Brocade planning and other useless ruminations

Next up is brocade.  It's time!  And my tablet-weaving area is open, no other commitments, no need to pack things away for a while, etc., for the first time in months.  OK, the cute band I just finished was a bit of a spontaneous distraction, but that doesn't count.  I seem to have been writing about brocade for most of 2025; time to actually do something about it.

First up will be a sampler.

I think I'll use the usual big-box-store #10 crochet cotton for the warp, as usual.  Weft will be one of the leftover doily cotton threads, with no real attempt made to match the weft color.

Supplementary/brocade weft will be something thicker, of course.  I think I'll mostly use the dull-gold cotton perle #3 that I used for the Falun-pattern gift band a while back.  But I might also use some of the oddball/synthetic knitting stash threads, too.  Or whatever else I find.

I think I'll warp up 13 tablets in alternating S Z orientation.  That should give me enough tablets for some of the early Saxon bands, a few Birka bands, some of the Coptic bands (in Aisling's book), motifs from Wollny's Roslein und Wecklein transcription, plus a few others, depending on how much space I have and what I feel like trying.  I might try the motifs in both positive and negative versions to see what they look like.  I might try a few isolated motifs or a bit of soumak.  I might try a few different colors and/or different brocade-weft materials.  Or I might not.  I'll see if there's a difference for me between carrying the brocade weft to the same place on the band vs only where the motif is.  Etc.

There's a lot to learn.  The basics seem very straightforward.  But there will be lessons in tension and also in brocade vs background and base-weft thread thicknesses.  I expect the first sampler band to be very sampler-ish.

And as always, there's a chance I'll get distracted by something else and brocade will end up getting delayed yet again.

----------------------------------

Because I'm dithering and blithering, I decided to list most of the major tablet-weaving techniques I know about, whether I've tried them, what I think, what future plans are, or whatever else I felt like writing about them.

I'll start with the techniques in Claudia Wollny's Tablets at Work (though I might miss a few minor ones she discusses within other chapters).

Threaded in patterns -- check!  These are popular with modern tablet-weaving designers.  There are a lot of fun things that can be done with threaded-in patterns and all-pack forward/reverse turning.  I still do a lot of bands that fall under this category.

Double face -- check, though I want to explore more soon.  In particular, I haven't done much yet with the blocky/repp version where the tablets are all in the same orientation as opposed to alternating orientation.  Also, I'm pretty sure Wollny does 2F2B double-face for both SZ and all-Z double-face, and I'm curious about the "rotate 180 to change colors" version that's in Shelagh's pdf on double-face repp effect.

Double cloth -- this is on my to-do list.  It's high up there, but I keep doing other things instead.  Maybe this will be after brocade.  It looks pretty straightforward but I'm sure there are nuances that will be learning opportunities when I get there.

3/1 twill -- check, though I'm only at the beginning of exploring this method.  I haven't explored all of the variations that Wollny discusses in Tablets at Work and her Twill 1+1 book.  I really like this technique and want to do a lot more than I've done so far.  I want to learn better how to chart my own patterns (I can do some, but maintaining the twill line and avoiding long floats are still things I'm working on.)  I also like the Collingwood method for doing one-color twill as a two-pack method (as opposed to handling each tablet) and need to explore color changes and other motif developments with this style of card manipulation.

Diagonals -- check!  This is such a big category of modern patterns.  Also, there are a couple of variations I've tried though not everyone makes a distinction between them.  The Egyptian-diagonals modern method usually changes cards in groups of two tablets and two turns.  Finnish diagonals are more carefree.

Kivrim -- check!  These are fun and also popular with modern tablet-weaving designers.

Sulawesi -- check!  I really like doing Sulawesi.  I definitely want to make more bands, both with traditional and modern and self-designed motifs.  I need to learn the tubular strap method that often accompanies bands that are woven by the original/traditional weavers.

Floatwork -- check!  I've done very little so far, though.

3-hole -- check!  I want to do more of this.  I like how one can combine the textures of 3-hole with a bit of floatwork.  I also like how there are historic bands that apparently combine this with brocade -- that too is on my eventual to-do list.

2-hole -- check!  I love doing 2-hole designs.  This might be my current favorite technique.  I've also done 2-hole where the holes are next to each other and those are interesting, too.

Pebble weave -- this is on my to-do list, but I haven't done it yet.

Cablework -- check, though only a teeny bit to make sure I understood.  Heck, I do cable knitting; this is pretty much the same thing.  I did see some nice-looking cablework bands not too long ago, which has piqued my interest a bit.

Structure weave -- check!  I don't think Wollny talks about the Gotland bands, which might be made through flipping tablets around a horizontal instead of a vertical axis.  I've tried the Gotland method as well as regular monochromatic textural weaving.

Relief structure -- I haven't tried this yet.

Brocade -- as I wrote at the top of this post, this is almost certainly up next.

There are plenty of other techniques that aren't covered by Tablets at Work.

Pack-idling -- check!  I like this method.  Collingwood talks about a lot of variations, but even just the style used for Cambridge Diamonds and Felixstowe is perfectly nice.

Cordage/tubular bands -- check!  I've only really done 4-threaded cordage so far.  The 2-hole methods are on my to-do list.

Tubular edges -- check!  (these are in the Finnish bands discussed in Tablet Woven Treasures)

Double-turns -- check!  (also from the Finnish bands)

Tie-downs -- check!  (from several places, but probably best known from Tablet Woven Treasures)

Laceby -- I haven't done this yet.  Shelagh discusses the method on her website.

Soumak -- I haven't done this yet.  Since this sort of overlaps with brocade, maybe I'll do a little bit in my brocade sampler.

Tablet weaving around a core thread -- I haven't done this yet.

Tablets with a different number of holes (3, 6, etc.) -- I haven't done this yet.

Adding or removing tablets during weaving -- I haven't done this yet (though I understand the basics)

Turning or bending the band during weaving -- ditto.

Adding extra or ornamental warp or weft threads (such as making fringe or attaching to a loom-warp) -- I haven't done this yet.

I'm sure there are more things casually mentioned in Collingwood that are entirely new categories of techniques, but which at my current knowledge completely zip over my head.

I'm also pretty sure there are things I've either done or that I'm aware of that aren't on this list.

So far, I've liked all the techniques I've tried.

Sprang Project #3 -- another bag

I want to make sprang bags, so I'm making sprang bags.

