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.

Tablet-Woven 3-Hole Sampler Band

It is finished.

I ended up doing all of the 12-tablet charts in the 3-hole chapter of Tablets at Work.  The photos show the entire length of the band, with a lot of overlap from photo to photo to make sure I didn't miss anything.  I'm not showing the backside because it's kind of irrelevant, even though parts of it actually look kind of cool.

As you can see, I used 2 strands of white and 1 strand of teal per tablet.  There are 12 pattern tablets (3-threaded) and 2 edge tablets (4-threaded) per side, for 16 tablets total.  All the pattern tablets had a / tablet orientation (S-threaded) except for the edge cards, which were / \.  The weft was the same color and thickness as the white background threads of the warp.

The chapter (and my band) started out with a bit of the basic background pattern, which is pretty similar to the Sulawesi background pattern (in its 3-hole variation).

Then there were a few diagonals-type patterns that showed the interest added by the line of missing holes.

Then Wollny goes into what she calls "waffling", which is when the hole orientation of the tablet is turned back and forth to keep the hole on top of the band (the reverse side shows a float).  It ends up looking like those parts of the band are woven cloth rather than tablet-woven.  She also goes through the floats that can be added by waffling the pattern color and then each of the background colors.

Then she shows a tacking stitch, which is when two adjacent tablets either turn slightly forward or slightly backwards to bring up the pattern color for just that one throw of the weft.  She shows this as turning the tablets 1/8 turn.  I found that awkward.  So, for one tacking stitch set, I can use my fingers to manipulate the threads on the two tablets, one up and one down or vice versa.  Or, because that becomes annoying with more than one of these, I can do an extra quarter-turn of each of the cards, through the weft, and then return the cards to their former orientation before the next pattern row.  This is pretty similar to the Finnish half-turns that are in some of the Finnish diagonals-type patterns.

The next two motifs have two more fill patterns -- one is the background pattern that we started with, and the other is also a double-face type pattern but with the pattern thread and one of the background threads showing instead of only the background threads.

And that finished the charts shown in the teaching/demonstration part of the chapter.  (Yes, I read the text, too.)  On to Wollny's pattern charts!

I didn't know how much room I'd have, but it turned out that I was able to do every single 12-tablet pattern in the chapter.  I used a few transitional rows between some of the charts, and I had room for one variation of my own devising (only a little bit different from one of Wollny's charts).

For charts that showed pattern repeat blocks, I tried to make sure that at least two pattern repeats were part of my sampler.  For one long chart, I divided it in half, doing the first part, then another pattern, then the second part.  I didn't do a second repeat of that chart, though.

My edition (the first) has an error in the chart on the upper right of p.508.  It looked really strange when I got to it, so I looked it up.  Yup, mistake.

In no particular order, I did charts from the following pages of the 3-hole chapter (which has a dark blue heading and is on p.476-523 of Tablets at Work by Claudia Wollny):

482 (all 3 charts), 485 (charts B and C; A is boring), 488 (all 3 charts), p.490 (A; the other two are not suitable for this band since I didn't want to add brocade), p.498 (the charts that are not repeats of other charts), 506 (tablet set-up and background repeat), 508 (upper and lower right; watch for the error in the upper chart rows 5-6), 509 (upper, middle, and lower left), 510 (upper and lower right), 511 (upper and lower left), 512 (right; I did the first part, did another motif, then the second part), 519 (upper left, upper middle, and upper right), 521 (upper left, upper middle, upper right).

And that's all of the 12-tablet charts I saw in the chapter.  There's one more at the beginning of the chapter but it's roughly the same as one of the other early ones I did.

It's not a particularly difficult technique, but as with anything else requiring a lot of individual tablet manipulation, can be a bit fiddly.  I did a certain amount of unweaving...

My conclusions and thoughts and what-not:

My favorite patterns and tablet manipulations are the very textural ones -- waffling holes plus or minus floats of the threads.  These are what I had thought of as the Icelandic Missed Hole technique.

