Monotonous Monochrome tablet weaving (the Thin Blue Band)

Well, it's done.  Yay!  By the end, I was very tired of it.  I started with roughly 3 yards of warp and ended up with about 83" of band.  I could have eked out another few inches, but Yet Another warp thread had frayed and broke, and I was tired of replacing them.

The band's width varies from about 7/8" to about 15/16", which is a bit more than I like to see.  Hopefully some of that will go away when I block it.  Ditto for the wavy lines which are a result of how I tensioned it and advanced the warp.

As I wrote in the previous post, this is the pattern seen in the Museum of London band 449 (according to Grace Crowfoot) and also in the pre-Roman El Cigarralejo pattern (according to Aisling).  It consists of 4-threaded tablets that alternate orientations -- 3Z and then 3S (or vice versa).  I used 30 tablets.  My aim was to get it to be >1" but obviously that didn't happen.  It's a nice looking band anyway.

I used my Robin & Russ Handweaver tablets since I didn't know how many tablets I'd thread up when I started.  The thread is the same teal thin cotton 2-ply I've been using, as gifts for a friend.  The combination of large tablets and thin loosely-plied yarn was not a great one.  It was hard to turn the tablets and clear the shed, and eventually the thread started to fray and pill.  My weaving area has a thin layer of blue lint and cotton-plus-cat-fur pills under where the band was being woven.

I think the R&R tablets are going to be retired unless I'm doing a project where I don't have enough tablets of a smaller size.  Some are getting worn out, but the real reason is that I do truly prefer the smaller tablets.  I probably have a few Linda Hendrickson tablets around that have extra holes for Andean pebble weave, but those are special purpose tablets that aren't going to be in general use.  Plus I bought them to support one of the wonderful people who publicize and teach the various techniques of tablet-weaving.

I'm not sure what I'll do next.  The Mammen 3/1 twill band is calling to me (Aisling's chart, probably).  Or maybe I need to do more cords or the double-face Durham seal tag patterns.  Or play with the little 3D-printed rigid heddle someone gave me.  Or do more inkle weaving or backstrap weaving.  Etc.  I'm also gonna be doing a bit more spinning and knitting as the weather cools.

I might try to make more stuff from the teal and gold my friend supplied.  We'll see.  Right now I'm irritated at it, so it's all gonna be in timeout for a while.

I taught another class recently.  I wasn't sure what to teach so I took my cue from the attendees.  It ended up being twisted cords and the 7-strand Fill the Gap braid.  They had fun and so did I.

More monochrome tablet weaving

This is the start of a belt/band/strap for a friend.  I've done this pattern before -- it's used in the Band from Cigarralejo and also the Museum of London Braid 449.  It's very simple yet effective -- use a multiple of three tablets, 4-threaded, and alternate three Z-oriented tablets with three S-oriented tablets.

I'm using the same teal cotton I've been using for the last few bands, and it will be a gift to go along with the other teal and teal/gold bands.  This is fairly fine thread -- even with 30 4-threaded tablets, the band is barely an inch wide (give or take a few mm).  I did a fairly long warp, too, about 3 yards (9 feet).  The final band will probably be at least 7' (2m) long.  The weft is the same thread as the warp.

I'm using my big tablets (from Robin & Russ Handweavers) since I wasn't sure how many tablets I'd need and I have more of these than any other tablets.  It confirms that I really do strongly prefer smaller tablets.  These big ones are harder for my small hands to hold and turn.  There will also be a little bit more waste at the end, not that it really matters given how long the band is gonna be anyway.

It's kind of a hassle keeping all of the threads from tangling, and also a bit of a hassle keeping the shed clear and open.  Although I like the band, I'm not exactly enjoying Life when the threads tangle or get caught on the tablets.  It should get easier as I keep weaving, I hope.  Luckily I am patient and by now have adequate skill on weaving back mistakes even when a tablet goes wild and needs some individual assistance.  Also, one warp thread seems to be a whole lot shorter than it should be.  Dunno how that happened, but it'll have to be dealt with once I get there.  It's not a big deal, just something to be aware of.

The band has a really nice feel to it.  I like how it drapes.  It's not too stiff while still feeling very sturdy.  I hope the recipient likes it and I hope it ends up being both durable and useful.

I seem to recall someone on the 'net did this texture pattern based on a medieval portrait (i.e. an interpretation of a painting rather than figuring it out from an actual artifact), and that weaver called it a "seat belt pattern" because presumably it reminded the weaver of a car seat belt.  But I can't find that post again to see whose portrait it was.  Not that it matters.

