I've been reading Claudia Wollny's Tablets at Work, while thinking about how she classifies diagonal and kivrim patterns.
She says that patterns using the diagonals technique can change the turning directions of 2 tablets at a time, every 2 picks. These would be the classic Egyptian Diagonals method that is relatively common these days.
She says that kivrim patterns have some tablets always turning forward, while others turn forward and backward at 4-pick intervals to create hook-like motifs. The number of tablets in the 4F/4B section(s) does not have to be a multiple of 2 or any other number.
Diagonal-type patterns use 2 colors, AABB, while kivrim patterns can use any number of colors and each tablet may be threaded with different colors. There may be differences in S/Z orientation and starting arrangements of the colors within each tablet.
I believe that this categorization came about because of the book's way of summarizing techniques. In particular, the tablet threading and starting positions are very important. So the AABB one-direction staggered starting position of diagonal-type patterns contrasts with the any-color, any-tablet-orientation of the kivrim-type patterns.
Hmmm....
I think that I would generalize diagonals to include any kind of change in turning direction of individual tablets, in a way that creates hooks, spirals, diamonds, zigzags, meanders, waves, rhombi, etc. due to the threaded-in colors. (yes, this slightly overlaps with double-face, but I don't care.)
Kivrim would be one sub-type. Egyptian diagonals would be another.
A third sub-type would be Finnish diagonal patterns, where any individual tablet might change turning directions in any pick. Half-turns are also allowed.
Another sub-type, perhaps, would be modern patterns where some or all the rules are followed or combined or broken at will in order to create an interesting result. These would include some of the GTT and similar patterns that can be found on pinterest and elsewhere.
For any of the above, twist may accumulate or it may be balanced. For patterns that accumulate twist, the weaver may also balance the patterns by deliberately reversing the motifs at regular or irregular intervals.
There is another sub-type, which overlaps the above. That is diagonal-type patterns that involve tablets changing their turning direction, but which are balanced. In other words, the number of forward and backward turns are equal over the pattern repeat. After every pick, any number of tablets may change directions -- it doesn't have to be an even number of tablets or an even number of picks.
The simplest ones, possible a sub-type of the above sub-type, are 4F/4B or 8F/8B patterns where different sections stagger the rows in which the forward and backward turns begin. In other words, tablets 1-4 might be 8F/8B while tablets 5-8 would be 4F/8B/4F, and so on. The tablets are often but not always groups of 4 tablets. The offset might often but not always be one half to one quarter. Although the AABB staggered set-up of Egyptian Diagonals is common, I don't know if it's required.
I mention this particular turning pattern because I've done one like that before -- the Running S band. I'm considering another one in this style that is a bit more complex. Before I warp that one up, though, I might do a double-face sampler band. Or I might do the classic Finnish S pattern. That one falls into the Balanced/Offset category -- 3 tablets are 9F/5B/5F/9B and the next 3 tablets are 5F/9B/9F/5B.
Several other patterns in Applesies and Fox Noses are balanced/offset. Several are balanced though not offset. Some are not balanced at all.
Hmmm... More thinking is necessary. Plus more weaving and more charting explorations.
I'm sure my thinking will evolve as I gain more experience and as I explore more both in these weaving techniques and in other complex/advanced weaving techniques. But this week I am intrigued by the complexity of designs that can be generated with simple, regular balanced/offset patterns. Plus they're easy to weave since there is no build-up of twist.
Saturday, March 24, 2018
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Finished! (Egyptian diagonals band)
It is finished, and I like it a lot.
I ended up with about 5.5 to 6 feet of band, not counting the fringes or anything like that. It's about 1.25" wide. I did 19.5 pattern repeats. The extra .5 is so that there are the same number of complete triangles on each side.
It turned out well. Most of what I wrote in the previous post still stands. The edges are relatively consistent and so is the weft spacing. I unwove mistakes that were visible from the front, though the back has a couple of spots where the weft is visible over the border cards. I guess I missed the shed on those picks...
One book refers to Egyptian diagonals as "double diagonals" since pairs of cards may switch turning directions after every 2 picks. I think I like that name for it. Finnish diagonals don't always fall into that category, though. Not that everything needs to rigidly fit into a specific category, of course!
I still need to finish the warp ends and maybe wet-block the band to remove the slight ripple (though I like the ripple, actually). But I won't do that until I decide what, if anything, I want to do with the band.
What shall I work on next? When will this blog see another post? Time will tell.
Monday, March 5, 2018
Still Narrow-Minded (Egyptian Diagonals Band)
OK, so it's been a while since I've posted. No big deal. I'm back with another round of playing with narrow wares and posting about them.