This one is using the same frame as project #1, to make a bag that is 12" deep or so.  I am using 16 pairs of loops (32 threads total).  The stitch patterns are the same as project #2 -- some 1/1 interlinking at top and bottom, and the allover holes pattern (2/2 alternating with 1/1) in the middle.  I finished the bottom as with project #1, and I sewed up the sides until the point where the 1/1 interlinking started.  There's a twisted thread drawstring.

My sewing still kind of sucks but I'm getting better.  This bag fits my water bottle better than bag #1 does, and it looks more relaxed when it's not stretched out.

I'm getting closer to what I think is the proper proportions for this kind of bag.

The photos are shown right after finishing, without any blocking and without doing much that will enable the tension to even out.

It's kind of fun to see this holes pattern just open right up once it's off the loom.  The bag that is just interlinking tends to close back up when it's not holding something.  This one stays relaxed.

So...  I've done my first reading of Collingwood's book on Sprang.  I'm sure a lot went over my head because I'm not ready to understand it yet.

It's shorter and less complex than his tablet-weaving book.

The 1/1 interlinking term seems to be used in his book.  Ditto for the "plait" and "overplait" terminology that Carol James also uses.

The 4-row holes pattern is something he calls a "hole design".  It's on p. 132, in a section called "using alternate rows of 1/1 and 2/2 interlinking (holes design)".  He says that this is "probably the most used method of patterning sprang fabrics" and that "[w]herever sprang has been practiced, this technique has been explored."

I like his charting method.  I also like Carol James' method and Jules Kliot's method (in the booklet published by Lacis).  I guess it's good that I'm pretty easy-going about sprang charting, at least for the simpler stuff.

The book went pretty quickly.  I have lots of inspiration for future projects as I learn more about this new-to-me ancient textile art, from Collingwood's book as well as other books and all the fun stuff I can find online.

I'm not sure what I'll do for the next sprang project (almost certainly another bag).  Probably play around with more interlinking and maybe a bit of interlacing.  (I know that that means now!  And ditto for intertwining!)  Maybe a bit of color or an eyelet pattern, or trying to zero in on the perfect bag proportions for various stitch patterns.  At some point I'll switch to different thread, too.  But for learning purposes, this nice fat cotton is perfect.

Gotland-style sampler tablet-woven band -- attempt #1

The tablet twisting techniques in a pdf contributed by Rasmus Twisttmann Jørgensen has been intriguing me for a while.  I can't remember where I found it, but probably one of the Facebook tablet-weaving groups.  It's called "Textured tabletwoven bands - A Viking Age technique from Gotland".  He goes through some of the possible variations and offers a few samplers and other designs.  He says that the guide is based on work by Lise Rædder Knudsen and Ulla Gerner Lund, so I specifically want to mention them, too.

I looked in Collingwood since he tends to be pretty comprehensive, and he mentions tablet twisting around the horizontal axis of the tablets to be a technique that changes colors (for non-monochrome bands), reverses the turning direction, and adds two quarter-turns of twist.  Later in the book he talks about mixing quarter-turns and half-turns and other fun stuff, including for textural purposes, so I can see how tablet-twisting would give some interesting textural patterns.

So I warped up 13 cards (9 two-thread pattern cards and 2 four-thread edge cards per side) and started to play.

Alas, it's a failure.  The guide does say that a tightly twisted thread is necessary to show the texture properly, and I guess that #10 Aunt Lydia's crochet cotton does not qualify.

Harumph.  The textures are there but they are way too subtle to be worthwhile with this thread.

Oh, well.  At least I got to try the technique and see how it works.

Jørgensen's charts use thread direction rather than tablet orientation.  Also, his default turn direction is towards the weaver.  He doesn't really give a threading chart but it's not like one is really needed.  His pdf is very clear and his exercises and sample patterns are fun to work through.

I might try this again someday if/when I get some tightly twisted and probably thicker yarn.  But this attempt is done.  I'll pick out the weft and the warp will be repurposed for something else.

I learned from this sampler so it's not really a failure even if I'm a bit disappointed at it not being a rousing success.  That's two tablet-weaving projects in a row.  I guess that's what happens as I work through the list of things I want to try because I haven't done them before.  It's all good new knowledge, both things to do and things to not do, and also learning a technique or thing I haven't done before.

3/1 Broken Twill tablet-woven band, two-pack method

 It worked!

It looks like I occasionally got a thread caught on a tablet corner so that it didn't end up getting tacked down by the weft.  In other words, there are a few spots where I have floats.  Like I often do when weaving with multiple packs.  Still.  Even though I try to watch out for it.

But I do have to say that using two packs for the basic 3/1 structure is faster than manipulating each card (or pair of cards) individually.

I had less thread-catching with the FFBB cards ahead of the FBBF cards.

The belt is a little poofier than I like.  Hmmm.  I guess I'll need to play around with warp tension and how tight I pull the weft.  On the whole, though, I am pleased.  This would make a good belt.  It's about 62" long, about 7/8" wide.  Maybe I'll get some hardware (a buckle or a couple of D rings, plus or minus plaques) and turn it into an actual belt.

The front side is green (with a one-card brown stripe along the edge) and S-twill, while the back side is brown (with a one-card green stripe along the edge) and Z twill.  Obviously this can be worn either side out.

Next time I am in the mood, I'll play around with tablet-flipping/twisting in order to change the twill direction and/or to change the colors.

My next band will be a two-hole band, yay!  It's Yet Another Version of the Staraja Ladoga zigzag pattern I've already woven twice.  This version uses the chart and pics from Aisling's website .  Her version has 3 pattern tablets instead of 4, making for 11 tablets total (4 edge cards per side).  I charted it up with the Twisted Threads charting software to see how to get those zigzags with spots.  It looks like 7F7B should do it.  We'll see.  That seems a bit unusual for two-hole weaving (which usually does things in sets of two-cards-and-two-turns) but we'll see how it goes.  If it doesn't work out like I'd like, I can change around the turning pattern.  Or I can unweave those few pattern repeats and add another card and make another one using the previous two-hole pattern.

The red/white/purple zigzag band I'm about to do will probably be the last one from these particular vintage cottons.  There's not much left of any of the colors, so they'll go into the leftovers I've been using as warp.  Maybe there's enough to use for another spot band if I use a different vintage cotton for the main color.  We'll see.