I'm not sure what I'll do next.  The double-face seal tags (from the article everyone references, that also has the tablet-woven cord in it) are calling to me.  They'd probably look better in finer threads, sigh, though they'll probably be sufficiently attractive in thicker thread if that's what I choose to do.  I don't know if I want to move on to silk sewing thread just yet but I do have some finer cottons.  Plus I don't care if I match the size of the historic sample since that's not my goal.  I'm just here to have fun.  But maybe some other technique or pattern will catch my eye and I'll do that instead. I did agree to teach some braiding sometime in September, so I'd better do a quick review to figure out what I want to teach.

Another teal and gold tablet woven band (17th century Falun silk ribbon pattern)

It is done, yay.  All 2.7 meters of it (108-ish inches).  It's roughly 9mm wide, not quite 3/8".  The broken warp threads are properly darned in, and now it awaits a quick wet-block.

I like how it turned out.  It's nothing dramatic, but it should be a pleasant and hopefully useful piece of trim for the person I'm giving it to.

I'm not sure what I want to do next.  Another teal plus or minus gold band or braid?  Or something else entirely?

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.

Gotland-style sampler tablet-woven band -- attempt #1

The tablet twisting techniques in a pdf contributed by Rasmus Twisttmann Jørgensen has been intriguing me for a while.  I can't remember where I found it, but probably one of the Facebook tablet-weaving groups.  It's called "Textured tabletwoven bands - A Viking Age technique from Gotland".  He goes through some of the possible variations and offers a few samplers and other designs.  He says that the guide is based on work by Lise Rædder Knudsen and Ulla Gerner Lund, so I specifically want to mention them, too.

I looked in Collingwood since he tends to be pretty comprehensive, and he mentions tablet twisting around the horizontal axis of the tablets to be a technique that changes colors (for non-monochrome bands), reverses the turning direction, and adds two quarter-turns of twist.  Later in the book he talks about mixing quarter-turns and half-turns and other fun stuff, including for textural purposes, so I can see how tablet-twisting would give some interesting textural patterns.

So I warped up 13 cards (9 two-thread pattern cards and 2 four-thread edge cards per side) and started to play.

Alas, it's a failure.  The guide does say that a tightly twisted thread is necessary to show the texture properly, and I guess that #10 Aunt Lydia's crochet cotton does not qualify.

Harumph.  The textures are there but they are way too subtle to be worthwhile with this thread.

Oh, well.  At least I got to try the technique and see how it works.

Jørgensen's charts use thread direction rather than tablet orientation.  Also, his default turn direction is towards the weaver.  He doesn't really give a threading chart but it's not like one is really needed.  His pdf is very clear and his exercises and sample patterns are fun to work through.

I might try this again someday if/when I get some tightly twisted and probably thicker yarn.  But this attempt is done.  I'll pick out the weft and the warp will be repurposed for something else.

I learned from this sampler so it's not really a failure even if I'm a bit disappointed at it not being a rousing success.  That's two tablet-weaving projects in a row.  I guess that's what happens as I work through the list of things I want to try because I haven't done them before.  It's all good new knowledge, both things to do and things to not do, and also learning a technique or thing I haven't done before.

Continuing the theme of two-hole tablet-weaving

 Here are the most recent bands.

This one is worsted-weight acrylic, probably something like Red Heart.  I wanted to re-do the band I did in wool, the one from Tablet-Woven Treasures where the \ pattern tablets are threaded AC and the / pattern tablets threaded in BD.

For about half the band, one of the tablets was threaded BC instead of AC.  Oops.  It's pretty subtle, even after I changed the threading.

For an acrylic band, it's not bad.

Someone on a Facebook group mentioned this one.  It appealed to me so I followed the links to see what I could find out.  The description and chart are here.  Apparently it's from a 2022 Advent Calendar on the Historical Textiles website/blog.  It's apparently from 17th century Falun (Sweden).  I was immediately charmed and had to try it.

It's very cute.  It alternates two tablets threaded in all 4 holes with a thin yarn, with two tablets threaded in only 2 holes with thick yarn.  The original was silk but since I don't have silk, that wasn't going to happen.

I found some random leftover pink cotton to use.  The darker pink is a bit thicker than #10 to my eye -- was it perl cotton, maybe?  The lighter pink looks like DMC Cebelia, probably #30 but maybe #20.  The weft is the same light pink thread.

The two thicknesses don't show enough contrast to my eye, but I do like the color and texture contrast.  It's a very elegant little band.