Since my last blog post, I have bought a few books. Applesies and Fox Noses, by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, is a lot of fun. I bought it a while back even though I haven't made much from it yet. I also follow the Facebook page and the blog, and of course look at the pretty pictures and download the gift patterns (such as the Tuhannen Kunniaksi band that is shown in my older blog posts). Recently I picked up Claudia Wollny's new book, Tablets at Work. Again, I'm enjoying it a lot. I highly recommend both books to anyone who is looking for good tablet weaving books that are very clearly written with excellent charts and explanations.
I've added a few braiding books to my library, too, but that'll be some future post. Ditto for any kind of detailed review of the tablet-weaving books.
So... With all this new inspiration, I decided to Try Something New. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do something with double-weaving or something with diagonals (aka Egyptian Diagonals or Finnish Diagonals). Both start with the same threading -- 2 threads of Color A and 2 of Color B, with the colors adjacent to each other (in other words, AABB), so I warped up some tablets and dithered.
I'm still using the 5/2 cotton perle, so continuous warping is still kind of a pain since I'm running thread from both ends of each ball. But I managed. I'm not totally sure how long the warp is, maybe 8 feet or so?
I want to play around with double-weaving since it looks very straightforward and I haven't tried it yet. It'll be fun to graph little designs and letters and such as well as using other people's charts and graphs.
I guess I've done diagonal-type patterns already since a lot of the GTT patterns one sees online are in that family. Or they're in the kivrim family, or both, and anyway I've definitely done a kivrim pattern as well as the Tuhannen Kunniakski pattern with Finnish diagonals. Claudia Wollny sees diagonals and kivrim as two different techniques, whereas I had previously considered them to be variations on a similar theme, namely the theme of changing turning directions of a subset of cards at different times in order to develop strong diagonal lines (including such things as diamonds, spirals, zigzags, etc.). I'll be reading Claudia's chapters again more carefully so I can think about how and why she treats them as two separate pattern families. I'll also consider how random online GTT patterns and Finnish patterns fit into the categories, especially for patterns where turning directions can change every round. Traditional Egyptian diagonal patterns only change turning directions after two rounds, with 2 cards changing at a time, as far as I'm aware.
Anyway!
I was in a diagonals mood, so diagonals it was! I wanted something very simple. Although the basic pattern I wanted to weave is in a lot of different places, I used the charts from Applesies and Fox Noses, p. 57, Number 18, Spiky Gardens. It has 12 cards for the center pattern with 2 border cards on each side, for 16 cards total. I liked the triangles and wasn't in the mood for reversals, so I followed the chart on p. 59 and skipped the charts showing how to do reversals on p. 60.
Charting conventions: I probably wrote this down in a previous blog post, but here it is again. Applesies and Fox Noses charts show tablet directions (/ and \) rather than threading directions (S and Z). The cards face right, with the AD line along the top to begin, and the cards are numbered from left to right. Changes in turning direction are shown by shading the areas where the cards are turning towards the weaver (backwards), while the plain areas are turned away from the weaver (forwards). I really like this charting style. It feels very intuitive.
At this point, I want to mention Mervi Pasananen's video on how to do a continuous warp where one is cutting the end of the loop instead of weaving on a continuous loop without cutting any ends. The pattern I chose accumulates twist, so I knew I wanted to be able to manipulate each card individually so I could get rid of excess twist every now and then.
It was still a pain separating out each set of four threads so I could tie a small overhand knot at each end. My cats insisted on helping, which of course made it even more exciting. A loom-weaving friend of mine says that warping is always a pain, no matter what, so I'm trying not to feel too discouraged that it takes me a while to get everything set up.
On to weaving! And then unweaving. And then weaving! And then unweaving. Etc., but finally things clicked, and now progress is being made. I still do some occasional unweaving but the band is definitely growing while the unused warp is getting shorter and shorter.
The above photo shows how it looked after the first few pattern repeats. The garish colors (yellow and aqua for the diagonals, darker blue and purple for the border cards) actually look pretty good. Well, a lot of bands really do benefit from a strong color contrast.
My weft is some random medium-blue crochet cotton left over from a doily I knit a while back. It is thinner than the warp, maybe a #10 or #20 cotton?
The pattern is really quite easy as long as one stays focused. I don't need the chart at all unless I'm trying to figure out where I am after doing a bit of unweaving.
The back isn't quite as nice -- there are a few places where I clearly missed the border threads so that the weft thread goes underneath instead of through the shed. But I don't care.
My edges are not perfect, but they're not terrible. The width is relatively consistent and so is the weft spacing. I am pleased with the strong lines of the triangles.
