Time for some little pinwheels

This is the start of my next tablet woven band.  It's probably less than 1cm in width.  It's very cute!  And also very easy and relaxing to weave.

I was looking at tablet weaving projects on Ravelry to see what cool things other people were doing and saw a band with this pattern.  It's been on my to-do list for a while, and, well, I decided that today was the day.  I charted it from the person's photo, but also found it a few times in the public patterns on Twisted Threads, and it's also in Tablets at Work (by Claudia Wollny), p.118, and no doubt on other websites and in other books/mags/etc.  The motif looks like little flowers or pinwheels, in my opinion.  The band is reversible, too.

Anyway, I quickly warped it up and started weaving.  I don't need to think, just turn the tablets and throw the weft, repeat until it's time to advance the warp and work out the twist, and then continue.

The band calls for 9 tablets, alternating / and \  orientation, 4-threaded, all-forward turning.  As usual, I'm using big-box-store #10 crochet cotton.  I'm not sure what the weft is -- it's some kind of cotton leftovers that could possibly be the same thing.

Dunno what I'll do with it when it's done.  Dunno if I'll turn my Twisted Threads chart public or keep it private or even delete it -- it's not like this is any kind of unique pattern.

My previous tablet has been soaked in water and wound around a cardboard tube to see if that'll straighten out the slight twist.  Not that it's related to anything else in this post, but I just wanted to mention it.

One reason I'm doing this quick little pinwheels band is because I really am thinking about doing a sampler of various double techniques.  And, because the Universe works this way, someone else has been posting about Icelandic double cloth, which is one of the things I want to explore with the sampler.  I don't understand how or why there's some kind of Collective Subconscious about tablet weaving but I do seem to be part of the hive mind in my own little way.  Eh, probably there are always people posting about all kinds of things, but I mostly notice the ones I've also been thinking about lately. The existence of a Collective Subconscious seems more cool, though.

I'm writing the following paragraphs to remind me of what I want to explore in this potential Doubles sampler.

Double face.  I want to get a rough gauge so I can plan out a different project.  In other words, how long a warp will I need in order to include my planned inscription and related motifs?  Will the warp need to be longer if I want to include everything, or is everything sufficiently short that I will need to add more motifs to get to my minimum desired length?

I want to do the \ / type double-face, and also the square-block double-face, where all the tablets have the same orientation.  For the square-block double-face, I want to see how many tablets I need to actually get squares -- 3? or 4?  Is my gauge/tension different for doing SZ vs ZZ double-face?

I want to look at different edge treatments and their effects on gauge -- all forward turning all the time, versus only turning the side where the weft is about to go through.

I want to explore the thing I've seen where tablets turn 180º to change colors.  Collingwood has a paragraph about this on p.199, I think, in a section talking about "working with half-turns between picks".  There's also something about hopsack using 4 threads per tablet on p.148.

Shelagh has a little something about turning tablets 180º in her pdf about doing one of the double-face Durham seal tags -- she calls it double-faced repp:  https://www.shelaghlewins.com/tablet_weaving/double_faced_repp/double_faced_repp.pdf but I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing.  Something to explore when I get there, I guess.

I want to do Icelandic double-cloth, and to see what motifs look like in this technique vs block-style double-face.  Claudia Wollny has a chapter on this method, and I think Collingwood's discussion starts on p.157, "warp-faced plain weave double cloth".  This too will be an opportunity to see if I need 3 or 4 tablets of each color to make a square block.

Collingwood talks about what might be a different method of doing double-cloth starting on p.129 in a section called "two-strand warp-twined double cloth".

I want to chart out a few capital letters for an inscription in my future different project, and maybe chart out a few specific motifs if I can't find something suitable that someone else has already charted out, plus maybe weave motifs where I have a chart but not what it looks like when woven.  I'll probably use one of Linda Hendrickson's charted alphabets which is why I want to come up with some capital letters to go along with the lower case letters.

I want to continue improving my set-up for doing continuous warping.

I have no plans to do 3/1 twill or Sulawesi or other related techniques for this sampler.  (everything is related to everything...)  The primary purpose is answering basic questions about SZ and ZZ double face and double cloth.

Maybe this is an entirely imaginary exercise.  But maybe I'll do it.

In the meantime, I'll be weaving little pinwheels.

I'm also feeling the urge to do some other things -- braids, slings, sprang, netting, basketry, and some of the simpler things in Collingwood's The Maker's Hand.  Plus all the non-narrow-ware stuff.  Plus I have a few other tablet weaving patterns that I might want to do before I start the sampler, of this same simple type (i.e. fairly straightforward and not requiring a lot of individual tablet manipulation).

Real Life is rather busy, though, and it takes precedence over all the just-for-fun stuff.  Hopefully I can get through enough Real Life things to squeeze in some time to play.

