Broken zigzags, yet another easy tablet-woven band

 I seem to be continuing a theme...

This is a band one sees elsewhere.  I saw a photo, decided "why not?", charted it out, and began.  It's quick, easy, effective, etc.  And I like it better than the spiral one I had done earlier.

I've been distracted by other fiber fun and haven't done as much tablet-weaving recently.  There are so many things I want to do, though, so I'd best put tablet-weaving into the rotation and make time for it.  That may be why I'm doing such simple bands lately -- they're quick to do, so more bang for the buck, as it were.  Maybe I should start having multiple projects set up, so I can work on easy or complex or whatever, and still be able to put them away and reclaim the space or do something more mindless for a while, etc.  That way lies madness, though.

A Halloween Post

 It's been busy, but I did get a little bit of tablet-weaving in.  It was a reward I promised myself that I could do after the busy-ness subsided.

It was a fun band to weave.  It looks like little spirals, and it's reversible, too. I've seen it on pinterest (as a gtt chart) and elsewhere.  I used this Twisted Threads chart, obviously changing around the colors and edges.  I used 20 tablets, 14 pattern tablets and 3 edge tablets (always turning forward) on each side.  The pattern tablets alternate threading of AC dark and BD light with the opposite (AC light and BD dark).

I did speed-warping aka continuous warping for the pattern tablets and it went fairly smoothly.  The trick, as I had suspected, is to make sure the thread sources do not tangle, especially the part between the tablets and the source.  In other words, keep the bobbins or skeins or whatever in a fairly fixed spot so they can't roll around and otherwise be unruly.  I'd tried a few other things that also helped a bit (such as running the thread around the warping path and then dropping a tablet instead of running all the tablets around the warping board along with the thread, changing the orientation of the warping board and thread and me, etc.), but it was still somewhat aggravating to untangle everything.  So that was good to confirm, that I indeed understand the concept of how to do it and mostly need to streamline the process.  Transferring the warp from the warping set-up to my warp-weighted loom set-up without getting everything tangled again took a bit of time but on the whole wasn't too aggravating.  I'll continue to refine the details in hopes of making this quick and easy and hassle-free.

In spite of its apparently complexity, this pattern is dead simple.  Several tablets go 3F3B while others go 3B3F.  After the 3 turns (either the forward or the backward), the entire pack either goes all forward or all back.  If that makes sense.  It's twist-neutral except for the edge tablets, and of course even the edge tablets can be occasionally reversed to keep them neutral.  Anyway, this was a very straightforward thing to weave.

I don't much like my version, though.

I used 8/2 cotton rug warp (I think).  It has a matte rather than a shiny luster.  And, well, it's OK.  Just OK.  My craftsmanship also had issues -- floats on the backside where apparently I didn't catch certain threads in the correct sheds.  The spirals are sometimes elongated to varying degrees, though some of that has to do with how long the cotton was under tension (and stretched out) when I was weaving.  Sometimes the spirals look more like feathers than spirals.  I was beating pretty hard while not pulling the weft too tight but maybe I was inconsistent or something.

Maybe I'll like it better after blocking evens things out.

I'd make it again, simply because it was fun, but I'd use some other material.

I'm still dithering about the next band.  Two-pack 3/1 broken twill?  Something double-face?  A two-thread/two-hole band?  Or something else completely?   Hmmmm....

I have been knitting, spinning, and weaving baskets while I dither.  I'll be doing some leatherwork and dyeing this week, too.  Plus various other things.  But none of those are narrow wares, so they don't get recorded on this blog.

Broken Chevrons, another easy tablet woven band

 I was looking through some of the silly charts I've played with over the years.  Some were drawn out (either by hand or using charting websites) for reasons I can't remember.  I was also looking through tablet weaving projects on Ravelry.

Chevrons.  They caught my eye.  I have charts.  I've seen project pics.  Maybe I need to warp it up and weave it.  Right now.

So I did.