I'm also wanting to do more bands from the rug warp, to use as belts or straps.  The Museum of London bands (here and in the Crowfoot article) that I did in that sampler a while back would make good belts, as would various brick-style two-hole patterns.  Things that look good on both sides are my preference for straps and belts where both sides of the band might be visible.

Noobish two-pack twill thoughts

 I'm mulling over Peter Collingwood's directions for weaving 3/1 twill using the two-pack method.  It's in his book The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, starting on about p.216.

For warping, he talks about position I and II as well as Pack A and Pack B.  Later he starts mentioning position III and IV, so apparently positions refer to which colors are in which hole positions.  Then we go on to tablet slant, turning directions, what to change to get various effects, and so on.  We're on our way!

In general, changes are done through tablet twisting rather than changing the turning direction.  I think the tablet-twisting or flipping is done around the vertical axis pretty much exclusively.

I don't know if any of the tablet-weaving programs out there account for tablet-twisting.  But I can do some playing around.  (My memory says that there is a program that does do tablet-twisting but I can't remember which one off the top of my head, sigh.)

And cool -- I found that by flipping every other tablet (when one is at the start of the 4-row turning sequence), one can automatically switch from S twill to Z twill or vice versa.  I suspect it can also be done before the 3rd turn, too.  It's kind of fun to play with the initial tablet orientation and see how it carries over into the weaving.  I could make Vs or Ws if I wanted to.  Or diamonds and Xs if I change in the middle of the weaving. 

Actually.....  Collingwoods says that when you're in the middle of the band, you change the direction of the pack that is in position II or IV.  In other words, twist the pack where the same color is along the AD or BC line, as opposed to the AB or CD line, so that you don't mess up the colors.

I looked at Claudia Wollny's twill charts to play around with changing colors on a horizontal line (zig-zag, of course).  So...  I can turn two more turns and then resume the twill turning sequence.  Or, I can use Collingwood's method of tablet-twisting one pack, doing a turn, then tablet-twisting the next pack.  He also mentions the same method Wollny uses -- turning the packs two more times (i.e. doing either row 1 or row 3 three times) to put all the cards in the opposite color orientation.

I wonder if I can do something like tablet-twist one pack around the vertical axis and the other around the horizontal axis to get it done in one move, or if that will look wrong in some way?  I guess that's something to test.

If I don't see a program that does tablet-twisting, I'll have to experiment with Collingwood's other methods as I weave.  I'm sure more of it will make sense when I do it.

My vague plan is to warp up something and keep it mostly monochrome on each side.  I might switch Z and S.  I might switch half of the cards so that the twill lines meet in the middle, as chevrons.  Or I can play with Collingwood's method of making diagonal color changes (i.e. in a diagonal line across the band, parallel to the direction of the twill) and make a two-toned band.  Or maybe these will all be different bands.

Collingwood's two-pack method looks like it'll be faster than the one-pack method.  It alternates two cards in S orientation with two cards in Z orientation (or vice-versa -- I don't think it matters).  One half of the cards (the odds) is threaded with the the first color in AB and the other color in CD.  The other half of the cards (the evens) is threaded with the first color in AD and the other color in BC.

Then one turns the odd cards in FFBB sequence, with the even cards turned in FBBF sequence.  This leads to a monochrome band with the first color on top and the second on the bottom.

If the first two cards are the same orientation (either // or \\) you get an S-twill, going diagonally up to the left.  If they are in a different orientation (so that the 2nd and 3rd are in the same orientation), you get a Z-twill, going diagonally up to the right.

After that, one flips/twists cards at various spots to get changes in direction and/or color, making motifs and what-not.  That's more advanced than I currently wish to play with, but no doubt I'll get curious enough about it to try doing that later.

I am not fond of tablet-twisting.  Hopefully the results will be worth it and/or will help me to like it better.  It'll be interesting to see under what conditions a two-pack method makes more sense and where a one-pack method will make more sense.

Dunno yet whether this will be a sampler or if it'll be a useful and reasonably aesthetically pleasing band.

I've ordered Claudia Wollny's new book on 3/1 twill.  I'm looking forward to seeing what's in it.  The patterned band I did used her charting and methods -- I wonder if she'll continue with that charting style and motif modularity, or if she'll change it up a bit?  I wonder if all of her methods can be done using the two-pack method or if some are best done with a one-pack method?

No doubt I'll roll my eyes at myself after I gain a bit more experience.  I fully acknowledge my noobiehood.

Time for Twill

 The weaving area is set up again, and it's time to weave!

I did a continuous warp of 17 tablets (plus 3 edge tablets per side for 23 tablets total) with two light and two dark threads.  This is a great set-up for diagonals or double-face or twill.

My initial plan was to do the latest diagonals pattern posted on the Lautanauhat Facebook page.  It's Merisalo 147.  There's a version in Applesies and Fox Noses (21.  Applesies in a grand sieve, p.66-67) that I've been eyeing for a while.  And now these two new versions!

I warped up with dark blue and sage green cotton and got ready to party.

And I didn't like it.

First I tried the version with half-turns.  Then the version without.  They're both lovely patterns.  But the weaving was just not fun.

Sigh.  I didn't even bother with the version in Applesies.

Now what?  I wanted to weave something!

Well, for a while, I've been thinking about something I read on Aisling's website.  She wrote that after she first learned how to do 3/1 broken twill from a class with Ottfried Staudigel, she did bands that were simple and plain, no color patterning at all.  I thought they were very handsome bands and wanted to make a few of my own.

So that's what I'm doing.  I re-arranged the tablet orientations and thread positions and got started.  Fun!  This is clearly the right thing to be doing, since I keep returning to do "just one more" set of turns, over and over again.  In general, for this type of weaving, I do a set of four turns at a time (i.e. one pattern repeat) and then consider if I am still able to focus or if I need to step away for a minute or two.  If I lose focus, then I tend to spend the next little while unweaving.

I'm using Claudia Wollny's charting and weaving instructions since I might want to add motifs at some point.  She has a bunch of motif charts in Tablets at Work and also in the two Lily Grove books.  There's also the Arlon book, but those are all very wide motifs and I have a mere 17 pattern tablets to play with!  The charts are all modular and work with her general charting scheme, very convenient.

