Brocade sampler, fifth post

I might do another motif or two today, but just in case I don't, here's what I've done recently on my little brocade sampler band.

The one on the left is another 6th century Saxon band, from the Saxon Rabbit handout.  (I don't think it's in the Crowfoot paper.)  It's from Sarre, Kent.  I think I did about 6 repeats.

The middle one is Birka B18.  I used the chart on Aisling's website, not that it really needs a chart.  I did 5 repeats.

The one of the right is from Anna Neuper's Modelbuch, pattern number 85 (fol 83r), the middle pattern on p.47.  I did 2 repeats.

Birka B18 is a 10-tablet pattern and the other two are 9-tablet patterns.

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Random free-association verbiage:

These Saxon patterns are still a bit hard for me to do well with this particular brocade thread.  The over-1-tablet vs over-3 tablet sections don't quite have the same consistency in the way they look, which obscures the pattern somewhat.  They look good at some angles but not all angles.  Looking back at the earlier ones I did, the little ones where most of the brocading went over 1 tablet are the most effective, at least for this brocade thread and my current level of competence (near-novice).

I like the Anne Neuper pattern.  The pattern of the background is interesting and sufficiently contrasting with the brocade.  And most of the brocade is over 2 or more tablets so the pattern appears more consistent.  A lot of the smaller patterns in the Modelbuch are these kinds of zigzags and diamonds -- they've very distinctive and self-consistent in their design sensibilities.  And yeah, it would have been cool to see the original patterns with their distinctive notation in addition to the modern charting.  I like that Claudia Wollny did that for the Col. Pad. Germ. 551 patterns.

The Birka B18 pattern is also nice.  Simple and easy, but effective.

I don't know how many Birka patterns I'll want to do (not now, but eventually).  Some people have a goal of weaving all of them.  Many of them are not particularly appealing/attractive to me.  Several have swastikas, which are too poisoned by modern political horrors, and I won't knowingly weave that motif.

I like the version of B2 I've seen, where there are interlocking braids separated by Xs, sometimes alternating with a stretch of the variation that is shown in fragment f (figure 19 f) in the Birka report.

B12 (figure 19 i) is something I've woven as a 4-threaded diagonals pattern, many years ago.  I didn't know it was originally a brocaded band from the Birka find.  I don't know if I'd want to do it again as a brocade.

B22 (figure 20 b) is kind of interesting, both the lower part (the interlocking brickwork) and the more elaborate upper part.  The lower part of B6 (figure 20 a) is cute, but the upper part has too many swastikas.

None of the others that are in the Birka report on p.82-83 interest me at the moment.  Hmm, I wonder where the other bands can be seen, since B18 is not in the sketches on p.82-82.  Oh, duh, they're photographed in the back of the book, in the various tables.  I should see if there are more motifs that look fun, though it's kind of hard for me to make out the patterns except for a few fairly clear areas.  I greatly respect the people who decipher and re-create the patterns in these archaeologic specimens.

There are some cool patterns I want to do from the Nancy Spies Ecclesiastical Pomp & Aristocratic Circumstance book.  That might be another warp, since a lot of the ones I want to try are a minimum of 15 tablet patterns and I only warped up 13 tablets.

There are other patterns that are on Aisling's website I want to try.  Some require more than 13 tablets, alas, but a few are narrower.  They're on my list...  And maybe I'll do more from her Egyptian tablet weaving book.

Now that I'm starting to feel comfortable with basic brocade, I'm thinking about "what next?"  Do I want to try anything else new with this band beyond a sampling of motifs, such as a second brocade color or a different brocade thread?  What kind of brocade do I want to make an entire band from, if anything?  Or should I do shorter sections?  Something that could be fun is a belt with occasional brocaded motifs, possibly made with little metal studs every now and then between the brocade.  Or I could do short lengths for cuffs or keychains or bookmarks.

Also, what do I want to tablet-weave next?  (and that's in addition to thoughts about sprang, fingerloop braiding, kumihimo on the marudai, spinning, knitting, and other semi-obsessions)  Icelandic double-cloth or pebble weave?  More brocade?  Some 2-hole or Sulawesi or 3/1 twill?  More cords?  Or something else entirely?

Here's a close-up of the Anna Neuper pattern no 85 again, just because:

No, it's not perfect, and yes, my cat has been sitting on it.  But it is cute.  And it shows that I am improving.

I'm glad that brocade is now something I've tried, that I'm comfortable doing, and that I'm willing to do again.

Brocade sampler, fourth post

Not too much progress today -- I was busy with other things.

