A narrow rainbow striped tablet woven band

This was done as a gift.  It's a simple pattern but of course very effective and fun to weave.  I did this on 14 tablets, all 4-threaded, all warped with just one color per tablet, 2 of each color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) and 1 tablet of white on each edge, to match the white weft.  Orientation is alternating / and \ and the turning is all forward.  It looks the same on both front and back.  The warp and weft are all big-box-store #10 crochet cotton.

The band ended up being about 1.5cm wide (9/16") and about 230cm long (about 89-90").  I hope the recipient likes it.

And I suppose it's a color wheel band as much as a rainbow band, depending on what one thinks about the blue/indigo/violet continuum and why the rainbow was defined as having 7 colors in the first place.

There's not much else going on.  I did teach two classes last weekend.  It was fun!

I'm not 100% sure about how I taught lucet.  I taught the no-turn method first and then the turn method.  I think I should have done the opposite, mostly concentrating on the turn method and then at the end showing how it can be done without needing to turn.  Well, I wanted to follow my friend's teaching plan since I was subbing.  And I haven't taught lucet in a class-like setting before.

Someone else at the event showed me something obvious yet very helpful when doing the no-turn method -- instead of wrapping both sides of the lucet and then pulling the old thread over the new, wrap one side, pull thread over, then wrap the other side, pull thread over, etc.  It makes conceptual sense, makes it easier to control tension, and in my opinion, shows more clearly how both the no-turn and the turn methods are really the same.

People learned how to work a lucet and they all seemed to go away happy, so hopefully I was sufficiently effective as a teacher.

The other class on disk braiding (8-strand Z-spiral kongo gumi) went well, too.

What next?  Quite possibly sprang or braiding, though I never really know for sure what will catch  my fancy.  I have such a long list of things I want to do, across so many techniques.

My 200th post on this blog went by last month.  Clearly I didn't notice so didn't do any kind of summary of the past or plans for the future or anything else.

I've learned a lot over the years.  I hope to keep learning.  And of course, having fun in my narrow minded way.

Dunno what I'll do if Google gets too weird with blogspot, but I guess I'll worry about that if and when things start getting weirder.

Some August Ramblings

Wow, August already, and almost to the end of it!  The light has turned and the daylength is changing rapidly.

What have I been doing since my last post?  Well, not a lot of stuff, I guess.  I've been busy with non-narrow-ware tasks.

I have a new tablet weaving commission, something that should be simple yet effective for its purpose.  That'll be for next month.

But first, I am doing some teaching this weekend, yay!  A friend was going to teach, had to back out, and I offered to take over and teach the already-planned classes.

One is on lucets.  I can do basic lucet cord.  I'm no expert but I don't need to be for this class.  I'll teach both the no-turn and the turn method.

I did a little research about lucets since I know there's some argument for how old the technique is.  Most of the argument is about which archaeological artifacts might have been lucets.  Eh, lucet cord can be made using all kinds of things, even one's fingers.  However, I cannot yet find any definitive evidence of cords made with this technique.  Cords made on a lucet superficially resemble cords made from a few other techniques, but even so, it has some unique characteristics that hopefully someone would have picked up on.  Cords and other narrow wares are woefully understudied, alas.  Maybe I'll find something, or maybe the evidence doesn't exist yet.

The other class will be on disk braiding, and in particular, an 8-strand braid, which I've decided means the Z-spiral kongoh gumi braid that is well known, popular, and works well on a disk.  If there's time and interest, I might show people how to reverse the spiral direction and make zigzags.  Or have them set up a couple of different color/texture patterns.  The friend likes to use weights for disk braids, so I'll discuss that, too, even though I tend not to use them myself.  (I do use them on a marudai.)  I'll mention how this braid can be expanded in multiples of four strands and that all kinds of cool color/texture patterns become possible with more braiding elements.

Kongoh gumi isn't a very old braid, either, as far as I can tell.  It's not a fingerlooped braid.  It can be made freehand.  But in the Japanese kumihimo tradition, I believe it arose with the development of braiding stands.

Once I have free time again, twill braids and sprang are high on my to-do list, along with some fingerlooped braiding, netting, and the other usual things I tend to obsess over.