I was reading back through Sarah Goslee's website and noticed her description of the two-pack method for doing twill.  I've been doing the one-pack method so far.  Maybe I'll try the two-pack method for a future band.  Though that one would almost certainly be plain since I don't really like flipping or rotating cards around their axis; I usually prefer to switch the turning direction.  This means I also need to read up on Peter Collingwood's discussion of twill.

It's been quite a few lovely inches of weaving, and I really am starting to think about adding motifs.  The finished band will be around 1" wide 5 to 5.5 feet long, good dimensions for a belt.  A few motifs would look quite nice, wouldn't they?  Hmm, maybe do some color-switching, too, so that I have green motifs on a blue background as well as blue motifs on a green background.  I'm sure I will keep things VERY simple and abstract-ish rather than doing animals.  Twill is slow enough by itself (straightforward, but a trifle fiddly and thus slow) and I'm sure it'll only get slower if I am adding designs on top of the structure.

----------

I found some Lacis tablets at a local-ish spot.  They have good reviews so I decided to try them.  I think I like them.  They are small (2.5") and white and plastic and come in packs of 25 cards.  I've enjoyed working with smaller cards, so that was a plus.  I wasn't sure if these were laminated cardboard or actual plastic.  They are actual plastic, thin and somewhat flexible.  I expect that they will eventually chip or crack.

The cards are labeled ABCD in a clockwise way, not that it matters.  There's also a hole in the middle of the cards in addition to the ABCD holes.  There aren't any colors or notches or anything else on the edges.  If anyone cares.

My Robin & Russ tablets are getting kind of ratty-looking.  They're cardboard and have woven many bands.  It's kind of fun to see the wear.  I have a lot more of them but I tend to use the ones I've already used, partly to watch this slow deterioration.  I don't do a lot of really wide bands but I have plenty of these cards for when I do!

I must admit that I prefer smaller cards in general.  My hands are relatively small, and also the smaller cards allow me to work in a smaller space since there's not as much room needed to turn the cards.  That's especially true for eking out the last inch or two of weaving when the warp is almost done.  The shed seems to be perfectly reasonably sized for the smaller tablets I've used, so I don't necessarily need a card that is over 3".

I hope someday to return to the Merisalo 147 band because it's gorgeous and because I usually do like doing diagonals patterns.  But for now, it's gonna be twill!  And then maybe some double-face if I don't return to my two-hole/two-thread obsession.  Or maybe Saxon (i.e. pack-idling).  Or Sulawesi.  So many wonderful things;  I am glad that modern tablet-weavers have done so much to resurrect these old techniques and old (and new!) patterns for today's weavers.

Felixstowe Tablet-Woven Band (chevron stripes and pack-idling)

It is done!

I successfully re-charted it and then was able to weave something that looked like it was supposed to look.  Interestingly, the right half of my chart matched Crowfoot's chart but the left half was different.  It's still entirely possible that I don't understand Crowfoot's charting style.

I did add a 14th tablet.  As Collingwood points out (and experience had already shown), one needs an even number of tablets for this pack-idling technique.  Rather, one needs the left edge and right edge to turn at different times in order to catch each edge tablet's threads with the weft. That can be done with an even number of tablets, or by having one of the odd tablets join the evens or vice versa, or by adding edge tablets that turn all the time.  With an even number of tablets, the chevron turns out to be slightly asymmetric, but that's OK.  The chevron points are nice and sharp and the asymmetry is not all that obvious unless one looks for it.

To re-cap, this is a re-creation of the Felixstowe band, which is a short piece of tablet weaving found inside of a belt buckle of probable late Medieval age in England.  It is described, sketched, and charted in Crowfoot, Grace M. "A Medieval Tablet Woven Braid from a Buckle found at Felixstowe." Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology  XXV:2 (1950): 201-204.

Crowfoot sketched and charted thirteen tablets while noting that the band's edges are not well-preserved.  I'm not sure what was done to successfully weave a replica using the chart she gives.

She is pretty sure that the band is woven from linen or possibly from hemp.  I, as usual, used cotton.  I'm pretty sure I used cotton rug warp, probably 8/4 but I'm not sure.  I had two cones each of the light and dark purple so it was easy to warp up using a continuous method.

I really like how the band turned out.  It has a nice heft and would be very suitable as a belt -- thick and sturdy, flexible, not too elastic/stretchy, the same pattern on both sides, and a very well-defined pattern at that.  Mine turned out to be about 1/2" wide (14mm) and a bit more than 5' (155cm) long.  The first inch or so is a bit wonky, but I can hide that if/when I stitch that end to a buckle to turn this into a belt.

I'll probably weave this again in the same and different colors/thread.  I may also play around and design a few patterns of my own.  There's also the Cambridge Diamond pattern, which is another historic band that uses this pack-idling technique.

Oh, wow, bless the internet and generous museums -- I found the Felixstowe belt online, yay!  Or at least the buckle and the woven replica of the actual band.

I think this link goes to the entry at the Norwich Castle Museum.  If that doesn't work, try this: https://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/collections/collections-object-page?id=NWHCM+%3a+1894.76.697.  Its accession number is NWHCM 1894.76.697.

Here are the pics of the buckle alone (or more specifically, the copper alloy decorated strap fitting and strap end), and of the buckle with the band replica displayed in the museum.  I can't get a high enough resolution on the belt pic to see how the replica weaver dealt with having an odd number of tablets, but it kind of looks like he/she slid one of the odds to the evens pack or vice-versa.

What did I learn?

Continuous warping went quite well, though that's not really anything new.  I didn't bother to label the tablets before warping, which meant that I had to use the tablet slant and thread position to know where I was in the weaving.  Not that this is a new thing for me or that it's a problem, but it does take slightly longer to keep track of accurate positioning of the tablets during weaving than it does when the tablets are numbered and labeled.

Pack-idling makes for an interesting texture and interesting color possibilities.  Again, I already knew this to some extent.  This is my first full band using this technique and it won't be my last.

A couple of things I noticed during the weaving: The pack that is forward vs backward makes a small difference since, for me, the tablets were more likely to tangle one way vs the other.  (I ended up having the / cards closer to me and the \ cards farther from me.)  I'm not sure why it made a difference, but it seemed to.   Another thing I noticed: It's easier to keep the packs from tangling after there's a bit of twist in the warp.  When I worked out the twist, it took several turns of painstakingly separating tangled cards before things started to behave better.  More tension helped but didn't eliminate the problem.  Also, things were a bit uneven for a few turns when I started weaving again after advancing the warp.  My guess is that it's impossible to precisely match the tension for each card after working out the twist and re-hanging the weights and there's also a slight difference in tension between the woven band and the unwoven warp.  I think that most of that will relax out and/or block out, though, plus it's not all that obvious unless I go looking for it.