I'm almost certainly going to do this one again.  It could easily be made wider by adding tablets in multiples of four (2 four-threaded and 2 two-threaded).  I like the idea of using different colors for the stripes.  I should also try making the two-hole yarn quite a bit thicker than the four-hole yarn.  I think it would look good in wool, too.

It would seem that I'm not over my obsession with stripes.  Good thing that it can run in parallel (haha) with my other current obsessions.

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In Collingwood's Techniques of Tablet Weaving, he talks about patterns where textural contrast occurs by idling some tablets while turning others.  I've been mulling this over.  There are also the types of patterns and ideas in the "structure weave" chapter in Claudia Wollny's Tablets at Work.  The El Cigarralejo band and the Draft 14 band I did fall under that category, I guess.  So apparently monochromatic bands are still calling to me.  Though so are two-hole bands.  Chances are I'll do a few more two-hole patterns before doing more than superficially exploring other techniques.

Also, and also completely unrelatedly, I've been thinking about possibly creating a quickie class about doing one braid using three different techniques.  The simple four-strand (two loop) fingerlooped braid that I showed in my previous post about simple cords can also be done on a disk/marudai or as a free-end braid in the hand.  Hmmm.

I also found another source for the finger-crocheted cord (aka two strand chain sinnet aka ABOK 2896 aka Zipper Sinnet).  In Tassels: The Fanciful Embellishment by Nancy Welch, in the chapter on cords and braids, she shows something she calls Finger Crocheted Cords.  She says that other names she knows this by is "monkey chain" and "idiot's delight".  The drawings are a little different from the one in Montse Stanley's book, but I'm pretty sure this is the same cord.  Interesting...  And of course she also includes the same 4-strand braids I see elsewhere, done as free-end braiding.  She has a section on fingerlooped braids, too!  She refers to them as Slentre (and says it's called "puncetto" work in the Italian Alps).  I knew that Slentre referred to a style of fingerlooping (fingerloop braiding with some quirks), but I hadn't heard about puncetto involving any kind of fingerloop braiding techniques before.

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.

More two-hole brick-patterned belts/bands -- in wool!

 OK, I've now tablet-woven using wool.  It was nowhere near as dire as I'd been warned.  Whew!  I used wool yarn that was on cones, intended for weaving.  I believe that it is less elastic than knitting yarn and also probably has a coating/sizing on it to help it flow better.  Whatever the reason was, I had no trouble at all.  I think doing a two-hole band might have helped -- I noticed a bit more stickiness with the band where the threaded vs non-threaded holes were aligned compared to the band where the threaded vs non-threaded holes were diagonally opposite.  (In other words, more stickiness for the band where the threaded holes were all AC and empty all BD, as opposed to the band where some were AC and some were BD.

While weaving, the tension flattened out the pattern.  It showed up better once tension was released.  After the bands were finished, I gave them a long soak and then hung them to dry.  They shortened up and fluffed up a bit more.

The patterns are subtle but I like them.  I like weaving with wool, too.

The white (or natural) band (shown above) is done with some kind of old tapestry wool I found lurking in my stash, from who knows where.  I've been slowly using it for natural dyeing experiments.  It's a cabled construction -- three plies of yarn, with each ply being a two-ply strand.  The pattern is the one from Tablet-Woven Treasures, p.113, from an archeologic find that was used as a belt for a carrying a knife sheath.  I do like that pattern.

The gray wool is Harrisville Designs Highland in Oatmeal, a heathery light gray.  I did the same belt pattern from Tablet-Woven Treasures (see photo above).  Then I did another Medieval belt pattern, the same one I had done in tan acrylic a while back (see photo below).  I like this pattern a lot, too.  The wool doesn't show the ribbed pattern as clearly as the acrylic, but it's still very nice.  I haven't had a chance to soak it yet so maybe that'll help.

I wonder if I should try using less tension to see if I can do a tighter beat, and if that makes a major difference in what the finished belt/band will look like.  As it was, I didn't use a huge amount of weight, but it did stretch out the yarn a bit while I was weaving.

All of the belts are roughly 5 feet long (they were about 5.5 feet when straight off the loom -- they shrunk after soaking) and about 3/4" to 1" wide.  The pattern from Tablet-Woven Treasures uses 10 tablets, and the one from the Facebook page uses 12.

I'm glad that wool turned out to be reasonable to weave with.

I have my eye on a 12-strand braid pattern to make from this wool.  Someone showed me a video, though it's a pretty straightforward pattern.  The braid is from an armband, made from cattle hair and studded with little tin ornaments, from the Whitehorse Hill cist burial.  Sally Pointer used her locally-gathered bast-fiber cordage to braid a belt.  I'm just going to use wool.  It's interesting that the strands and braid have a lot of two-over and two-under moves -- it makes me thing of things like finger-looping and finger-weaving, and, I suppose, some kinds of basketry.  I do not plan to add tin ornaments even though they do look very charming on the original armband.