This is a very common chart that one sees in a lot of places -- books, websites, handouts, etc. -- because it is striking in appearance yet quite suitable for beginners.  Also, it's such a useful basic-warp.  One color goes in A and B, the contrast color in C and D.  So many techniques start with something similar.  For the chevrons, one alternates two tablets set / with two tablets set \  (or vice versa).   I did 5 reps (10 tablets), though maybe I should have done 6 (12 reps).  I chose black and white for my colors.  The colors are staggered and offset to make little chevrons. The edge consists of three tablets on each side.  The outer two are black and the inner one is a contrast color, in this case a dark red.

This will probably be a gift, thus the choice of colors.

I used the usual stash of cotton Aunt Lydia #10.  The weft is something similar -- white big-box-store #10 cotton from my vintage stash of leftovers.

The band ended up around 90"/225cm long, around 5/8"/18mm wide.  The warp started out as around 8' (96") so that's not a lot of waste, yay!  It's also not that much take-up, which seems a bit odder.  The measurements were taken when the band was first finished and unblocked, so it might well shrink a bit after relaxing out the stretch and after blocking.

There are places where the chevrons are well-aligned.  Places that almost look like basketweave.  Places that look more like houndstooth.  I am not sure why, and again, will see what happens as the band relaxes.  My width is fairly consistent as is the distance between picks.  I suspect that the precise tension on each thread of each tablet might sometimes be slightly inconsistent, especially when I advance the warp or re-hang the weights, or as I continue weaving and the warp starts to stretch out under the tension.  And as always, maybe it is something subtle I'm doing as I weave.

Anyway, it is fairly striking and I like it, though I'm fairly uncritical and still tend to be thrilled at anything I make.

It is hard to untangle tablets and work out excess twist after the cats have sat on the warp and left their fur on it.  It seems to be shedding season.  Or something.  The fur wraps itself around the threads and then everything gets stuck and tangled.

I have no idea what I'll weave next.  More simple bands?  Two-pack 3/1 twill?  Back to two-hole?  Something else? Hmmm...

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.

3/1 Twill Sampler Band -- done!

 It is finished, yay!  It's about 64" (160cm) long, 7/8" (22mm) wide.  If I'd really worked at it, I might have been able to eke out another inch or so, but that's OK.

I ended up doing 17 motifs total.  I started and ended with a little diamond, and then alternated swirl/S/leaf motifs with motifs that were blockier and more diamond-based.  I probably could have skipped the last diamond motif, but I was having fun, plus I didn't know how much more plain twill weaving I'd be doing to finish the band.

The motifs are all by Claudia Wollny, from Tablets at Work, Lily Grove, and Lily Grove 2.  The first swirl motif (second motif overall) is in the errata so of course I used that version of the chart.  The other charts were fine as printed.

There are some areas that look messier, where some motifs are a bit elongated compared to others.  I'm not totally sure why that happened.

Is it because these are areas where I was more likely to mess up and thus unweave/reweave?  Is it because these areas are after I've advanced the warp, untangled stuff, and re-tensioned everything, and thus there were slight differences in tension from thread to thread?  Did I relax or tense up?  Did the cotton stretch out differently?  Was I closer/farther from the cards and this affected things somehow?  Will it relax out now that the band is no longer under tension?  Is it an illusion, based on the motifs' different widths and lengths?

I am not sure, but it's something I'll pay attention to in the future.  I'm hoping it's one of those things that will straighten itself out through practice and experience.

I'm also not sure how much more square I want to try to make the motifs.  If I beat too hard then the band will be too stiff rather than flexible (yeah, get your mind out of the gutter).  I do loosen up a bit on weft tension since weft tension does interact with how close the picks are to affect the various angles and thus elongation of the motifs.  If that makes sense.  Also, if the weft tension is a little looser, I believe I can achieve closer-together picks and beat the weft down a little tighter.