I learned a lot more about pack-idling by doing this weaving.  Things that were sort of theoretical became a lot more understandable with my hands on the actual warp and weft.  I also gained some confidence in re-charting (or designing) this style of pattern.

Something that is interesting:  After Collingwood describes this style of tablet-weaving on p.121-122,  he goes on to describe how to do it with two threads per tablet.  He writes that the two-strand version of four-thread pack-idling "can be worked with all of the tablets in one pack".  I'm pretty sure his description of how to do it matches the technique for the two-hole brick patterns I have been weaving so often lately.

Cats are terrible weaving assistants.  Furthermore, during shedding season, they will happily contribute fine floof to the weaving that is almost impossible to eliminate.  I did not bleed on the band nor did any feline chew through any threads nor put tooth-marks into any tablets.  I count that as a win.

I'm not sure what I'll make next.  I guess it'll be obvious by the next time I post here.  My tablet-weaving area will need to be packed up for a while so a new post (and band) might not happen right away.

I'm also thinking it's time that I organize my handwritten notes and charts.  I've done several dozen bands in the past few years and I often repeat patterns and/or give away the bands.  I have a nice graph-paper-lined composition book that I'll start using to record bands and also various ideas and plans, though I'll probably keep the loose sheets I've done so far in the folder they're already being kept in.  I already use hand-written notebooks like that for knitting projects and other things.  There's already a notebook that has kumihimo stuff recorded (mixed with natural dye experiments, doily and other knitted lace pattern charts, stranded colorwork patterns, etc.), but it's getting rather full.  So... a new notebook it is.  Yes, I use the internet (such as this blog), but I like the redundancy of low-tech no-electricity paper.

May's Tablet Weaving

I'm still tablet weaving!  I don't always remember or have the time to post each band.  So here are some photos and comments about weaving since my last post.

This first band looks very similar to one I posted last month.  It's based on the Staraja Ladoga zig-zag pattern.  Some people chart it as a two-hole pattern while others do four-hole.  Some people chart it with three pattern tablets, some four.  Some call for tubular edges, some don't.

I mostly followed the one from Mervi Pasanen and Marikki Karisto's Facebook page, except that I decided I didn't like how the tubular edges looked so didn't bother with them after the first few pattern repeats.  Other versions of this band have been charted by Aisling and Elewys (Elewys also did a four-thread version) and there are other versions as well.  My colors are the same as the previous zig-zag band -- red borders, and purple zigzags on a white background.

I like this, probably because I like the texture of two-hole patterns.  Both of my zigzag bands look good.  I haven't decided if I'm going to try the similar-ish Oseberg pattern (27D and/or 27J2, I believe) or not.  I don't have a lot of this purple thread left.

After that, I did a few more two-hole brick-patterned bands, just because.  Both are patterns I've woven before.  The spot band has red edges and spots on a blue background.  The other one is a monochrome pink band.  The person I gave the previous pink band to was using it as a belt (rather than trim) and commented that it was too wide to easily use as a belt.  This one is narrower, pretty much the same width as the original archaeologic artifact, and will hopefully be pleasing.

My current project is the Felixstowe band.  Or rather, started as the Felixstowe band.  The original band is a small strip of tablet-weaving found inside a buckle of presumed late-Medieval age (based on the ornamental style of the buckle).  Grace Crowfoot published a short article about it, including a sketch and a chart.  She interprets it as an example of the pack-idling technique.

Someone else wrote a blog post about making this band and doesn't say anything about Crowfoot's chart although (a) the chevrons are Vs rather than arrows/carets, and (b) it is obvious that one of the odd cards has joined in with the evens group or vice versa.

I used continuous warping for the cards, using some cotton rug warp where I have two skeins per color.  The tablets are very straightforward to warp with two light and two dark threads per tablet, with the colors in adjacent blocks rather than opposite.  Yay, that went well, even with the cats trying to help.  There are 13 tablets.  I cut the warp to hang it on my warp-weighted loom.  I wasn't tempted to try again to match tablets to automatically work out extra twist.

I've done pack-idling before.  It's slightly tedious but not difficult.

But. The chart doesn't match the sketch.  Or rather, I am not sure exactly what Crowfoot's charting conventions are, and my quick attempt to make my own chart from her sketch didn't work well, either.

So I guess this is going to be a learning experience.

The first learning moment -- the odd-pack card on the left side isn't caught up by the weft.  Aha!  So slide it into the evens pack, and then it is caught when the evens pack is turned.

However, I'm not getting clean diagonal chevrons.  I can't quite figure out how Crowfoot's chart matches her own sketch, even.  Those are two more learning moments, I suppose.  Unweaving is slightly tedious, and the cotton is showing signs of wear already.

I finally consulted Collingwood's The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, p.121-122.

Enlightenment!  He points out that one needs an even number of cards, for just that reason (of catching the weft on both sets of turns).  Crowfoot did say that the band she described was not in great shape and both sides were damaged.  So my guess is that there are edges that are gone and/or this band once had an even number of tablets.

Collingwood gives a chart for part of the chevron (as a diagonal stripe), so I will follow that and adapt it to hopefully end up with the chevron that the original band displays.  I should probably warp up one more tablet, too.

Or maybe I'll just switch to a diagonals or double face or 3/1 twill pattern or stripes/checks or something since the tablets are conveniently warped for any of those.

After this warp is dealt with, I am not sure what's next.  More two-hole?  Diagonals/double-face/twill?  A simple threaded-in pattern  (there's a Coptic pattern that's been calling to me, a dead simple threaded-in pattern of triangles)?  Something else?  We'll see!