There are other interesting braided belts out there.  I also have my eye on the 12-strand (also with double strands, as with the Whitehorse Hill braid) Skjoldehamn belt.

For tablet-weaving, I'm still entirely enamored with two-hole tablet weaving.  There are so many possibilities that I've actually had to start a list.  I'm not sure which one I'll do next.  At some point, I do want to explore another technique.  But not just yet.

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.

A Motif from Oseberg Fragment 2 -- done!

And it's done!  Seventy pattern repeats, not quite 6 feet long, roughly half an inch wide.  As usual, I might have been able to get one or two more pattern repeats done if I'd really struggled, but I decided not to.

I am not sure what I'm going to do with all the small bits of leftover thread that are accumulating...  Probably throw most of them out since they're short, but maybe a few can go into the braiding stash.  Or get used as skein ties.  Or something like that.

I really like this band.  By the end, the pattern was mostly in my muscle memory, so the weaving went a bit more smoothly and more quickly.  I still had to unweave a few mistakes here and there.

Two-hole tablet weaving is a lot of fun.  I can see how it relates to other tablet-weaving techniques such as double-face and diagonals.

What did I learn?

Well, most importantly, what I wrote in the previous post -- for this band, it really helped to loosen the weft.  That made the little pebbles show up quite clearly and made the motifs seem less elongated.  (Not that I mind if they're elongated, but obviously if a diagonal has the same length but a different width, it changes the apparent elongation.)  I had to pay some attention to just how loose -- loose enough to see the pebbly bits, but not so loose that the weft was clearly visible.

Another thing, which I probably already knew, is that when the weaving shed gets fairly short, turning the cards in the tight space causes the band to spread out.  That of course affects its width and the distance between picks.  I can mitigate some of it but not all of it, because it affects a few rows of weaving, not just the most recent.  That was part of the reason I stopped the band when I did, since I was already starting to see that effect and it would have only gotten worse.  Smaller cards would have been better -- maybe it's time to buy or make some since I only have ten of them and a lot of bands use more cards.

I also gained a bit of confidence in my ability to take the diagonal lines of a pattern and convert it into a tablet-weaving chart.  Thank you to Randi Stoltz for providing the diagonal-line chart so I didn't have to do it myself from Sophie Krafft's drawings.  I also appreciate Stoltz calling attention to this interesting collection of motifs.  Maybe I'll do some of the other motifs from the fragments that Stoltz has called attention to.  Some look like good ones for two-hole while others would work well with regular 4-hole diagonal or kivrim-ish or other techniques.  As far as I know, a lot of the Oseberg tablet-woven bands were made using brocade techniques, so that too is another possibility for playing with the motifs and/or re-creating some of the known bands.

If I make this band again, I'll be sure to change the color of the border.  The yellow zigzag is the most obvious element, and it's only when one gets closer that the red net-like motifs start to stand out.  I know this -- that the lightest color is often the one that is most noticeable, but I keep thinking that the darkest/brightest color might be different this time.  Duller colors (gray vs white, for example) can reduce the effect, but it does depend on the pattern and on the actual colors used.

As usual, cats are terrible weaving assistants.  Good thing they're cute.

I wonder what technique was used when creating the item that contained original motif?  I might have to do some research to find out, if it's even been reported.  It does lend itself quite well to two-hole tablet weaving, though.

What's next?  I guess I'll find out!  But probably more two-hole patterns until I get bored or until the lure of the Next Thing gets too hard to ignore.

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.

Yet Another Brick-Patterned Band (2-hole tablet-weaving)

 The original was the starting band on the hem of an apron.  It was done in thin wool and had a tubular selvedge on one side.

This one has tubular selvedges on both sides, because why not?  It's in acrylic, yet again.  I'm pretty sure it's Red Heart this time, in a golden yellow color.

The pattern is small but kind of adorable.  It's band 1, p.103, from Tablet Woven Treasures by  Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, with two more tablets added to the right side to have tubular selvedges on both sides of the band.

This is my first time doing tubular selvedges.  Not that they are difficult or anything, but I simply haven't felt like doing a pattern that called for them yet.  I have to pull the weft snug enough to make sure the edges roll properly.  It's not perfect when the band is under tension.  But after the tension is off and the belt relaxes a bit, it looks fine.