I do like the natural elongation of the swirly motifs.  It's quite possible that this may well be a feature of the technique, similar to how it is in double-face.  Which makes some sense since 3/1 twill is so closely related to double-face.  Or maybe it's because I mostly use cotton.  Or I like a more flexible band thus don't weave too tightly.

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Here's the list of the motifs I used:

Little diamond separator motif (every odd motif from first to seventeenth): Lily Grove, p.130, V-1

First swirl (second motif): Tablets at Work, p.271 (from the errata)

First diamond (fourth motif): Tablets at Work, p.271, upper right

Second swirl (sixth motif): Lily Grove, p.28, II-7

Second diamond (eighth motif): Lily Grove, p.141, V-27

Third swirl (tenth motif): Lily Grove 2, p.44 II-12

Third diamond (twelfth motif): Tablets at Work, p.275, upper right

Fourth swirl (fourteenth motif): Tablets at Work, p.285, lower right

Fourth diamond (sixteenth motif): Lily Grove 2, p.221, V-4

I love all of these motifs and would be happy to use them again.  Some of the swirl/leaf motifs have repetition lines in case I want to make a much longer leafy tendril, for example.  Which I might!  There are many other motifs I'd like to play with.  It is very nice of Claudia Wollny to have provided such a rich set of charts, and to have made all of them quite modular so they can be plugged in wherever or whenever one wants.

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What did I learn?

I like 3/1 twill.  I can follow Wollny's charts and string together motifs in a pleasing way.  This band was a lot of fun to weave although of course it's slower than some of the other tablet weaving techniques.

The underlying logic of 3/1 twill makes sense, which means that I should try designing a few motifs to refine my understanding.

Un-weaving is tedious but I seem to be able to do it without too much fuss.  I'm comfortable doing what I need to do in order to fix my mistakes.

Lacis cards are perfectly reasonable to weave with.

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I'm not sure what I'll be doing next.  I'd like to try Collingwood's two-pack method for doing plain 3/1 twill to see if that is faster and/or flows well.  Dunno if I'd add motifs or not; I'll have to think about it and maybe do some charting to see what else would need to change in order to have the proper twill background structure.

I have some other ideas about what else I'd like to do in the near future, so I guess I'll see what I'm inspired to do first.

Twilling Along

Twill!  Fun!  I'm glad I decided to switch my warped-up band to a 3/1 twill structure instead of doing the lovely diagonal pattern that was not giving me joy.

As I half expected, after several inches of plain weaving, I decided it was time to add motifs.  Much dithering ensued.  There are so many possibilities!

I'm doing random motifs from Claudia Wollny's charts.  There are plenty to choose from even though I am using only 17 tablets.  I started with a small diamond motif, and each larger motif is separated by that same diamond motif.  There are three sets of plain twill between each motif.  So far, I'm trying to alternate swirly motifs (or leaves) with more blocky motifs.  The plan is to use different swirls and blocks as I go.  I'm having a lot of fun.  Once I get near the end, I'll switch back to plain twill.  I don't expect I'll achieve perfect symmetry but I don't care.

The photo shows the first few motifs.  They're a bit elongated but that's OK.

The motifs are from Tablets at Work, Lily Grove, and Lily Grove 2.  I like how the charts are all modular so I don't have to do a lot of re-charting.  I center the motif which means that I might need to add tablets on each side, but that's pretty minor.

After I finish this, I want to try Collingwood's two-pack method of doing plain twill.  Maybe I'll add a few motifs as I go.  We'll see, because I think he specifies tablet-flipping for changing the colors and making sure the background structure is twilling properly, and tablet-flipping does not usually bring me joy.  I'm mostly seeing how much faster/easier it is to use his method for plain twill vs the one-pack method I'm currently using.

Or maybe I'll do more two-hole patterns, or some double-face, or crank out some quick threaded-in patterns, or whatever else inspires me when I'm ready to make a new band.

This band is bringing me joy, both the plain part and the motifs.

And cats are still terrible weaving assistants.

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.

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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.