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.

Back to the Classics: Sample Band A (Candace Crockett)

Back in the day, before the internet connected us, there was Candace Crockett's book, Card Weaving.  First published in 1973 and revised in 1991, it was a good-for-its-time, easily available introduction to tablet weaving.  It was the first book I owned on the subject -- I received it as a gift along with a hand-made shuttle from a woodworking-minded person in my life.  I toddled down to Robin & Russ Handweavers to buy cards (and Russell Groff's booklet, of course), and that's how I began.

Candace Crockett's book introduces the techniques of card-weaving with Sample Band A.  I thought it was ugly, so I started with something else.  I can't remember -- all the evidence is thankfully long gone.

However, I finally got a chance to weave it!

Several weeks ago, I participated in a class, my first.  I was looking forward to seeing how Real Weavers, who had Experience, did things.  (I was not disappointed -- I learned a lot!)

The class was aimed at beginners, and to my surprise (and pleasure), we did Sample Band A.  Not that the teacher referred to it as such, but I recognized it immediately!

Sample Band A has 10 cards, all with the same orientation.  It is a threaded-in pattern with three colors, and a straightforward 4F-4B turning sequence.

I was given already-threaded tablets with perle cotton in red, white, and blue.  OK, the white is a light gray and the other two colors are muted rather than garish.  The warp is probably carpet warp, a dark green that blends in unobtrusively with the blue.

The loom was another draw for me -- it consisted of a plank (probably a 2x6) about 4 feet long, with 2 dowels (about an inch or so in diameter, maybe 4" in length) that are probably glued into drilled holes, one at each end.  It's simple and portable.  We tied each end of the warp to a dowel and off we went.  It was pretty simple to advance the warp and also to maintain a comfortable weaving tension.  We even got to take our looms home!  I will try to add a photo of it at some point.

The tablets I was given were about 2.25" square, made from cardboard, very comfortable to use.

I must admit that the woven tablet looks nicer than I expected.  I suspect Ms. Crockett used the yarn/thread she did so that the details would be obvious, and that's part of why the band photographed in the book looks so ugly.

In case it's not obvious, the side with the red squares is the right side, and the side with the white crosses is the wrong side.  Both are pleasant.

I haven't measured it precisely, but I think I have about 5 yards of this, and it's roughly 1/2" wide.  I haven't done anything to the ends, either, since I have no idea what I will do with the band.  Assuming the thread is color-fast when wet, I'll probably block this and possibly even iron it.

I feel a bit chuffed (in a good way) that I finally made this band.  It is SOOOOO common as a first band done by tablet weavers of a certain place and time.  I feel like I am participating in some kind of ritual or tradition, connecting me with the decades-old community of English-language tablet weavers who started with Card Weaving by Candace Crockett.

Candace Crockett's Card Weaving Drafting Conventions

Ms. Crockett uses her own style of charting the patterns, which can cause confusion as people start to use other people's patterns.  This is not a problem when weaving in isolation, of course.  However, it's always good to understand what someone's charting conventions are and how they compare to other charting conventions.

Crockett uses arrows to indicate card direction.  Her arrows indicate which way the threads go when you are threading the cards  After looking at her diagrams and photos (figures 3-4, 3-5, 4-9, and 4-10, in conjunction with various photos), her left arrow <--- corresponds to S threading, which is equivalent to / if you go by tablet orientation.  Her right arrow ---> corresponds to Z threading, which is equivalent to \ for tablet orientation.  I'm pretty sure that's how it is, though after a while I can confuse myself.

Her tablets are labeled clockwise ABCD, facing to the left.  (This is the same as counterclockwise ABCD facing to the right, I believe).  She starts with the AD line on top.  She numbers her cards from left to right, and her chart goes from top (A) to bottom (D).

When she specifies turning forward and backward, for her, forward is towards the weaver and back is away.  I usually do the opposite (forwards is away from me, towards the unwoven warp, and backwards is towards me, towards the already woven band).  So this was kind of interesting to realize -- if I once knew this, it's long been forgotten.

So, all in all, this was a useful little band to weave.  I now have a new loom, which was a type I'd not woven on before.  It is similar to setting up two C-clamps but looks a little nicer, is more portable, and is better designed for handling long warps.  I got to weave Sample Band A, that old classic, and also look at my old copy of Card Weaving to see how Candace Crockett's weaving conventions compare to other styles.  And I learned a lot by watching and chatting with a veteran tablet-weaver with decades of experience.

I don't really use Candace Crockett's Card Weaving much these days.  With the internet and the easier availability of international books, I find other materials to be more useful.  I'm glad I had an excuse to revisit her work.