I've done about 10 or 11 repeats so far and expect another 4 to 6 before I run out of room to turn the cards.
I have no idea what I will do with this band. Maybe a guitar/ukulele/instrument strap? Or a carrying strap for a spinning wheel? Or a belt? I don't know how long it'll be when I'm done and that may well be a determining factor. It is a bit more than 1" wide.
Things I've learned (so far, because it's not done yet!) or that are new/different/educational:
For the first time, I needed to swap out an individual thread after continuous warping. The thread had a knot in it. Yikes! Luckily, Linda Hendrickson shows how to deal with that in her video on continuous warping. One waits until the warp is finished. Then one threads in a new length into the proper hole in the card, threaded in the proper direction, and then pulls out the old thread with the knot.
I needed to be careful about keeping track of turning directions, since the pattern is so easy that one can fall into a mindless rhythm and forget where one was in the pattern. For me, I needed to be sure I was weaving two picks before moving cards from the forward to the backward pack or vice versa. I put something on one side of the band so I knew where the shuttle needed to be before changing cards around. When that changed, I moved the item to the other side of the band. Yes, I know that is obvious to someone with more experience. I am not that someone.
I really understood, for the first time, how to predict what color would next show up on the band for each card. I mean, I kind of knew it, but it still seemed a bit mysterious to me. It no longer seems mysterious.
For the first time, I paid no attention to the numbers or letters on the card. I only looked at tablet orientation and the placement of the different threads.
Lots of unweaving has happened, so I gained more experience in that vital skill.
Cats are still less than helpful as warping assistants.
Egyptian/Finnish/Whatever diagonals are fun and, at least for this simple pattern, very straightforward to weave. It would not be difficult to design my own patterns if I want something beyond the many wonderful patterns that are already out there.
---------------------
Hopefully I'll post again when the band is finished. I want to try some double-weaving next. Hopefully that'll happen soon and hopefully it'll be documented on this blog. And yeah, that's true for other blogs, too. Life happens, and taking photos or writing things down ends up not being a high priority.
Since my last blog post, I have bought a few books. Applesies and Fox Noses, by Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, is a lot of fun. I bought it a while back even though I haven't made much from it yet. I also follow the Facebook page and the blog, and of course look at the pretty pictures and download the gift patterns (such as the Tuhannen Kunniaksi band that is shown in my older blog posts). Recently I picked up Claudia Wollny's new book, Tablets at Work. Again, I'm enjoying it a lot. I highly recommend both books to anyone who is looking for good tablet weaving books that are very clearly written with excellent charts and explanations.
I've added a few braiding books to my library, too, but that'll be some future post. Ditto for any kind of detailed review of the tablet-weaving books.
So... With all this new inspiration, I decided to Try Something New. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do something with double-weaving or something with diagonals (aka Egyptian Diagonals or Finnish Diagonals). Both start with the same threading -- 2 threads of Color A and 2 of Color B, with the colors adjacent to each other (in other words, AABB), so I warped up some tablets and dithered.
I'm still using the 5/2 cotton perle, so continuous warping is still kind of a pain since I'm running thread from both ends of each ball. But I managed. I'm not totally sure how long the warp is, maybe 8 feet or so?
I want to play around with double-weaving since it looks very straightforward and I haven't tried it yet. It'll be fun to graph little designs and letters and such as well as using other people's charts and graphs.
I guess I've done diagonal-type patterns already since a lot of the GTT patterns one sees online are in that family. Or they're in the kivrim family, or both, and anyway I've definitely done a kivrim pattern as well as the Tuhannen Kunniakski pattern with Finnish diagonals. Claudia Wollny sees diagonals and kivrim as two different techniques, whereas I had previously considered them to be variations on a similar theme, namely the theme of changing turning directions of a subset of cards at different times in order to develop strong diagonal lines (including such things as diamonds, spirals, zigzags, etc.). I'll be reading Claudia's chapters again more carefully so I can think about how and why she treats them as two separate pattern families. I'll also consider how random online GTT patterns and Finnish patterns fit into the categories, especially for patterns where turning directions can change every round. Traditional Egyptian diagonal patterns only change turning directions after two rounds, with 2 cards changing at a time, as far as I'm aware.
Anyway!
I was in a diagonals mood, so diagonals it was! I wanted something very simple. Although the basic pattern I wanted to weave is in a lot of different places, I used the charts from Applesies and Fox Noses, p. 57, Number 18, Spiky Gardens. It has 12 cards for the center pattern with 2 border cards on each side, for 16 cards total. I liked the triangles and wasn't in the mood for reversals, so I followed the chart on p. 59 and skipped the charts showing how to do reversals on p. 60.