Both of these are from Roslein und Wecklein.  I think they're both 9-tablet wide patterns.  The photo is at a funky angle which is why it looks like the width of the band is changing.  The first one (on the left) shows 2 pattern repeats.  The one on the right shows 4 pattern repeats.  I like how the little lozenge-ish motifs are separated by little diamonds.

I'm getting faster and my tension is getting more consistent.  I'm still pretty close to novice level, of course!  I'll continue to do random brocade-related things until the warp runs out.  I might at some point try a different brocade thread and/or do two or more colors at a time.  Or I might not.

I'm not sure which motifs will be next.  There are so many interesting little patterns!  And so many things I can easily create myself!  I'm choosing based on whimsy, mostly.  What looks cute and fun?  I'm trying to sample different sources.  I'm also trying to do different kinds of motifs since they might require slightly different tensioning etc. techniques for the brocading, and might result in a slightly different appearance.

Brocade Sampler, third post

A few more motifs, another photo, and thus another post.  I might add more to this post later if/when I do more weaving today.

The first one (on the left of the photo) is a modified version of the Birka 2f fragment, which I charted from the little sketch that is online in a bunch of places.  The sketches of the Birka motifs is from one of the archaeological reports, and people use those sketches in conjunction with the report's photos to chart out various Birka patterns.  I think I either used a version from pinterest or from Elewys' blog, but either way, I charted it out myself.  I decided to do only one set of figure-8 loops, with the top and bottom of the X on either side.  I didn't bother with the side panels, just the main 11-tablet center part of the brocade.

Here is an interesting reconstruction (plus chart) of the Birka B2 band: https://alicjajaczewska.com/ix-xi-century/bands/reconstruction-of-birka-b2-pattern/

Here is Elewys' version of the motif that she decided to use for her brocade-weaving video, along with the sketch of 2f: http://ladyelewys.carpevinumpdx.com/2023/02/06/brocade-tablet-weaving-101/

Anyway.  I started with the upper part of the X, did one repeat of the center figure-eight (i.e. one set of the ground-motif of Xs and diamonds) and then finished with the lower part of the X.

The charts and sketches for these tend to chart out the ground/background warp instead of the brocaded area, so it's the inverse of the charts I've been working from so far.  Of course, any of the charts can be done either way -- positive and negative space and color/texture interactions and all that.

Then I did a little cross/snowflake motif from Tablet Woven Bands from Egypt, p.68-69, another 11-tablet motif.

Then I did two more 7-tablet Saxon bands from the Saxon Rabbit handout.  The first one is apparently from something ("pattern 2") in the British Museum, and the second one is pattern #7 from the Crowfoot paper.

These motifs are starting to go a bit faster except for when I mess up and have to unweave a few rows.  The tension is a bit more consistent, though nowhere near where I'd like it to be yet.

I'll probably do another bit from Anna Neuper's Modelbuch next -- I have the pdf so it was easy to print out the pages that had charts for 7- to 13-tablet-wide bands.

There are more simple brocade motifs in Aisling's book.  And I need to copy out more patterns from Roslein und wecklein -- there are plenty of designs that will fit my warp.

I say "copy out" since it's hard to work with the book open or with a phone pic of the page.  I like to work from hard-copy prints that I can write on and/or copy out smaller motifs into my physical Narrow Wares graph-paper notebook.  I have cats.  It's safer for the books if they (the books) mostly live in the bookcase except when they (the books) are in my hands and thus protected from feline predation.

It's interesting to see the different design sensibilities of the various pattern sources.

Brocade sampler, second post

What I've done since the last post:

After I did the zigzag, I did an improv diamond.

Then I started in on other people's patterns.

The first three patterns are from Crowfoot's Saxon/Kentish paper.  (Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids by Grace Crowfoot and Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, Journal of Medieval Archaeology, 1967).

For the first, I've done 3 pattern repeats.  The middle one has the brocade thread going from edge to edge (well, edge of the pattern, not edge of the band).  The other two are like the bands in the paper, where the brocade thread zigzagged from row to row rather than entering and leaving the band in the same spot for each row.

I can't tell if there's much difference in appearance of the motif or the band in general.  It does look like the brocade threads are less parallel with the close-to-motif method -- the edge brocades are more likely to be at an angle.  But the difference is slight and might well be due to other factors.

Here's a closer look:

The second one has one repeat, and the third has 4 repeats (of a 3-row sequence).  The first two are 7-tablet patterns and the third is a 9-tablet pattern.  All are Anglo-Saxon 6th-ish century and from Kent.

All of the Saxon patterns I did are also charted out in the pdf on the Saxon Rabbit website, saxonrabbit.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/saxonweavingdiagramskent2.pdf

Then I did one of the patterns from Anna Neuper's Modelbuch.  It's pattern 87, on p.52 (right column).  The brocade thread went from edge to edge of this 7-tablet pattern.

