that aren't visible are very similar to the ones that are -- slight variations of patterns elsewhere in the band or mirrored motifs, that sort of thing.

It ended up being about 64" long and about 5/8" to 11/16" wide.  I haven't blocked it yet so it might end up more consistent after blocking.  I did use lots of small batches of thread as weft, so it's possible that different weft threads led to slightly different widths.  This band was not done specifically as a gift, so I didn't care if I used a mix of weft colors and thicknesses.  The warp is the usual Aunt Lydia's 10 Crochet cotton, in dark red, dark blue, and white, with purple and green for the edge cards.

I'm learning a lot from my experiments in design in addition to copying (or mirroring, or doing variations on) pattern charts from sagawoolcraft.com.

This was lots of fun, both the weaving and the designing.  My next Sulawesi band will almost certainly use more tablets so I can do wider designs.

I'm sort of surprised how easy and understandable this technique turned out to be.  It's very straightforward and relatively quick to weave.

What next?  Hmmm....

Making Sulawesi progress

 

A few more motifs done (you can't see all of them in this pic, but they're there).  I'm really enjoying the Sulawesi tablet-weaving technique.  The motif on the right is one from Saga Wool Craft's website.  The one on the left is a slightly modified version of one of the Saga Wool Craft patterns.  Both motifs -- well, actually, all of the website's motif charts I'm using -- are from the 16-tablet gallery at https://sagawoolcraft.com/?page_id=2680.  I probably spend more time dithering and doodling than I do weaving.

It's very easy to modify or create patterns in this technique.  I have no idea if I'm following Sulawesi design sensibilities or not, but that's OK.  I'm getting the hang of doing this by only using line drawings of my motif and not needing to color in the boxes that are going forwards or backwards.  Since it's double-face, the rules are simple.

Sulawesi 3-color double-face (or whatever you want to call it) feels like a cross between double-face and the diagonals technique where pairs of cards turn together for two turns before potentially changing turn direction.

I'm gonna keep doing small motifs like this until the end of the warp.  Leaves, spirals, geometric patterns, animal-like patterns -- again, a mix of my own patterns, other people's patterns, and modified versions of other people's patterns.

I'm having a lot of fun.

Sulawesi adventures

I was in the mood for something new, and Sulawesi caught my interest.

What people refer to as Sulawesi tablet weaving is an interesting 3-color variant on double-face.  People in that part of the world also do double-face tablet weaving, though I don't know if the people who do this also do the more typical 2-color double-face.  Oh, probably, along with doing threaded-in plain weaving for borders and such.

With Sulawesi-style, tablets work in pairs.  Two tablets always have the same orientation and turn the same (2 tablets that have / or \ orientation turn forward or backwards together twice.  This means that one can chart it out using a single box to represent 2 tablets and 2 turns.  Or not -- one can also chart out every single tablet and turn.  Being able to use the box methods means that ideas can quickly be sketched out and charted out.  (The same sketches can often be used for other tablet-weaving techniques, too.)

Also with Sulawesi-style, the colors have a particular pattern.  There is a main motif color, a background color (or anti-motif), and an accompanying color.  The accompanying color has two threads, one on each side of the others.  (i.e.  MABA).  The tablets are oriented / / \ \ / / \ \ etc., i.e., alternating the orientation of each pair.  The colors go up and down in little zigzags -- for the motif color, for example, it goes in hole C D D C C D D C etc., all across the band, while the background color goes in hole A B B A A B B A all across.  Obviously this would easily lend itself to continuous warping techniques.

There's also some fun stuff the weavers there do with tubular edges and finishing the ends, but I'm mostly concerned with the basic tablet-weaving technique for now.

I have no idea how old this technique is.  There's not a lot of info on old artifacts and ethnography only goes so far back and is limited in what it covers.  I found a few 19th century artifacts online in the Yale University Art Gallery museum website but so far that's about it.  I'll keep looking.  The 19th century bands were often woven in cotton, by the way.  And in addition to Sulawesi, terms like "mamasa" and "toraja"  and "pallawa" turn up more links.

I also found a video, where the cards are flipped to change colors (rather than turning the other direction): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4GSQu7dD0U.  It's not clear exactly what pattern the weaver is making in the video, but the band shown at the end is the same technique (though it looks like the background color is the same as the accompanying color and/or it's 3-threaded).

Sagawoolcraft.com is a blog and website with a lot of interesting Sulawesi-technique tablet weaving and charted motifs.  So that's where I started.  She charts slightly differently from how I do, but if I ignore her tablet labels and tablet set-up, it works out the same as with the Karisto/Pasanen charting conventions I prefer.  She likes having A at the top of the warping chart going down to D at the bottom, with D closest to the weaver and A towards the unwoven warp.  Karisto/Pasanen conventions have D at the top of the warping chart going down to A at the bottom, with A closest to the weaver and D closer to the unwoven warp.  Both start the pattern weaving chart from the bottom and both number the tablets from left to right across the band.

I recharted it (using one of the online charting websites) to be sure.  And then I made up some of my own motifs because it was fun and easy.  So...  I guess I'll be doing a mix of motifs from wherever I find them along with my own motifs.

There are examples online in other places on the Internet, of course.

Anyway...  I decided on a small band for my first effort.  It has 8 pairs of tablets (16 pattern tablets) with one extra tablet per edge (18 tablets total).  The edge tablets are threaded in colors A A B B, in colors different from the main band, to help me keep straight the direction the double-face turning needs to go in.  At this point, I prefer to turn cards forwards and backwards instead of flipping them, so of course that's what I did.

And.....  it's fun!  A little fiddly, but not horrible with so few pattern tablets, and it's pretty easy to see right away if you're doing it right.  My very first motif has been woven (and it's one of my own designs -- nothing fancy but I did it myself), and it's lovely!  I'm chuffed.  I'll probably do mix-and-match motifs rather than the same one(s) all the way down the band.  I do like a lot of the Saga Wool Craft motifs so why not add some of hers as well as my own designs?

These bands can be done with three or two threads per tablet, too.  If 3-threaded, then omit the background (anti-motif) color.  If 2-threaded, then omit the two accompanying threads.

I wasn't able to do any tablet-weaving for the last several weeks due to other obligations.  I'm glad I can resume tablet-weaving and other fun stuff again.

I'm probably going to be teaching people how to do 4-loop fingerloop braiding (for the near-universal square/round cord) in a few weeks.  I hope the class ends up being reasonably fun, easy, and useful.  I could do other 4-loop fingerloop braids as well, or other methods for making the same braid structure, but I probably will keep it simple and focused on only this one topic.  I'll probably show two ways to do it, though.  Or at least present two ways even if one of them is mostly left as an exercise for the braider to do some other time.  (I'll probably start with the Makusua maize blossom braid from L-MBRIC because it's easier for me to keep track of where I am in the braid.)

Now back to my band....  what motif shall I do next?  How many more shall I make up?  Do I care about pattern flow throughout the band or is this mostly a sampler of whatever I feel like doing next?