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I haven't posted in quite a while!  Life's been busy.  Hopefully I'll have a few more bands and what-not posted here before this blog goes quiet again.  We'll see.

For tablet weaving, I have a diagonals band warped up and ready to weave once I can set up an area in which to weave where the cats can't do too much damage.  After that, I plan to dive into some double-face, missing-thread, and then 3/1 twill and Sulawesi.  Plus more diagonals (which to me includes kivrim-style patterns), maybe pebble weave, and anything else that interests me.  We'll see!  I have plenty of cards and more than one loom, so maybe it's time to start having multiple concurrent projects.  That way lies madness, though.

Experiments with worsted weight acrylic

My stash of 5/2 cotton is getting low.  So, in desperation, I tried some of the cheap acrylic we have around the house.  What kind of band would it make?  I had used acrylic for some early tablet weaving experiments many years ago.  Those tended not to go well.  But whatever, because I wanted a tablet weaving fix.

It's not that bad.  In fact, it's pretty decent.  The band is of course very thick, but it feels and looks reasonable.  Whew.  I can weave even when the weaving-yarn stash is running low.  It's definitely a different feel from weaving with finer cotton yarn, though, and not necessarily in a good way.

I found the pattern on pinterest, no attribution or original source attached.  I re-graphed it in GTT to make sure I understood what was going on.  Yep.  I changed the direction of the border cards and that was about the only change I made.

This pattern slowly accumulates twist.  So it's not quite as fun as the one I did last time.  It was still pretty fun and also easy to weave.

I did find a place within 50 miles from me that had some cheap crochet cotton for sale.  I bought some so I can make the belts that I have been commissioned to make (well, requested to make by friends and family members, nothing professional in spite of using fancy words like commissioned).  I think I will need to do some mail order to replenish my supplies with better materials.  Either that, or take a road trip to some weaving supply stores that are around 100 miles away and do some serious shopping.

In other exciting news, a friend saw my bands and wanted to learn how to tablet weave.  I made some charming cereal-box tablets and a pizza-box shuttle and showed him the basics.  He has previous loom-weaving experience, so found it a fairly easy transition.  He has completed his first band!  I am so proud, even though all I did was point the way and he did the rest.  Now a few other friends want to learn.  They have their own cards, but haven't had the chance, or maybe the courage, to give it a try.

My friend did a basic zigzag using a pattern draft in Candace Crockett's book on Card Weaving.  Sigh.  Yet another drafting convention to learn.

For Candace Crockett, the left-facing arrow is S threaded (Z card orientation) and the right-facing arrow is Z-threaded (S card orientation).  She writes something about how things are threaded front-to-back or back-to-front when the cards face left.  We did that, and of course the pattern then appeared on the bottom of the band instead of the top.  No problem -- flip the deck and keep working.  Anyway, I'm not sure if her version of front-to-back, back-to-front is different from mine (as in, which end of the thread is supposed to be closest to the weaver?) or if I mis-read what she was writing.

But anyway, now I know how Crockett's pattern drafts are written (I think).  Cards face left, lettered clockwise, going from card 1 on the left with higher-number cards on the right, starting to weave with AD on top, and the arrows as mentioned above (left arrow is S-threaded, right arrow is Z-threaded).

For the teaching band, we cut warp threads and threaded each tablet individually.  I thought it would be good to do the most tedious warping method first, so that future warping would be easier.  With the pattern my friend chose, we could have done a continuous warp.  However, we would have had to rotate cards both horizontally and vertically to get everything in the right orientation before weaving.  I thought it would be easier to have everything in the weaving orientation, so that the pack of cards all looked the same.  It would make it easier to keep track of things and notice errors.

Cereal box cards work really well.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Given the dimensions of the box I used, we ended up with 12 cards that were 3" square.  We used a hole punch for holes that were about 1/2" from each side,  I didn't round the corners, punch a center hole, or anything else fancy.  Pizza-box shuttles work just fine, too.  As soon as we had another empty cereal box, I made another set of cards, just for fun.  I'll probably weave a band with them soon.  I left the original cereal-box tablets and pizza-box shuttle with my friend.

My friend weaves like the women seen in some of the old paintings.  I had brought over the PVC loom.  Instead of using it in a backstrap orientation, with the weaving side close to him and the far side away, he sat so he wove the band from left to right instead of from near to far.  It was interesting.  That might have been due to the space we had available to work, of course.  Again, it's something I am going to try just to see how it differs from the usual orientation I've been using.

I am not sure what I will weave next.  Probably one of the belts that I've been requested to do.  One requires a bit of charting before I start.  The other will be from a draft I found on pinterest.  It is great to have all these random GTT charts showing up on pinterest, but dang, I would love to know where they came from.  Someone is or was very prolific, and it would be cool to know who it is.