I'm still slow, of course.  I am not great at keeping tension consistent from row to row, especially where the brocade goes over one tablet vs more than one.  I'm also not great at keeping all the threads parallel from row to row.

The shuttle holding my brocade thread is not working well for me.  So that's something to change for future patterns.  I might try a different shuttle to see if it does better.  Something narrow-ish and pointed-ish and smooth-ish and vaguely flexible would be good.

But the pattern is clearly visible, yay!

I'm not sure what I'll do next.  Continue to do random motifs, I guess, so that I can work on the muscle memory and figure out how to improve.  I'm not yet feeling the need to change out the brocade thread or add additional brocade threads.

This feels a bit like knitting, especially stranded-color knitting.

First Brocade (tablet-weaving brocade sampler)

My first tablet-woven brocading.

I'm not following any particular pattern, though my little zigzag does match the one from the Reykjasel i Jökuldal band from Iceland (dated to 800-1000).  Well, not the background fabric, which Aisling says is more likely to be 3/1 twill, but the zigzag brocade on the band.  Maybe that's the Icelandic weaver's first brocading experiment, too.

Here's the info on the Icelandic band:  https://sarpur.is/Adfang.aspx?AdfangID=320728 and https://aisling.biz/index.php/galerie/historisch/fruehmittelalter/280-ein-band-aus-reykjasel-i-joekuldal

I'm still working on keeping track of which step to do in which order, and where to put stuff down so I don't intertwine the two wefts.  I'm also not entirely happy about the shuttle that's holding the brocade weft.  The shape isn't quite right.  But my band doesn't look half bad, especially considering this is my very first time doing this technique.

I will probably repeat the zigzag but only run the brocade under/around those few tablets where it's important rather than going all the way across the band.  I'm curious about the effect on the band's texture.  Is it truly necessary?  Only sometimes necessary?

And after that?  Hopefully by then I'll have a bit of a rhythm going.  Then I can either try existing patterns or improv for a while before starting some of the historic designs.

I'm using #10 crochet cotton for the background, a slightly finer cotton (old doily leftovers) for the ground weft, and DMC cotton perle #3 in an old gold shade for the brocading.  I'm using 13 tablets, all 4-threaded, in alternating / and \ orientation.  All turns are forward.

The first bit is over 3 under 2 both to and fro (which is why it makes a brick-like pattern).  The next bit is over 3, but move the brocading one to the right (or left) to make a diagonal line.

I don't hate this.  And although I'm a very slow total novice, it doesn't seem as fiddly as I had feared, especially not after doing techniques that require individual tablet manipulation that changes from row to row.  We'll see what it feels like after I catch the rhythm.

Edited to add:

And here's the second zigzag, with the brocade weft next to the zigzag rather than going under all of the warp threads.  I like it and there's no obvious difference in the texture of the background, at least not with the 13 tablets I'm using.  The brocade stands up a bit more, maybe, and there's not quite as much elongation of the motif.  I'm not sure if that's something I'm doing or something about this versus the other method.

So I've learned some things already.

On to the next self-assigned lesson/motif!

Brocade planning and other useless ruminations

Next up is brocade.  It's time!  And my tablet-weaving area is open, no other commitments, no need to pack things away for a while, etc., for the first time in months.  OK, the cute band I just finished was a bit of a spontaneous distraction, but that doesn't count.  I seem to have been writing about brocade for most of 2025; time to actually do something about it.

First up will be a sampler.

I think I'll use the usual big-box-store #10 crochet cotton for the warp, as usual.  Weft will be one of the leftover doily cotton threads, with no real attempt made to match the weft color.

Supplementary/brocade weft will be something thicker, of course.  I think I'll mostly use the dull-gold cotton perle #3 that I used for the Falun-pattern gift band a while back.  But I might also use some of the oddball/synthetic knitting stash threads, too.  Or whatever else I find.

I think I'll warp up 13 tablets in alternating S Z orientation.  That should give me enough tablets for some of the early Saxon bands, a few Birka bands, some of the Coptic bands (in Aisling's book), motifs from Wollny's Roslein und Wecklein transcription, plus a few others, depending on how much space I have and what I feel like trying.  I might try the motifs in both positive and negative versions to see what they look like.  I might try a few isolated motifs or a bit of soumak.  I might try a few different colors and/or different brocade-weft materials.  Or I might not.  I'll see if there's a difference for me between carrying the brocade weft to the same place on the band vs only where the motif is.  Etc.

There's a lot to learn.  The basics seem very straightforward.  But there will be lessons in tension and also in brocade vs background and base-weft thread thicknesses.  I expect the first sampler band to be very sampler-ish.