Gift Band #5 -- more checks!

 

Another gift band!

This is another checkerboard band, but with a few differences.  It's based on something I saw, but doing this was kind of on my list anyway.  (That's partly because I want to explore some of the different ways of tablet-weaving checkerboards, and this is one obvious way to do it.)

I'm using a darker yellow thread, which contrasts appropriately with the white.  That makes me a LOT happier than the last band did.

This is still 16 tablets for the band, 2 edge tablets per side and 12 pattern tablets in the middle.

It's an all-forward pattern, making it quick to weave.

The edge tablets are SZ and ZS, so that the outermost tablets will look the same after twisting forward the whole way (i.e. they'll both either get tighter or looser, so their appearances ought to match).  The middle ones alternate 4 S with 4 Z.

I like it so far.  The checks are pretty close to square.

One thing I'd like to do is actual double-face.  I'd probably use all S or all Z tablet orientation.  I'll need more tablets so that I can do 2-3 rounds of double-face before the colors switch.

Shelagh has tablets switch colors by doing rotating 2 forward (without throwing the weft) and then continuing.  She calls it a "double-face repp-effect" weave.  https://www.shelaghlewins.com/tablet_weaving/double_faced_repp/double_faced_repp.pdf.  In case that wasn't clear, she says, "Patterns can be produced by giving some tablets an extra half turn, which exchanges the colours."  Later in the pattern she makes it clear that the half-turns are forward.

I checked Collingwood, because why not, and he says that to change colors in double-face, one can do the thing where you turn the cards in the same direction (throwing the weft each time), which is the standard method I've seen so far and what was used in the previous band I did (though really, it was a 4F-4B pattern).  But he says that instead, you can rotate the cards 180° either forward or backwards (without throwing the weft) and then continuing.  So I guess that checks out!

Clearly I need to put on a warp and try for myself, and see what differences there are in how things look.  I can't really tell for sure, but it looks like a neater color change than the method I used in the pseudo-double-face band I recently did.  Of course, that might partly be due to the previous band being in alternating SZ tablet orientations, and this band being all Z.  (and yeah, it probably is mostly due to that)  I can try that as part of my experiments, too.

Here's what it looks like on Shelagh's band.  I clipped a section that includes a bit more of her band so I can also look at the normal one-color 2F-2B area.  The checkerboard areas still look nicer than the alternating SZ tablets, and possibly more square.

I'm much happier with this band than I was with the last checkerboard band.

I am strongly thinking of doing brocade once I'm done with these gift bands.  I'd throw on a narrow-ish warp and try some simple patterns and variations.

Plus there's all of the other non-tablet-weaving fun!  I'm introducing more people to sprang this week, even though I'm just a baby sprang-er.  I can still show what I've learned so far, and that's enough to get others started.  I'm thinking about what sprang project I want to do next for my self-directed sprang education.

Gift Band #3: yellow and white checkerboard (in progress)

 

Here are the first few repeats of the next gift band -- yellow and white checkerboard with a black edge.  The recipient has specified the colors and also the chart to be used.

It's basically a 4F4B pattern, but in a way that works with the threading pattern to make it a simple double-face pattern.

The yellow is the darkest yellow sold at the nearby big box crafts store since they don't carry the full color range.  It's not contrast-y enough with the white, which is bugging me greatly.  I also would have preferred a bit more double-face to even out the texture of the different-colored boxes, something more similar to the Durham Seal Tag #2 (which is still on my to-do list).

Oh, well.  Hopefully the recipient will like it anyway.  I warped up 4 yards and hope to get at least 3 yards from it.

I had to buy new Aunt Lydia's thread since I didn't have enough of the white, yellow, or black left for this band.  Oddly, it doesn't feel like the stuff I bought several years ago.  Dunno if it's softer or limper or what, but my fingers believe that it's not the same.  It also tangles very easily, possibly more easily than the old stuff.

This would have been a perfect band for continuous warping.  Alas, I still do not have a good set-up for it.  I tried, but I still don't have a successful way to keep the skeins of thread from bouncing around and twisting around each other and otherwise misbehaving.  After I untangled that mess, it turned out to be faster to do a basic cut-and-thread method of setting up my tablets.  Which is stupid.

I'm also still trying to keep my weft tension a bit loose, to try to reduce the lengthening of the motifs.  Dunno if it's working.   I'm not quite as consistent with my width as I would like when I do that.  I have no idea if it's making a meaningful difference.

It makes me unhappy to be doing this band that isn't looking how I'd like it to look.  Though unfortunately I wasn't able to find a good contrast-y yellow, which means that just about anything I'd do wouldn't look right.  The weaving itself is harmless though I think the 4F4B turning sequence doesn't harmonize well with the color pattern, either.

Every band is a learning experience, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy it at the time.

