Not a Gift Band -- simple stripes and dashes tablet woven band

I think I am finally done with commissions and gifts for the moment.  I can use my tablet weaving area for fun!

Although I had planned to do a sampler of brocade motifs, a cute little band in Maikki Karisto's Lautanauhat book caught my eye.

As far as I can tell, the chart isn't in the book, but it's very easy to chart up from the photo.  So I did.  And then wove it.

The first photo shows both sides of the band.  The front is cuter but the back is cute, too.

Here is a close-up of the front of the band.  Stripes and dashes...  It's 14 tablets wide, 3 per side as edge tablets and the middle 8 as pattern tablets.  All are 4-threaded.  All turn forwards.  The photo in the book showed one reversal after many pattern repeats but I didn't bother with any.

As usual, I used big-box store #10 crochet thread, for both warp and weft (white).  I had to attach a second batch of white weft when I ran out of the first batch just a few inches from the end.  Oh, well -- it's a cute enough pattern that I wanted to do those last few inches, so I didn't mind.

Unblocked (i.e., fresh off the tablets), the band is about 9/16" wide (15mm) and about 67.5" long (171cm).

I have no idea what if anything I'll do with it.  It might yet become a gift.  But this was a nice little break from making things to other people's specifications.

Hopefully brocade is up next.  But if not, I'll have fun with whatever I do end up choosing.  My want-to-do list is expansive (and expanding).

The latest two-color two-hole brick-patterned band

 I do like this pattern.  Obviously, since I make it a lot.  This time it's teal on a gold background.  The person wanted two matching bands of a particular length.  So I did X repeats, put in a spacer, then did another X repeats.  There was a bit of warp left over, so after the second spacer, I wove another few inches until I reached a reasonable stopping point.

I am not sure yet, but it kind of looks like my weaving was not absolutely consistent.  The bands might be slightly different lengths.  Rats.  I'll see how it is after blocking.  I can probably re-block it by pinning the two bands together in hopes that the slightly shorter one will stretch out just enough.

The smaller piece will end up being a bookmark or a keychain fob or something similar.

Why is my weaving not consistent?  I need to get that figured out.

I'm making this as a gift, for someone who wants gold and teal.  I might make a few more gold and teal doo-dads, and maybe even a band that is all teal.  All are likely to be simple patterns I've made before.

I do want to dive back into trying new things and doing more complicated patterns.  But for now, it's kind of fun to crank out these quick pieces.  (But why is my weaving not consistent?)

Simple tablet woven belt(s) -- #3 in a series

In this version, the pattern tablets that are in the / orientation are threaded in AC while the ones in the \ orientation are threaded in BD.  Everything else is the same as the previous two bands -- 16 tablets (2 4-threaded edge tablets per side plus 12 2-threaded pattern tablets in the middle), alternating / and \ tablet orientations, same medium brown carpet warp and caramel brown doily leftovers cotton.

I like this one, too.

All three are pretty much the same dimensions -- 5/8" wide (roughly 17mm) and close to 65" long, give or take a bit, depending on how ambitious I felt about squishing in that last half-inch or so of weaving.

I like the different textures from such a seemingly minor variation in how the 2-threaded tablets were arranged.  My least favorite is the ribbed weave but even that one is nice and would make a good background for further embellishment.

I'm wondering about some of the pack-idling monochrome belt patterns that Grace Crowfoot described.  Could some of them have been brick-patterned 2-hole patterns instead?  (I suppose that's easy to determine by counting the number of threads dangling from the ends.)

I think I'm temporarily tapped out on medium brown brick-patterned belts/bands.  The next one will be a different color, at least.  Chances are I'll start playing with some of the 4-threaded monochrome belt pattern variations.  Those will end up wider and thicker, too.  Or maybe I'll flip back to fun color patterns, whether from historic or modern bands.

Simple tablet-woven belt(s) -- #2 in a series

Another simple tablet-woven belt, also monochrome, also 2-threaded, also on 16 tablets (12 pattern tablets, 2 4-threaded edge tablets per side), also alternating \ and / tablet orientation.

For this one, all of the threads and holes were lined up rather than offset.

I've made this one before in acrylic and also in wool.  This is what it looks like in cotton, the same brown carpet warp (and light brown doily cotton leftovers for weft) as before.  The camera still prefers to correct the color to blue/gray, but it really is a medium brown.

I'll see how it looks after blocking.  It's kind of boring now, but I think it would be a good base for fancy buckles or adding little metal doo-hickeys or embroidery to embellish it.