The ones that are more like traditional diagonals patterns are nice enough, with the little line of holes adding some textural interest.

A lot of the patterns use ideas about modern diagonals -- tablets moving in sets of two, two tablets and two rows at a time.

Three hole feels very different from two hole, though some of that might be because I like weaving the Latvian two hole designs and these three hole designs feel like they are coming from a different designing/weaving tradition.

This technique has some similarities with Sulawesi as well as, of course, diagonals.  And float patterns.  And double-face.  Heck, the more tablet weaving I do, the more connected everything feels to everything else.  All of the techniques are variations of other techniques.  Or so it sometimes feels like.

Wollny gave a very simple/universal/general tablet setup, suitable for anything.  Depending on the design, it might make more sense to have the tablets in a long V formation (the tablets on the left half of the pattern set in one orientation, either / or \, and the other half set the other way) for symmetric designs.  Or set them Sulawesi style, with two tablets set / alternating with two tablets set \.  Or maybe this way ends up working best for bands that will have floats and hole waffling.

I'm glad I did the sampler.  I have some ideas for my own designs, for the next time I do this technique.

And at some point, I'll start adding brocade, since that seems to have been a fairly common element of these bands in the archaeological record.

All of the above are subject to change as I think about it more and gain more experience and knowledge.

What's next?  I'm not sure.

A quick little post

I may add more to this post later.

This is the same triangle braid I did a few days ago -- 5 loops, V-fell, unorthodox (ring finger on one hand goes through middle finger loop of other hand and picks up the index finger loop of the other hand, hooking over the top).  I used 3 loops of light purple and 2 loops of dark purple.  I made two braids, to be given as a gift.  The finished braids are each about 20" long (not including the knot and fringe, of course).  I'll tighten the knots and trim the fringe before they're given away.

The braiding seems a little loose, which is interesting.  Is it the cotton rug warp?  Is it how I'm tensioning the braid?  Is it always like this and I usually don't notice?

The pic shows both the top and bottom sides of the braids.

I'm probably going to do a few more braids for giving away, with a variety of braiding structures and color patterns.  If I get more done today I'll add them to this post.  Otherwise there will be a new post later this week.  Crickmore's website is full of great inspiration.

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I did finally warp up and start an Icelandic missed hole tablet woven band, yay!!!  I started by doing all the early exercises that Wollny includes in the first part of the chapter.

Background pattern, yup.  This is basically the Sulawesi background done in 3-hole.

Then a few patterns that are simple diagonals-type patterns where the holes are there but don't form the tabby-ish pattern.

Then we start with waffling, first with the holes, then with the color thread (which means floats), and with each of the background threads (before and after the holes, and yes, also floats).  Motifs are filled with different textures in the center -- various floats and double-face and background pattern, etc.

There's also a little tacking stitch, to pop up a thread from a different hole to tack down some of the long floats, or just to do it because it's ornamental.

Wollny recommends doing it by turning two tablets one-eighth turn, to bring up a lower thread and drop the higher thread.  I found this kind of messy when looking for the shed.

If it's only one tack, it's relatively straightforward to lift the lower threads and drop the higher threads for that one row.  For several tacks, it gets annoying.

These actually are very similar to the Finnish half-turns, and in the end, that's what I found to be the easiest.  Do another turn on the two tablets involved in each tack (either up or down), throw the weft, then bring them back to their original orientation before going on to the next move.

So that was all fun -- seeing how Wollny approaches this technique and some of the variations and constraints she considers when designing her own.

Now that I've done the sampler patterns, I'll choose random stuff from Wollny's charts for a while, and quite probably for the rest of the band.  If I get bored or run out of patterns I like before I run out of warp, I'll switch to 3-thread Sulawesi motifs or play around with diagonals charts or twill charts or other techniques that look good with 3 threads.

I like how this technique looks, and I like how it's both related to float work and combined with float work.  And now I've done a bit of float work, too.  Well, floats that are deliberate.