This will make a good strap for something.  The edges are sturdy and the center is thin.  It's very three-dimensional.  It would make a perfectly reasonable belt, too.

If I were to do this again in the future, I might do 2-tablet tubular selvedges instead of 3-tablet.  And/or I might use more pattern cards for the center.  And/or maybe just go back to one tubular selvedge, or none.

What did I learn?

Tubular selvedges, I guess!  I hadn't done them before.  They're very similar to attached I-cord from knitting, so I wasn't particularly intimidated.  Indeed, they are very straightforward to do.  I don't have a preference between this and non-tubular selvedges.

I'm not sure what will be next.  I want to do another colorful Latvian-style 2-hole band.  But maybe I'll do something simple for a quick break.  Or maybe I'll succumb to another brick pattern.

Brick-patterned belt (2-hole tablet-weaving)

Tablet-woven brick patterns have intrigued me for a while.  I like their texture.  There are some in Lautanauhat by Maikki Karisto, and more in Tablet Woven Treasures by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen.

I've also been eyeing the cute little 2-hole patterns with colorful designs that are all over the 'net.

Well!  Let's do it!  (We'll ignore the siren song of Double Face for a little while longer.  And 3/1 twill.  And Sulawesi.  And everything else.  Eventually.  Soon.  Really.)

So this is my first band doing a 2-hole technique.  It gives me a good introduction to working with 2 yarns/threads per tablet.  It's not that working with 2 threads per tablet is inherently difficult, but I often see the warning that tablet management can be tricky because the tablets want to turn partway rather than being well-behaved.

The brick pattern I chose is pattern 6, p.113, from Tablet Woven Treasures.  It looks like a good first pattern for this technique, and also I like it a lot.  It is based on a belt for carrying a wide bronze knife sheath, from a Finnish Iron Age cemetery

It has a mere 10 tablets, which is good, since I want to use the small tablets I was given last year, and I only have 10 of them.  It's all one color, warp and weft and everything.  It's made from "thick two-stranded S-plied wool", which is close enough to Red Heart acrylic for my purposes.  There's only turning forward, no reversals at all.  This is a problem for people who use inkle looms for their tablet weaving, but since I do warp-weighted weaving, it's no problem at all -- I take out the excess twist when I advance the warp and rehang the weights.  The tablet slant is a simple alternating S and Z.  Or / and \, if you'd prefer, since my current convention is to use SZ for charting based on thread slant, and /\ for charting based on tablet slant.  The chart I'm following uses tablet slant, and honestly, I like that better than charts with thread direction.

It has been mentioned that edge tablets can distort the weaving since there are 4 threads vs. the 2 threads in the center tablets.  The solution offered is to turn the edge card when the weft is going through from that side, and to not turn it when the weft is coming through from the other side (or vice versa).  Pattern 6 shows every card turning on every row, so that's what I'm gonna do.  Maybe I'll try something different for the next band.

Tablet management turned out not to be too bad.  I used a bamboo skewer.  I put it in the upper hole closest to me.  Throw the thread, turn the tablets, throw the thread.  Hang onto the pack, turn the tablets, replace the skewer, and repeat.  Every now and then I'd forget, and then, yeah, the tablets would spin like a children's toy.  Since I used the cheat of labeled tablets and had them all lined up before I began weaving, it was fairly straightforward to get them back to where they needed to be.

I enjoyed this project and I really like how it turned out.  The photo is of the unblocked band.  I do hope some of the irregularities will disappear after blocking.  Some of it, of course, is me -- slightly inconsistent width, mostly, along with what looks like a few errors where I caught (or didn't catch) a thread from the other side of the shed.  I can also tell where I advanced the warp -- there are some slight tension irregularities, either from differences in thread tension or from where I clamped the already-woven band or both.

The band is long enough to use as a belt, yay!  I have no idea how much take-up there was since I didn't measure too closely.  The width is somewhat less than 1" though wider than the 12mm of the original archaeologic artifact.  As usual with one-direction tablet-weaving, yarn lengths change by the end of the weaving as the twist either gets tighter or looser based on the tablet slant, plus there are textural differences in the differently-slanted tablets due to this tighter/looser effect.  Some of the irregularity in the weaving might be due to that, too.

I should make more of these, in various colors and various weights of thread/yarn.  Maybe I'll even try wool someday.  A lot of these brick patterns have different colors rather than all one color.  Those will be fun, too.

Next up is a different 2-thread pattern, a design in the Latvian tradition, in crochet cotton.  Tablet management will be a little more complicated, hmmm, since some tablets will turn forward and others backward.   I have more bamboo skewers and we'll see if that's enough.