Here's where I originally saw this band: https://www.facebook.com/Lautanauhat/photos/a.470865722996944/1078309905585853  (from a post on August 16, 2016)

The width is the same as the other one, about 5/8" (17mm).  I didn't try to eke out every last inch of weaving, but it's not quite 65" (163cm) long.

Next up?  Dunno.  Maybe I'll do another variation, where both threads and orientations alternate.  (i.e. / tablets are threaded AC and \ tablets are threaded BD).  Or something else entirely, of course.

Simple tablet woven belt(s)

Belts.  Brick-patterned, double-face, pack-idled, simple turned....  I'm in the mood.

First up is this one in brown carpet warp.  It's one of my favorite two-hole simple-minded patterns -- all the tablets are set / and \.  There are two edge tablets per side (4 total) which are 4-threaded.  The 12 pattern tablets in the middle are 2-threaded.  I'm doing the one where one alternates two tablets threaded in AC vs two in BD.  The weft is some leftover doily knitting cotton in a lighter caramel brown color.  All turns are forward.

It was fun, quick, easy, etc., and looks great even unblocked.  It ended up about 5/8" wide (17mm), about 65.5" long (166cm).  The photo color is not accurate -- the warp thread is brown, not gray nor blue.

I like the version where all the pattern tablets are threaded in AC (i.e. all the same instead of alternating) and also the version where the / tablets are AC and the \ tablets are BD.

Double-face looks good in monochrome as does simple 4-threaded all-forward turning, both with alternating / and \ tablet orientation.  Pack-idling is also fun and effective and of course there's 3/1 twill and other amusements.  I'm sure I'll get bored with monochrome and start adding color patterns again soon enough.  Or switch back to doing cords or more of those historic seal tags or fingerloop braiding or something.

Back to basics -- another two-hole two-color brick-patterned tablet-woven band

Well, "basics" for me, that is.  I keep making this pattern.  I like it and I like the results and I've given away pretty much all of the other ones I've done.  This one is also destined to be given away.

Happy sigh.  I do like this pattern.  The photo doesn't clearly show how yellow the background really is.  It's very much University of Oregon green and yellow, which I didn't fully realize until I was already weaving.

The band hasn't been blocked yet, but I measured it as 3/8" (11mm) wide and 68" (172cm) long.  There are 14 tablets, 4 of which are 4-threaded edge tablets (two per side) and 10 of which are pattern tablets that have 2 threads per tablet.

I'll probably warp up another few of these soon-ish, since there are people who want me to make a band for them.

I'm also intrigued by a dead-simple band from Archaeological Textiles Review 55.  It's "a reconstructed tablet-woven band from Drabesu Liepinas burial ground" from an article on the use of color in Latvian textiles from the 3rd to 14th centuries, with the band apparently being from an 11th century grave.  There's nothing even remotely complex about it, just a simple threaded-in dotted pattern that is always turned forward.  Also, there's no guarantee that a reconstructed band accurately reproduces the archaeologic find.  But I find the band pleasing to look at it, and it would be quick to weave.

My cheap-cotton stash is starting to get low.  I'm not sure if I'll backfill colors that run out, or just make the switch to better quality materials.  If it's the second, I'll use the cheap stuff in increasingly weird color combos until I run out, interspersing tablet-weaving, inkle-weaving, and braiding.  We'll see!  It is a relatively nice weight to weave with and the cotton is at least slightly shiny.  It's relatively economic, too.

I'm not sure what's next, but probably more fingerloop braiding mixed with tablet weaving (and other things I do that aren't narrow wares and thus aren't included in this blog).

Not quite done with easy zigzag tablet woven bands...

 And another.  This one is taken from the Lautanauhat Facebook page, obviously a continuing source of inspiration for me.  I saw the photo, which, in translation, was described as "ancient Karelian ribbon the old way".  This is a bit ambiguous, since the purpose of the post was to show the author's progress as a weaver, often re-interpreting the structure of an archaeologic band in a more complex way as well as currently weaving the same patterns with finer materials, more tightly woven.  So, is this a genuine Karelian pattern?  Another riff on the Ladoga fragments?  Who cares?  It was fun, quick, etc., a nice band to knock off after being able to re-assemble my weaving corner.

I re-charted the band based on the Facebook photo.  It's as simple as it looks.  There are 10 tablets total (6 pattern tablets and 2 edge tablets per side), 4 holes per tablet.  The edge tablets are aqua for the outermost (1 and 10) and white for the inner (2 and 9), with alternating tablet orientation.  The pattern tablets start with AB in aqua and CD in white, staggering them across the 6 pattern tablets to make diagonal lines, all with the same tablet orientation.  Then it's a nice simple 17F 17B rotation sequence, with the edges always turning forward.