And as always, there's a chance I'll get distracted by something else and brocade will end up getting delayed yet again.

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Because I'm dithering and blithering, I decided to list most of the major tablet-weaving techniques I know about, whether I've tried them, what I think, what future plans are, or whatever else I felt like writing about them.

I'll start with the techniques in Claudia Wollny's Tablets at Work (though I might miss a few minor ones she discusses within other chapters).

Threaded in patterns -- check!  These are popular with modern tablet-weaving designers.  There are a lot of fun things that can be done with threaded-in patterns and all-pack forward/reverse turning.  I still do a lot of bands that fall under this category.

Double face -- check, though I want to explore more soon.  In particular, I haven't done much yet with the blocky/repp version where the tablets are all in the same orientation as opposed to alternating orientation.  Also, I'm pretty sure Wollny does 2F2B double-face for both SZ and all-Z double-face, and I'm curious about the "rotate 180 to change colors" version that's in Shelagh's pdf on double-face repp effect.

Double cloth -- this is on my to-do list.  It's high up there, but I keep doing other things instead.  Maybe this will be after brocade.  It looks pretty straightforward but I'm sure there are nuances that will be learning opportunities when I get there.

3/1 twill -- check, though I'm only at the beginning of exploring this method.  I haven't explored all of the variations that Wollny discusses in Tablets at Work and her Twill 1+1 book.  I really like this technique and want to do a lot more than I've done so far.  I want to learn better how to chart my own patterns (I can do some, but maintaining the twill line and avoiding long floats are still things I'm working on.)  I also like the Collingwood method for doing one-color twill as a two-pack method (as opposed to handling each tablet) and need to explore color changes and other motif developments with this style of card manipulation.

Diagonals -- check!  This is such a big category of modern patterns.  Also, there are a couple of variations I've tried though not everyone makes a distinction between them.  The Egyptian-diagonals modern method usually changes cards in groups of two tablets and two turns.  Finnish diagonals are more carefree.

Kivrim -- check!  These are fun and also popular with modern tablet-weaving designers.

Sulawesi -- check!  I really like doing Sulawesi.  I definitely want to make more bands, both with traditional and modern and self-designed motifs.  I need to learn the tubular strap method that often accompanies bands that are woven by the original/traditional weavers.

Floatwork -- check!  I've done very little so far, though.

3-hole -- check!  I want to do more of this.  I like how one can combine the textures of 3-hole with a bit of floatwork.  I also like how there are historic bands that apparently combine this with brocade -- that too is on my eventual to-do list.

2-hole -- check!  I love doing 2-hole designs.  This might be my current favorite technique.  I've also done 2-hole where the holes are next to each other and those are interesting, too.

Pebble weave -- this is on my to-do list, but I haven't done it yet.

Cablework -- check, though only a teeny bit to make sure I understood.  Heck, I do cable knitting; this is pretty much the same thing.  I did see some nice-looking cablework bands not too long ago, which has piqued my interest a bit.

Structure weave -- check!  I don't think Wollny talks about the Gotland bands, which might be made through flipping tablets around a horizontal instead of a vertical axis.  I've tried the Gotland method as well as regular monochromatic textural weaving.

Relief structure -- I haven't tried this yet.

Brocade -- as I wrote at the top of this post, this is almost certainly up next.

There are plenty of other techniques that aren't covered by Tablets at Work.

Pack-idling -- check!  I like this method.  Collingwood talks about a lot of variations, but even just the style used for Cambridge Diamonds and Felixstowe is perfectly nice.

Cordage/tubular bands -- check!  I've only really done 4-threaded cordage so far.  The 2-hole methods are on my to-do list.

Tubular edges -- check!  (these are in the Finnish bands discussed in Tablet Woven Treasures)

Double-turns -- check!  (also from the Finnish bands)

Tie-downs -- check!  (from several places, but probably best known from Tablet Woven Treasures)

Laceby -- I haven't done this yet.  Shelagh discusses the method on her website.

Soumak -- I haven't done this yet.  Since this sort of overlaps with brocade, maybe I'll do a little bit in my brocade sampler.

Tablet weaving around a core thread -- I haven't done this yet.

Tablets with a different number of holes (3, 6, etc.) -- I haven't done this yet.

Adding or removing tablets during weaving -- I haven't done this yet (though I understand the basics)

Turning or bending the band during weaving -- ditto.

Adding extra or ornamental warp or weft threads (such as making fringe or attaching to a loom-warp) -- I haven't done this yet.

I'm sure there are more things casually mentioned in Collingwood that are entirely new categories of techniques, but which at my current knowledge completely zip over my head.

I'm also pretty sure there are things I've either done or that I'm aware of that aren't on this list.

So far, I've liked all the techniques I've tried.