I am thinking about a Next Project, though. I'm thinking it's going to be the practice band for the tie-down technique, #50 in Tablet Woven Treasures. Not because I specifically want practice, but because I rather like the motif. Mervi Pasanen posted a pic of it done in different colors and that sent me looking...
Here's an instagram pic of it: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMUzit3t7Kj
I do not plan on doing tubular selvedges at this point though it's possible I could change my mind. I might do the wrapped/braided tassels, though.
I'm also considering some other potential tablet weaving projects. Nothing I can remember offhand, but I do remember that they're all less fiddly techniques. Eh, we'll see what happens once the tablet-weaving area is available again.
Speaking of Finnish Iron Age bands, Applesies and Fox Noses has been reprinted, yay! It's available through a couple of different sources.
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I was going to be teaching some fingerloop braiding this weekend, but a conflict came up so that won't be happening.
I did do some impromptu teaching/demos a few weeks ago. I showed/taught the 2-loop loop-exchange braid, the 4-loop loop exchange braid (in two colors, for a spiral), and then the 4-loop sinnet (the Skjoldehamn 4-loop braid), also in a two-color spiral.
Although I haven't done much other braiding recently, I was having fun going through some online museum archives and spotting the braids, whether or not I could get enough resolution to see what was going on or not.
One of them is the International Dunhuang Programme. Here are a couple of links to braids in the collection, including a couple of slings!
https://idp.bl.uk/collection/D244E5464D954BE2855CEDF81EF4077D/
https://idp.bl.uk/collection/EE55C581E46942499DD8DAB5455B588A/
https://idp.bl.uk/collection/1B110B210B104CBC9AAE6E407CE0A7A2/
https://idp.bl.uk/collection/B7289C7590C441ABAA857511168C12A9/
https://idp.bl.uk/collection/48FF9807471C4CD896A5796DB6694AA9/ is a cute little purse that does have some cordage. I can't quite tell from the photo if it's a twisted cord or a small braid, though my first impression is twisted cord.
The collection has some cool shoes and sandals, too, made from cordage and weaving/interlacing techniques. There are a bunch of "strings" in the collection as well, most of which appear to be simple bast-fiber cordage.
Ack, there was some other site I'd been wandering through recently with either bands or braids or both, but it's slipped my mind for the moment. What a reminder to me to keep good notes, perhaps even in this here blog!
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For some reason, I recently watched a few Youtube videos on World War I archaeology, which included a project where the bones of unknown soldiers were recovered. What was interesting to me (in addition to everything else in the videos) is how badly preserved any textiles are. It's only been a century (less than a century when some of the digs happened) and not much is left, and what is left is usually fragmentary and filthy. That gives me a bit of perspective on the much older sites where textiles or textile fragments have been preserved, both the ones where anything left is in bad shape and ones where the preservation is excellent (such as the Dunhuang textiles in the above paragraph). It also gives me a bit of perspective on the effectiveness of Our Microscopic Friends and how efficiently and effectively they go about their recycling work, and ditto for natural chemical processes.
Leather tended to be better preserved than cloth, or rather, boots often at least partially survived their long decades underground. Some metal was preserved with a lot being very corroded. No soft body tissues seemed to be present but bones were still in pretty good shape, some showing terrible injuries that no doubt contributed to the deaths of the people whose bones they were.
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I don't remember if there was anything else I wanted to write down. I can always add to this post later. Or write another.