A monochromatic sampler band (plus a few comments and speculations)

 

I was poking around the internet, re-visiting some of my favorite tablet-weaving sites.  One of them is this old (but still wonderful) page from Thora (Carolyn Priest-Dorman): https://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/3recipes.html.  These are 14th-15th century tablet-woven braids found in London that were described by Grace Crowfoot.  The middle one (Braid 450) I recognized as the one Mervi Pasanen (I think it was Mervi) was weaving in a Facebook post (with video!) in the Lautaunat/Tablet Weaving page on Facebook on December 30, 2018.  She even credits it as a "medieval silk belt, 14th century London," so I'm pretty sure she's using the same instructions.  It's here: https://www.facebook.com/Lautanauhat/videos/2241382072561960

Hmm.  The belt is described by Grace Crowfoot in this reference: Crowfoot, Elisabeth; Pritchard, Frances; and Staniland, Kay. Textiles and Clothing c. 1150-c. 1450. Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, 4. London: HMSO, 1992.   Which, thanks to the miracle that is the Internet, I was able to find.

Crowfoot describes the braid thus (I'm including the photo that is Fig 100B, too):

In the text near the braids photographed as Fig. 100, she describes the braid as a "lozenge pattern," that was "possibly monochrome."  The braid next to it, Fig 100A, is also described as a lozenge pattern "with at least two colors."  That braid, Braid 143, is later described as a "double-faced weave with lozenge pattern" in the paragraph above Braid 450's description.

Staniland 1975, 167 is in the bibliography as this:

Which, amazingly enough, I also found online.  Here is the entirety of references to tablet weaving on p. 167 in the "excavated textiles" section:

I have not yet figured out if there are further references, nor how the numbers (e.g. 594) compare to the number Grace Crowfoot uses.  I haven't yet found the braid online in some Museum of London database, though I might still go deep-diving for more info.

Anyway.

The double-face surface appearance of braid 450 can be achieved much more easily than Crowfoot specifies.  If one just sets the tablets with alternating S and Z orientations, it is regular double-face -- FFBB.

Also, it looks similar to some of the two-hole brick-patterned bands I've been making.

So, I have questions.  Is this genuinely a four-hole pattern?  I suppose one can count the fringe ends and be fairly certain of it --16 vs 32 ends.   And, how did Crowfoot decide that it was made by alternating FFBB tablets with BBFF tablets instead of being straight double-face?  Elsewhere in the same section of the reference, as I quoted above, she actually calls out some double-face tablets, so she knows what double-face is, for sure.

I charted up both possibilities.   For Crowfoot's band, the FFBB threads are twisting around the weft in an ABCD order, while the BBFF ones are twisting in a DCBA order.  In a monochrome band where all the threads are the same, it makes no difference.  For a colorful band (or one with threads that have different textures), you can get the exact same order of threads by how you thread the tablets.  It would be rather a pain, but it's not hard.  Maybe doing it this way leads to subtle differences in the band's appearance?  Or is a way of balancing out irregularities in the threads while keeping the warping simple?

Obviously some real-world experimentation was called for.

I haven't really played around with double-face yet, so this was a good opportunity to do so.  Also, while I was being all monochromatic, I might as well see what the other two bands on Carolyn Priest-Dorman's page are like.  One of them (braid 449) has the same structure of the El Cigarralejo band I recently did, and I thought it would be fun to see what it looked like in a flat-colored smooth yarn instead of the heathery and slightly fuzzy wool.  The other one (braid 423) uses two staggered packs that alternate being turned and being idled.  Well, that's a new trick to play with, so sure, why not?  After that, I'd see what I felt like doing.

As far as I can tell, there is little or no difference in the appearance of these two methods of making a band with a double-face surface.  Setting the tablets in alternating SZ and doing FFBB looks identical or nearly identical to setting them all as Z (or S) and turning the odd tablets as FFBB and the evens as BBFF.  Any slight difference could be due to the hassle of either dealing with multiple packs of tablets, or, as I did in another experiment, manipulating each tablet individually, as opposed to turning everything as a single pack.  I really do not see a "diagonal twill effect" that is any different in any version I tried.

So that's interesting.  Why did Crowfoot determine that the band was made with this very laborious method vs the much easier method of turning the entire pack of cards the exact same way?  I will see if I can find out any more info online, and then maybe ask some of the more experienced tablet-weavers out there.

One more question -- Was the band all warped up at the same time, with all the tablets in the same orientation, and then half the tablets were flipped (and then rotated as necessary) to give alternating orientation before weaving?  It's not quite the same if the four threads are different colors, I don't think, but it is for two colors.  Maybe it is for four colors as well, but I'm not wrapping my brain around it properly and I'm not going to warp it up right now to double-check.  I will keep this possibility in mind as I look online, too.

While I was playing around with these two forms of creating a double-face type of appearance, I also experimenting with the effect of weft tension and a bit with warp tension.  As I expected, a looser tension enabled me to keep the weft threads closer together.  That made things a little closer to square, though consequently the weft bleps were a little more obvious.  So...  for future projects when I want to do double-face, I can control some of the technique's characteristic motif elongation to some extent, though I'll also want to consider how contrast-y the weft color is.

So that's braid 450, plus some exploration of double-face with alternating SZ tablets.  I forgot to do some regular FFBB double-face when I had the cards all in the same orientation, oops, but that's a fairly minor thing.

Then it was playtime.  Braid 423, with two packs, half of which idle per turn, was kind of fun.  It's a bit slow and fiddly, but not at all difficult.  So now I can confidently tackle the Cambridge Diamonds pattern if I ever want to do so, which I might very well because it's kind of cute.  Again, the appearance of this band is not dissimilar to the appearance of some of the two-hole brick patterns described by Karisto and Pasanen.  I did not mess around with weft tension, which could prove interesting.

While I was perusing Collingwood Chapter 10, on the subject of some tablets idling or getting extra turns, I tried out some of the ideas he presented about idling tablets.  That was OK.  I would have needed to do larger areas to bring out the textural differences and/or use a thread that was shinier and more tightly twisted to make the contrast more obvious.  It can also be a bit fiddly to do.  It's a fairly intriguing idea, though.  I do want to explore it again someday -- chapter 10 is full of crazy-complex stuff.

I later did a few sections where I'd change the directions of different tablets to make shapes that were defined by S or Z tablets.  That works, for sure.  A lot of people (such as Claudia Wollny) seem to use the term "structure weave" for this latter technique, which is mostly a diagonals-type technique in one color.

I also wove a bit of Braid 449 (monochromatic rather than two colors) just to complete the trifecta of braids on Priest-Dorman's website.  Yup, I like making this braid, and perhaps I should make it in two colors someday.

