The teaching I did last weekend (and will be doing at the end of the month) was informal, a kind of choose-your-own-adventure, drop-in, make-and-take, demo kind of thing. I was braiding more of the little chevron 5-loop D-shaped fingerloop braids (https://loopbraider.com/2017/08/30/uo5-11-triangle-patt/, the single-color variation of the bicolor chevrons) and people wandered over to join me. The friend with whom I was doing those 6-loop unorthodox Sion braids came over, too. So... we showed someone how to braid those.
Someone else had never braided before, so I started them off with a basic 3-loop orthodox fingerloop braid, done V-fell, with its three common variations (split/doubled, square, and flat). After that, I showed them the 4-loop braid that is the same as the Skjoldehamn hood ties, from the class I taught about a month ago, using the method of the Wayuu people. The person I showed said it looked a lot like the braids used on Karaite prayer shawls. And wow, it actually is the same braid (though I think Karaites typically use freehand braiding techniques rather than fingerloop braiding). So that was kind of cool. As far as I know, other strains of Judaism use different cord structures for the fringes/braids/knots. Plus there's a cool discussion to be found about what blue dye is or was originally used and what is now permissible -- indigo (woad or another indigo), murex purple, something else entirely, etc.
I'm pretty sure I demonstrated/taught a few more braids but I can't remember who or what. And I forgot to take pics of the braids I made before giving them away.
I'll probably do the same kind of drop-in braiding thing rather than a formal class for the next go-round. The disk braiding will also be pretty straightforward. A friend gave me some foam disks to share, so I'll have those available. I need to make more cardboard disks to hand out since I'm low on those. My friend also gave me some foam disks with more than 8 slots, should I someday want to teach some of the other braids that can be done on a disk. I probably won't do that this time.
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The other thing I'm doing that is narrow-wares-related is planning my next tablet-woven band, yay. It'll be for a friend, who has asked for something longer than I usually do. So I'll have to rig up something to measure out the warp, and hopefully keep it under control as I get going. I expect that the cats will be their usual non-helpful weaving assistants.
I think I'll be doing a two-hole band that is very similar to the Antinoe E28288 band I did (and loved making) last year. It's actually one of the Siksälä bands, one of the remaining fragments of Matus CC : 14. And to claim that's my inspiration is a bit of a lie -- I saw a pic on Aisling's instagram page and thought it would work well for my purposes. She said that she got the pattern on etsy and that it's a Siksälä pattern. I looked at Aisling's pic and charted it out myself and then tracked down the historical reference to double-check my charting.
This is from the Siksälä II pdf publication, p. 203 -- Siksälä Kalme II Matuste ja leidude kataloog, by Heiki Valk, Jaana Ratas, and Silvia Laul, 2014. There's all kinds of cool stuff in the pdf that is of interest to the narrow minded.
The colors of the original may or may not be discernible, and may or may not match the colors in Aisling's version, but I'm choosing colors to match my friend's preference so it doesn't matter. My color arrangement is very much influenced by Aisling's.
These little 2-hole X-O patterns are pretty common -- various versions of this motif are also in Eva Sandermann Olsen's section on Latvian-style 2-hole tablet weaving, and in the Celaines book, and in general, are pretty easy to come up with just by fiddling around. I'm not even sure which etsy pattern Aisling is referring to, though I think it might be the yellow and green one offered by Hrafna Norse Crafts.
(The above pic is the example from Olsen's wonderful free Tablet Weaving pdf.)
Anyway, I love two-hole patterns, I think this will look good in my friend's chosen colors and for the intended application, and it is a straightforward pattern that won't require excessive concentration to weave.
I also want to do a few more 2-hole brick-type patterns. There are some colorful ones in the Celaines book that appeal to me in addition to various Karisto/Pasanen and general social media (as in, I don't remember their names) 2-hole patterns. I saw someone else last weekend who was making tablet-woven cords (from one of the patterns in Tablet Woven Treasures) and now I too want to make more tablet-woven cords. And everything else -- there are so many fun things I want to make, and not enough time/energy to do it all at once. I like to savor what I'm doing and that means it takes a while to get to everything I want to do. There are things I may never get to, alas. But I am enjoying both the process and the finished creations, and I always have a long list of things I'd like to make and do.
Hopefully I'll have some more interesting pics next time I post. Mostly I wanted to get my thoughts and ideas down, to help me plan and also to help me remember.
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