Am I done with zigzags?  I'm not sure yet...

I'm not sure what band I'll do next.  I'm dithering as usual.  Double face?  Two hole?  3/1 twill?  Another fast-and-easy band?  (I told someone I might make them a band that would be suitable to make into an instrument strap.)  If I make the instrument strap, then ideally it should look good on both sides.

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

I also taught a couple of classes on making simple cords this month and will teach another one next month.  I did a class on twisted cords (two different methods) and another on the two-loop fingerlooped braid (with a quick demo of the basic 3-loop braid).  Next month I'll do one on fingercrochet (aka two-strand chain sinnet).  I should probably do a class someday on making cordage using the reverse twist/warp method since it's yet another classic/simple technique.

So I guess that's 4 cord-making techniques so far.  I still want to teach a class on pigtail braids, particularly the 5-strand pigtail.  Then I can tell myself I've done the "Five Easy Pieces" series.  Each one uses a different technique -- twisted cord, finger-loop braid, fill-the-gap disk braid, finger-crochet,, and free-end pigtail braid.

For the finger-looping class, I used the instructions from Ingrid Crickmore on her loopbraider.com website.  She initially wrote the instructions and created the videos for a class she taught on the Braids and Bands mailing list, giving permission to pass them along if she was credited, which of course I did.  (And of course I didn't charge anything; this was a completely free thing.)

For the twisted cord class, I wrote my own instructions.  However, I found a video and a non-video instruction site for each of the methods I taught or mentioned (simple twisting of one strand or bundle of strands, folded back on itself; twisting or two or more strands separately, then tying them together; the inch-at-a-time twist and fold/wrap method).  I also linked a couple of fun things -- a technical article on finding ancient cordage on a worked piece of stone that dates to Neanderthal times, a short video on building Inca-style bridges in Peru, and a website showing photos of archaeologic/historic twisted cords used on clothing as ties, drawstrings, and for decorative purposes.

Today just for funsies I decided to crank out a 4-loop fingerloop braid that builds on the principles of the 2-loop one.  That's another fun and quick braid. 

I need to warp up a borrowed inkle loom to weave a long band.  The loom needs to go back to its owner soon.  It does 5 yards of warp, whereas my own inkle loom tops out at 3 yards of warp.  It will be plain inkle-weaving (i.e. a warp-faced band/tape), no pick-up or anything fancy.

Twined baskets and bags in the Columbia Plateau style are also consuming my time and brainspace.  Happy sigh.  Plus knitting and spinning and sewing and all the usual non-narrow-wares stuff.

Broken stripes easy tablet woven band

 A friend supplied yarn for me in return for me using the yarn to weave them a sturdy strap.

Here it is.  The yarn is DK to worsted-weight cotton.  I used sport-weight cotton as the weft.  The band is roughly 5' long and between 1-1/4" and 1-3/8" wide.  As suspected, the thicker yarn meant that I had a higher take-up and a bit more waste at the end, and thus the band ended up a few inches shorter than usual.

The pattern is based on a chart from Lautanahuat by Maikki Karisto, p.105.  I simplified it, of course.

It was quick and easy to weave and I like how it looks.  I might have to make more bands in this style.

I could have dropped down to 14 tablets instead of 16.  Or expanded the band to have another set of stripes.  Or lots of other options.

I do like the design and color sense of the patterns in this book.

If I weighted each tablet separately, I might have been able to lengthen this by a few inches.  But it would probably have been offset by all the other hassles.  There are always trade-offs, sigh.

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.

More April tablet-weaving

 Wow, I haven't posted for a while.  I have been tablet-weaving, though!

I finished the backstrap-woven band.  I still need to work on how to rig up the backstrap so that I can weave comfortably and also advance the warp without too much hassle (and remove excess twist every now and then).  I do want to have a portable way to weave, so I'm motivated to keep practicing.

Next up are a couple of brick patterns.  Above is a pattern I've done before and will no doubt do again.  I do like this simple two-hole spot band, though I have a tendency to give them away.  This one is white with dark purple edges and spots.  I need to make a few more in different color combinations.

This blue/green one is from a post on the Karisto/Pasanen Lautanauhat/Tablet weaving Facebook page from August 19, 2021.  Mine isn't as cute, sadly.  Instead of lining up the speckles, I offset the middle speckles from the edge speckles.  This improved things a bit.  I'm not sure why I don't like mine as much as the one on the Facebook page.  I'm going to blame wool vs cotton even though that's probably not it.