I had some space left, so it was time to do a bit of 3/1 twill since I haven't done that before, either.  To my delight, it's very straightforward whether the twill lines climb to the left or the right.  It, umm, works better if all the tablets are oriented the same rather than alternating SZ, at least for the charts and explanations I was using.  But to learn that was also educational.

I can't remember if I did much else.  The band itself is not particularly attractive, but that wasn't its purpose.  I learned a lot from doing it.  I now feel confident about doing double-face or 3/1 twill patterns whenever I want to, knowing that the underlying structure is something I have already done.  I'm ready to do the Cambridge diamonds pattern whenever I want, and also to play around with other ideas involving idling tablets.  And I have some questions about Braid 450 and thus some research to do.  Even so, I know I can make something that looks like that band whenever I want, whether or not my method is the one Crowfoot claims it is.

A couple of other cool things for the future:  There are several other cords in the Crowfoot article, with tubular tablet weaving, finger-looping, and plaiting.  Fun times!  She also describes tabby-woven narrow wares, an interesting decorative trim for garters, and of course other tablet-weaving techniques for the narrow wares (such as brocade).

The article from the Staniland reference shows some knots a few pages earlier!  They're all in leather, from the section on Medieval Leather by Jennifer Jones.

I'm not sure what I will be doing next.  More two-hole?  More samplers?  Something besides tablet-weaving?  We'll see...  The tablet-weaving area has been disassembled for the next week or so, requiring some improvisation if I want to do tablet-weaving.

Continuing the theme of two-hole tablet-weaving

 Here are the most recent bands.

This one is worsted-weight acrylic, probably something like Red Heart.  I wanted to re-do the band I did in wool, the one from Tablet-Woven Treasures where the \ pattern tablets are threaded AC and the / pattern tablets threaded in BD.

For about half the band, one of the tablets was threaded BC instead of AC.  Oops.  It's pretty subtle, even after I changed the threading.

For an acrylic band, it's not bad.

Someone on a Facebook group mentioned this one.  It appealed to me so I followed the links to see what I could find out.  The description and chart are here.  Apparently it's from a 2022 Advent Calendar on the Historical Textiles website/blog.  It's apparently from 17th century Falun (Sweden).  I was immediately charmed and had to try it.

It's very cute.  It alternates two tablets threaded in all 4 holes with a thin yarn, with two tablets threaded in only 2 holes with thick yarn.  The original was silk but since I don't have silk, that wasn't going to happen.

I found some random leftover pink cotton to use.  The darker pink is a bit thicker than #10 to my eye -- was it perl cotton, maybe?  The lighter pink looks like DMC Cebelia, probably #30 but maybe #20.  The weft is the same light pink thread.

The two thicknesses don't show enough contrast to my eye, but I do like the color and texture contrast.  It's a very elegant little band.

I'm almost certainly going to do this one again.  It could easily be made wider by adding tablets in multiples of four (2 four-threaded and 2 two-threaded).  I like the idea of using different colors for the stripes.  I should also try making the two-hole yarn quite a bit thicker than the four-hole yarn.  I think it would look good in wool, too.

It would seem that I'm not over my obsession with stripes.  Good thing that it can run in parallel (haha) with my other current obsessions.

---------------

In Collingwood's Techniques of Tablet Weaving, he talks about patterns where textural contrast occurs by idling some tablets while turning others.  I've been mulling this over.  There are also the types of patterns and ideas in the "structure weave" chapter in Claudia Wollny's Tablets at Work.  The El Cigarralejo band and the Draft 14 band I did fall under that category, I guess.  So apparently monochromatic bands are still calling to me.  Though so are two-hole bands.  Chances are I'll do a few more two-hole patterns before doing more than superficially exploring other techniques.

Also, and also completely unrelatedly, I've been thinking about possibly creating a quickie class about doing one braid using three different techniques.  The simple four-strand (two loop) fingerlooped braid that I showed in my previous post about simple cords can also be done on a disk/marudai or as a free-end braid in the hand.  Hmmm.

I also found another source for the finger-crocheted cord (aka two strand chain sinnet aka ABOK 2896 aka Zipper Sinnet).  In Tassels: The Fanciful Embellishment by Nancy Welch, in the chapter on cords and braids, she shows something she calls Finger Crocheted Cords.  She says that other names she knows this by is "monkey chain" and "idiot's delight".  The drawings are a little different from the one in Montse Stanley's book, but I'm pretty sure this is the same cord.  Interesting...  And of course she also includes the same 4-strand braids I see elsewhere, done as free-end braiding.  She has a section on fingerlooped braids, too!  She refers to them as Slentre (and says it's called "puncetto" work in the Italian Alps).  I knew that Slentre referred to a style of fingerlooping (fingerloop braiding with some quirks), but I hadn't heard about puncetto involving any kind of fingerloop braiding techniques before.

Explorations in monochrome tablet weaving

I have been continuing to work with the wool yarn this week, exploring some new patterns.

First, I decided to play with structural stuff, where the tablet orientation makes the pattern.  I considered the plain part of the belt of Philip of Swabia -- it's a monochrome checkerboard pattern, more or less.  Here is one version of that texture pattern.  Here is another.

I finally decided that the wool is too heathery to really show the details of the checkerboard.  However, this textural pattern, consisting of vertical stripes rather than checkboards, seemed like it might fit my yarn better.

I used 15 tablets, alternating threaded S and Z (or \ and /), 3 per orientation before switching to the other orientation.  All turns were forward, as I usually do, with no reversals.

Interestingly, and not surprisingly, the yarn was a bit stickier than with the two-hole patterns.  Nothing was felting or anything.  But the threads weren't always thrilled to slide smoothly past each other when opening the shed.  I had to help it along a little bit.

The pattern is subtle in this yarn but I still like it a lot.  This band is quite wide, 1.25-1.5", compared to the two-hole bands I've been doing.  It's also a bit shorter -- there was a bit more take-up, quite possibly because there are four threads per tablet.  I think this pattern would look really nice in a flat, non-heathery color, in a shinier yarn, maybe more tightly twisted.  So it was good for me to play with it and add this pattern concept to my idea bank for when I just want to crank out something simple.

Next up, I wanted to play around more with the idea of two adjacent empty holes per tablet, in the manner of Candace Crockett's Draft 14.  Peter Collingwood discusses this concept briefly in The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, on p.93-94 in my edition.  I charted up a simple chevron.

