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.

A Motif from Oseberg Fragment 2 -- in progress

I found the motif and the chart on Randi Stoltz's page.  Here is the full listing of patterns and here is the pdf of the chart.

The motif is on one of the textiles found with the Oseberg ship burial (Norway, 9th century).  Sophie Krafft made sketches of the textiles.  This motif is on fragment 2.  I have no idea if the original is a tablet woven band, or something embroidered or tapestry woven or something else entirely, nor any idea what techniques were used to make it.  The motif looks like it would be very suitable for two-hole tablet weaving, which is how Stoltz charted it.

I decided to rechart the pattern, using the diagonal line drawing on page 2 of Stoltz's pdf.  That way, I would understand the pattern better and thus more easily be able to weave it.  Also, that way I could use the charting conventions that are currently more intuitive for me.  Since I'm mostly weaving 2-hole patterns charted by Karisto/Pasanen, I used that approach.

Yay, it worked!

I forgot to fool around with the edge tablets (color, pattern, etc.) until after I'd warped up the band, so they are the same red as the motif.  It probably should have been yellow.  Or some other color completely.  Oh, well; it looks good anyway.

I'm still using vintage thrift-store Knit-Cro-Sheen in red and yellow, with off-white DMC Cebelia #30 for weft.

The first few repeats weren't too inspiring.  The yellow zigzags dominated and the red areas were very solid-looking.  But then I loosened up on the weft tension.  And now the red net-like motifs are showing up nicely.

So that's something I learned with this band -- sometimes it helps to play around with weft tension.

It's relatively slow to weave compared to the last few brick-patterned bands.  I have to pay attention.  But it's very satisfying to watch the motifs develop.  I love the 3D pebbly effect of the little yellow blips showing up under the red network.

I've done over a dozen repeats so far, with several dozen left to go.

As always, cats are terrible weaving assistants.

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.

Small band from a Finnish Iron Age pattern

 It's small but very cute.

I couldn't decide what pattern I felt like weaving next when this caught my eye.  It looked simple enough and seemed like it would be fun and relaxing to weave, so on the loom it went.

The original is a grave find from Ravattula Ristimäki grave 8/2015, which makes it a Finnish Iron Age tablet-woven band.

The find is described, photographed, charted, and re-created on March 11, 2017, in this post from Mervi Pasanen and/or Maikki Karisto.  The band is also shown in this Facebook post from January 29, 2018.

The original was woven using wool.  I used cotton.  The Swan River Crafts band is done in madder red, woad blue, and natural white.  I used red, white, and blue #10-ish crochet cotton (probably something like Aunt Lydia's or Knit-Cro-Sheen, most of which are closer to #7-8 even though they're labeled as #10) with white or off-white #30 crochet cotton as weft.  I like the intensity of the red against the white and blue.  Ominously, the tablets show a bit of red around the edges.  I am going to be quite disappointed if the red cotton has loose dye that affects the white cotton!  I didn't think that was common with mass produced crochet cotton, though of course some of my weaving cotton comes from thrift store finds of unknown vintage.

The pattern is a simple asymmetric 4F4B threaded-in design with tubular-edged borders.

My finished band is around 6-7mm wide and roughly 2m long, give or take a bit.  It really is quite cute.  I am not sure how wide the original was.  The Swan River Crafts version is 6mm wide.

I tried again to unobtrusively flip the edge tablets sometimes to see if I could improve my technique.  It's less noticeable than in the previous thicker-yarn band but still somewhat visible.  It would of course be less visible if I matched the weft color to the edge color.

At some sections along the band, the triangles are longer than at other sections.  I am not sure what caused the difference in pick consistency, since I was under the impression I was beating the weft down with the same force and ditto for pulling the weft tight.  Some of it might relax out now that I don't have tension on the band, but some of it is probably me being careless about something.  Or it's something about weaving close to my body vs farther away (i.e. related to when I am advancing the warp).  Or whether I spread out the warp on the loom or let it bunch together (which happens when I get close to where I've tied it off to hang weights from).  Or something else I haven't figured out yet.  I'll have to watch out for this issue in future bands.

It is harder to weave when a cat sits on the loom and the warp and then tries to play chase with the shuttle and its wound-on thread.

I should weave this again using wool someday.

What shall I do next?  There are several 2-hole patterns that look pretty tempting.  Or maybe something else entirely while I dither about the 2-hole possibilities.