This next one (above) is a cotton version of a wool band that was found in a grave.  The actual pattern is in a newly published book along with other details of clothing from the person in the grave.  I used a version of the chart that I found on Aisling's blog/website, but added back in the tubular edges that Karisto/Pasanen show on Facebook in their re-creation for the book.  The grave is from 13th century Finland.  It is known as the Ravattula Ristimäki grave 41/2016.  This particular band (or two of them, actually) had attractive tassels and were used as garters.  I made one band and it has no fancy finishes.  Anyway, I like it and I'll probably make it again, possibly in different colors, either with or without tubular edges.

There's one more band that I wove in April.  I saw it as a piece of trim on someone else's clothing and took a quick (and blurry) photo, then reverse-engineered it from the photo.  I eventually talked to the weaver who told me it was a variation on one of the Oseberg bands.  It also looks very similar to one of the Staraja Ladoga patterns.

So....  that was fun to weave.  The above photo is the result, and it looks very similar to the band that inspired it.  The motifs are a little bit elongated since apparently I can't beat quite tight enough to squoosh the lines into right angles, but that's OK.  Also, the band that inspired me has green zigzags while mine are dark purple.

Eventually I did my usual poking around and found a couple of versions of the Staraja Ladoga pattern, including a few two-hole versions.  I charted them up and played around for a bit, creating some variations as well as a version that looks very similar to the band I reverse engineered, except that it is two-hole, of course.  I'm almost done with the two-hole version I settled on and will do a write-up on the blog after it's finished.  I'm still going to look at the Oseberg band that might have been the original weaver's inspiration and see how that looks.  I might try a few variations, too, because it's an attractive motif.

I'm also feeling the urge to make cordage and knots and braids.  We'll see what happens there.

Another thing I did in April was to finally buy the Latvian tablet-weaving book.  It is full of swoon-worthy two-hole patterns to blast my two-hole tablet-weaving obsession to new heights.  There are also lots of other great patterns and motifs and techniques to inspire me in addition to the two-hole bands.  I know not one word of Latvian (except for some doily-knitting terminology) but that's OK.  There are apps and programs to translate important things.  I can puzzle out a few words.  And the charts and photos are sufficient to keep me learning and playing for quite a while.  I'm very glad I bought it.  Balticsmith, the etsy seller who sometimes has them in stock, is sold out again.

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.

And another... (2-hole, 2-color, brick-patterned band)

 

It's exactly like the last one, except the thrift-store vintage thread is specifically labeled as Knit-Cro-Sheen, and the colors are red and yellow rather than purple and white.

These are kind of adorable and rather addictive.  I must make more.

I am not sure what band pattern will be next except that it'll probably be another 2-hole pattern.

More fun with 2-hole brick-patterned bands

 This one was a ton of fun to make and I very much like the results.

The chart is from Lautanauhat by Maikki Karisto, p.101, band #3.  I don't read Finnish so I have no idea what the text says about the band.  I looked at the pictures and followed the chart.

This is very similar to one of the brick-patterned bands in Tablet-Woven Treasures (by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen), except that it doesn't have tubular edges.  It's also similar to (or the same as) as some of the bands that have showed up in their Facebok page.

It's a brick-patterned band -- two threads per card for the pattern cards, with alternating AC and BD orientations in a pattern, alternating tablet set, and a couple of edge tablets.  I can see from the book photo that they do not appear to be tubular selvedges.

I used thrift-store vintage #10-ish crochet cotton.  Knit-Cro-Sheen, Aunt Lydia's, etc., are all a bit thicker than #10 Cebelia, so it's probably closer to #7 or #8, not that it matters.  The colors are purple and white.  I used leftover #30 DMC Cebelia white or off-white crochet cotton for the weft.

I didn't bother to do reversals or anything.  I just wove until the twist was too tight, which was around the time I needed to advance the warp anyway.  I worked out the twist as part of advancing the warp.

It took a little while to get used to not doing tubular selvedges since I've done them on the past few bands.

Fun fun fun.  And I really like how it looks, with the little blips of purple on a brick-textured white ground.  I will make more of these in various colors.

What's next?  Probably more two-hole patterns, whether another one of these or something else.  At some point I will want to explore another technique.  But for now, I am entranced by these two-hole techniques, both the brick patterned bands and the Latvian/Estonian/etc.-style bands.