I was worried that the pattern wouldn't show up well in the heathery gray, so I tried it in some red vintage-store crochet cotton.  I like how it turned out, but I decided it was a bit too subtle for the heathery gray.  Also, the two sides are slightly different, in a more noticeable way than I wanted for the gray yarn.  I used the same red for weft as for warp, and I wonder what it would have looked like with a contrast color for the weft.  Another variation that mildly interests me is doing diagonal lines instead of chevrons -- doing a strip/stripe of the line going one way, alternating with strips/stripes of the line going the other way, with maybe a couple of tablets with 4 threads in between the stripes.  Hmm, someday.

Another interesting comment I found online about these patterns with two empty holes adjacent rather than diagonally opposite, from Phiala's venerable Stringpage site, in the section on two-hole tablet-weaving: "If the tablet is threaded through two adjacent holes, all possible sheds can be produced (both up, both down, one up and one down), making it possible to weave any structure possible with a four-harness loom!"

I'm going to have to think about that for a bit.  In addition, of course, there is Andean Pebble weaving done with tablets.  That uses two colors, but they are adjacent rather than diagonally opposite.  Linda Hendrickson has published some English-language stuff on this, Claudia Wollny discusses it in her book Tablets at Work, and I know there are other resources, in English and other languages, even though I'm not gonna list them all here right now.

Anyway!

Back to the monochrome brick patterns of Karisto and Pasanen!  This time I returned to Tablet Woven Treasures and chose the charming pattern on p.109.  I added a tablet to the left edge to make it symmetric.  Thus it uses 10 tablets.  The two tablets on each edge are threaded with four threads, and the six pattern tablets have two threads each.  The tablet slants alternate \ and /.  For the pattern tablets, the \ tablets are threaded in AC and the / tablets in BD.  The weft is the same as the warp.

I really like this one a lot!  The band turned out to be about 3/4" wide and about 62" long unblocked.  I will definitely make this one again.  As with the other brick patterns I've done, it could be expanded with more two-hole brick-pattern tablets, or by adding stripes and what-not (possibly in different colors) for the edges.

What did I learn?

Uhh....  I still like weaving with wool and no longer fear tablet-weaving with it.  I liked all of these new-to-me patterns and should do them again.  I'd like to explore more of the two-adjacent-hole patterns.  Doesn't the true pebble-weave structure done with tablet weaving use this technique, though of course that concentrates on the color patterns rather than subtle monochromatic structures.  Hmmm.

Cats are not particularly useful weaving assistants.  As always.  But they do like to keep an eye on what I'm doing even when they're not actively helping. I hope that the recipients (a few of these will be gifts) don't mind a bit of cat fur mixed into their bands.

It was slightly difficult to maintain even tension for a few of the bands.  I need to think about that for a bit.  Is it because I didn't put even weight on each card?  Is it because of the slight effort needed in making a shed?  Is it because some cards were \ and some /, some two-hole and some four-hole, and thus there was different take-up when combined with the ply of the yarn?  If so, would weighting individual tablets rather than the entire bundle make that better, worse, or no change?  Will most of it go away with blocking/steaming/ironing/weighting/using?

What's next?  I'm not sure!  I might re-do the wool bands using cotton.  Or I might resume multi-color tablet-weaving or even knock out a few inkle bands.  I'm still enamored with two-hole patterns, so that seems most likely.  But you never know.  Some braids are still calling my name -- that Whitehorse Hill cist burial braid (which seems to be a 13-strand plait which can be done freehand or using fingerlooping) and a 6-strand braid from the Hedeby apron, which has an online site showing it done freehand, but I suspect fingerlooping might have been involved in the original.

Two more two-hole bands

Someone wanted to see what I could do with sport-weight cotton (or cotton blends), with an eye towards wider bands that were quicker to make.

The first band is the same spot pattern (from Maikki Karisto's Lautanauhat) I've been making this month, this time in white with black spots.  It's about 5/8" wide.  That is wider than I get with #10 cotton, but still not all that wide.  I'd like to do this again, but add a couple of edge tablets on each side, to probably make vertical stripes.

The second band is monochrome.  I picked a two-hole pattern (Draft 14) that was in Candace Crockett's Card Weaving. It's interesting in that the empty holes are adjacent to each other, rather than being diagonally opposite holes like the other two-hole patterns I've been doing.  The pattern itself is sort of like the letter W.  The outer legs are not symmetric with the inner legs (i.e. this is a W, not the bottom halves of two diamonds).  The entire pattern is 18 tablets -- 4 edge tablets with 4 threads each, and 14 tablets with 2 thread each.

For the weft, I used leftover purple #10 crochet cotton, in hopes that the color of the weft would be a nicely visible contrast with the warp.

The band ended up being about 7/8" wide.

I like the band.  The texture is a bit subtle -- it's very visible from some angles and not too noticeable from others.  The purple blips of the weft are definitely visible and rather charming.  It reminds me of simple brocade except of course it's the absence of warp rather than a supplementary weft making the pattern.  The two sides are similar in their now-you-see-it-now-you-don't texture even though their overall appearance is slightly different.

Peter Collingwood mentions this kind of 2-hole pattern, where the two empty holes are adjacent instead of diagonally opposite, in his section on missed-hole techniques in The Techniques of Tablet Weaving.  He says that "such simple diagonal grooves and chevrons are known on bands from Egypt and Syria" and that "two woolen belts from the Iron Age finds at Vaalermoor and Dätgen are said to show this technique."  Hmm, those are described in some kind of obscure German reference from 1911.  I wonder how hard that would be to find so that I can see the belts for myself?

I'm not so sure about the cotton/acrylic blend I used for the pink belt.  The yarn is a cabled construction, several plies that are each thin 2-plied yarn.  By the last foot or so of the band, some of the thin 2-plies were shredding and making a bit of a mess.  Luckily it's not enough to affect the appearance or strength of the band.  But it was annoying to deal with, and I'm sure it would have continued to get worse if my warp had been longer.  It is possible that the breaks were where the cats had been helping -- they grabbed the yarn a couple of times as I was warping and/or advancing the warp.

Both yarns (the black and white yarns, and the pink yarn) are soft and look like they'll be prone to pilling.  We'll see!

What's next?  Wool, I think.  I haven't tried tablet-weaving with wool yet.  Also, I've seen some interesting monochrome braided bands/belts that could be fun to make.  But you never know what will catch my fancy.