The waffling technique is often used in conjunction with brocading, but I won't be doing that for this band.

It's interesting to me how this feels different from 2-thread, at least the way it's presented in this book and possibly in archaeological/historical examples.  They each have a characteristic texture, which is a lot of it, I think.  Also, the tablets are relatively stable without much effort, unlike 2-hole tablets.

I'm using 12 pattern tablets along with two 4-threaded edge tablets per side, for 16 tablets total.  As usual, the motifs are a bit elongated, though I'm trying not to tighten up too much on the weft when I throw it while still trying to keep it firmly packed down into the shed both before and after I turn the cards.

Finished: Band 41 from Tablet Woven Treasures

It is done!

You can see the waviness in this pic (given the way the light was, it highlighted this particular aspect of the band) -- that's pretty typical for patterns made using the diagonals technique.  It'll block out, especially if I iron the band.  I kind of like the three-dimensionality, actually.  Most of the time it's not that noticeable unless the light hits it just right.

Here's another view:

The band turned out well.  Occasionally the edges do pull in more than I had planned.  It required a bit of care to keep the width consistent while doing the tubular edges.  I eventually started using a chip clip just below the weaving zone to keep the band flat, and that helped keep it from curling inward.

I had thought I'd run out of weft partway through and need to switch, but I finished with about 6-8" to spare.  OK, maybe I could have eked out one last pattern repeat, but even the final one I did was kind of awkward.

The finished band is about 5/8" wide, give or take a bit (15mm) and about 65" long (164cm). I like the motif.  Even with a lot of individual tablet manipulation, it was fairly quick and straightforward to weave.

There are 52 pattern repeats of 16 rows each, 11 tablets (7 pattern tablets and 2 edge tablets per side), diagonals technique with tubular edges (both sides) and half turns, and including a few areas where 3/1 twill and double-face techniques are used to maintain the background colors.

Dunno what band will be next.  So many wonderful possibilities....  Plus there's the fingerlooping and other things on my want-to-do list.

Band 41 from Tablet Woven Treasures (from Kaukola, Kekomäki (KM 2489: parts 67-68, 107 (H1))

It's been a while since I've done a Karisto/Pasanen band.  I was flipping through Tablet Woven Treasures for inspiration and decided to do Band 41, which was the top edge of a skirt from Kaukola, Kekomäki (p.190-191).  This is a cute little 4-threaded band that uses the diagonals technique with half-turns (along with a little bit of 3/1 twill and double-face sensibilities) and has tubular edges.  I like the motif.

The book shows the band in blue, yellow, and red.  My cheap cotton stash is starting to get low, so I ended up choosing different colors that I had a bigger supply of.  Mine is aqua/teal, sage green, and burgundy red.  It's pretty reasonable, I think.  (The pic's colors are not quite right, but close enough.)  The weft is random leftovers, as usual.  Since this isn't necessarily going to be a gift, and since both sides have tubular edges, I'm not going to worry about possibly needing to change my weft thread partway through the band.

There are 11 tablets, 7 for the pattern and 2 on each side for the tubular edges.  One thing I'm noticing is that one side curls under a lot more than the other.  Hmmm.  Dunno if it's my technique and tension, or if it's something about how the tablet orientation interacts with the yarn twist and the path of the weft.  I'll try to loosen up a bit to see if it helps.  If it is tension, I'm not sure which direction is tighter than it should be.

It's going pretty quickly.  There's nothing very difficult about it, but I do have to pay attention.  I like it so far.

Mostly unrelated:  There's a book that's been around for a while on Anatolian tablet weaving  (Tablet Weaving from Anatolia and the Ottoman Court).  Sarah Goslee's review (https://www.archaeologicaltextiles.net/pages/anatoliaTW.html) mentions kivrim aka ram's horn style motifs on some of the bands, and that these motifs weren't found on bands (in the book's photo section) that were pre-17th century.  So there's an approximate date for when kivrim patterns were known to exist.  They go back to at least the 17th century in that part of the world.  So there.