Seal Tag 5 (another tablet woven tubular cord)

The original was described in Henshall, Audrey, 1964, Five tablet-woven seal tags, Archaeological Journal 121:154-162.   But I haven't tracked down a copy of that yet.  So I'm working from the description in Phiala's (aka Sarah Goslee's) email from this website/blog: https://research.fibergeek.com/2005/02/10/tubular-tablet-weaving/

It's described as a silk cord roughly 1.5mm in diameter, multi-colored and tablet-woven, with reversals throughout.  It's the seal tag on a charter sealed by John (de Balliol), King of Scotland, to Nicholas de Haia, of the lands of Erroll, etc. Granted at Lindores, 1 August 1294.  The colors in 1964 were described as white, dark blue, salmon-pink-faded-to-buff, and pale-yellow-green-faded-to-white.  Dunno if the colors in 1294 were brighter; there are definitely dyes that would fade out over the centuries.

Well.  I had been considering adding a pattern to spiral cords, and here was one already done and described, all historic and everything.

I didn't have the proper colors in my cotton stash, so I picked some likely-ish colors from the #10 big box store crochet cotton, namely substituting orange for the salmon pink.  I charted up the pattern from the description and off I went.

It's not my favorite.  I should have realized that the little box pattern is very similar to Candace Crockett's Sample Band A.  With all the card orientations in the same direction and with the spirals, the box ends up very jagged rather than smooth.  (We won't mention the early part of the band where apparently one of the cards rotated without me noticing so that it looks even messier.)  It might have been better in a much finer thread.   Also, the dark blue is too dark and the light green is too light.  The orange is OK, though.  But then the orange/blue/white combo ends up looking like something from the Denver Broncos Paraphernalia Store.

I used a lighter weight and a finer weft (doily-knitting cotton leftovers) to see if I could decrease the weft spacing in the final cord.  I can't say that it made much difference.

The original has card 4 with a different orientation than the rest of the cards.  I tried that for a while and again, there wasn't much difference.  The spiral might be a little less tight in that area, but I don't think that was something the original weaver really could have cared about.  So I'm gonna agree with those who said that this was unintentional rather than deliberate -- either the original weaver(s) didn't notice or he/she/they didn't care.

I sometimes flipped the cards (and continued turning forward though the weft was going from left to right) and sometimes rotated them backwards, as with the last band.  Both are fine; I don't really have a preference.  The little weft bloops are still there when the spiral is to the left, but they'll disappear when I wiggle the cord.  I assume it's something about how the band is in tension while weaving and relaxes after, along with maybe pulling it less snug when the weft goes from left to right, or maybe there's some slight interaction between ply twist and cord twist.  Eh.  At least I had the sense to have white weft next to a card threaded with white.

The cord is roughly 6mm in diameter, and roughly 175cm long, before blocking and freshly done.

I learned a lot from this cord.  Dunno if I'd do it again in different colors and/or different thread.  But it had some good lessons for me.  I'd definitely make more patterned cords, but will think more carefully about motifs and colors and how they interact with the spiraling, should I choose to spiral since I can also make cords that don't.

It's kind of frustrating looking at cords and braids and what-not in museum websites, for purses and for seal tags, etc.  The sites talk about the seal.  Or the purse and its embroideries.  I want to see the braids and cords and tassels and stuff!

Also, I don't have a copy of this technical paper.  I don't know if I need it or not.  Several people have made re-creations of the 5 seal tags described within.  Some of those are on my to-do list.

This blog post lists the techniques used in the seal tags:  https://thewarpfactor.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-dead-end-on-durham-warp-transposition.html

One is an interesting double-face (with all tablets oriented the same) band with small geometric motifs.

Another one is also double-face in a checkerboard pattern, not sure if the tablets are oriented the same or alternating Z and S.  (According to this, the7-tablet blocks alternate S and Z:  https://aisling.biz/index.php/galerie/historisch/hochmittelalter/312-band-zwei-der-siegelbaender-aus-durham-gb for discussion and https://aisling.biz/images/brettchenweben/Anleitung/Durham_Seal_Tags.pdf for pattern)

One is a 3/1 twill (I think this is the one that one of the above blog posts calls a double-faced diagonal weave?).  

One is brocaded.

One is this tubular cord.  Collingwood claims that there's a seal tag which uses warp transposition, but I have no idea if that's correct or not; chances are that he's referring to a different seal tag in the Durham cathedral since he has an actual photo in his book that doesn't look like any of the above seal tags.

Hmm, someday I'll do some of the other easy tablet-woven seal tags that I can find (or chart) patterns for.  Also, the cord I just finished is starting to grow on me.  I'm not sure what I expected from it, but once I release my expectations, it's a perfectly nice cord.

I have no idea what project I'll do next.