Charting conventions: I probably wrote this down in a previous blog post, but here it is again. Applesies and Fox Noses charts show tablet directions (/ and \) rather than threading directions (S and Z). The cards face right, with the AD line along the top to begin, and the cards are numbered from left to right. Changes in turning direction are shown by shading the areas where the cards are turning towards the weaver (backwards), while the plain areas are turned away from the weaver (forwards). I really like this charting style. It feels very intuitive.
At this point, I want to mention Mervi Pasananen's video on how to do a continuous warp where one is cutting the end of the loop instead of weaving on a continuous loop without cutting any ends. The pattern I chose accumulates twist, so I knew I wanted to be able to manipulate each card individually so I could get rid of excess twist every now and then.
It was still a pain separating out each set of four threads so I could tie a small overhand knot at each end. My cats insisted on helping, which of course made it even more exciting. A loom-weaving friend of mine says that warping is always a pain, no matter what, so I'm trying not to feel too discouraged that it takes me a while to get everything set up.
On to weaving! And then unweaving. And then weaving! And then unweaving. Etc., but finally things clicked, and now progress is being made. I still do some occasional unweaving but the band is definitely growing while the unused warp is getting shorter and shorter.
The above photo shows how it looked after the first few pattern repeats. The garish colors (yellow and aqua for the diagonals, darker blue and purple for the border cards) actually look pretty good. Well, a lot of bands really do benefit from a strong color contrast.
My weft is some random medium-blue crochet cotton left over from a doily I knit a while back. It is thinner than the warp, maybe a #10 or #20 cotton?
The pattern is really quite easy as long as one stays focused. I don't need the chart at all unless I'm trying to figure out where I am after doing a bit of unweaving.
The back isn't quite as nice -- there are a few places where I clearly missed the border threads so that the weft thread goes underneath instead of through the shed. But I don't care.
My edges are not perfect, but they're not terrible. The width is relatively consistent and so is the weft spacing. I am pleased with the strong lines of the triangles.
I've done about 10 or 11 repeats so far and expect another 4 to 6 before I run out of room to turn the cards.
I have no idea what I will do with this band. Maybe a guitar/ukulele/instrument strap? Or a carrying strap for a spinning wheel? Or a belt? I don't know how long it'll be when I'm done and that may well be a determining factor. It is a bit more than 1" wide.
Things I've learned (so far, because it's not done yet!) or that are new/different/educational:
For the first time, I needed to swap out an individual thread after continuous warping. The thread had a knot in it. Yikes! Luckily, Linda Hendrickson shows how to deal with that in her video on continuous warping. One waits until the warp is finished. Then one threads in a new length into the proper hole in the card, threaded in the proper direction, and then pulls out the old thread with the knot.
I needed to be careful about keeping track of turning directions, since the pattern is so easy that one can fall into a mindless rhythm and forget where one was in the pattern. For me, I needed to be sure I was weaving two picks before moving cards from the forward to the backward pack or vice versa. I put something on one side of the band so I knew where the shuttle needed to be before changing cards around. When that changed, I moved the item to the other side of the band. Yes, I know that is obvious to someone with more experience. I am not that someone.
I really understood, for the first time, how to predict what color would next show up on the band for each card. I mean, I kind of knew it, but it still seemed a bit mysterious to me. It no longer seems mysterious.
For the first time, I paid no attention to the numbers or letters on the card. I only looked at tablet orientation and the placement of the different threads.
Lots of unweaving has happened, so I gained more experience in that vital skill.
Cats are still less than helpful as warping assistants.
Egyptian/Finnish/Whatever diagonals are fun and, at least for this simple pattern, very straightforward to weave. It would not be difficult to design my own patterns if I want something beyond the many wonderful patterns that are already out there.
---------------------
Hopefully I'll post again when the band is finished. I want to try some double-weaving next. Hopefully that'll happen soon and hopefully it'll be documented on this blog. And yeah, that's true for other blogs, too. Life happens, and taking photos or writing things down ends up not being a high priority.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Experiments with worsted weight acrylic
My stash of 5/2 cotton is getting low. So, in desperation, I tried some of the cheap acrylic we have around the house. What kind of band would it make? I had used acrylic for some early tablet weaving experiments many years ago. Those tended not to go well. But whatever, because I wanted a tablet weaving fix.
It's not that bad. In fact, it's pretty decent. The band is of course very thick, but it feels and looks reasonable. Whew. I can weave even when the weaving-yarn stash is running low. It's definitely a different feel from weaving with finer cotton yarn, though, and not necessarily in a good way.
I found the pattern on pinterest, no attribution or original source attached. I re-graphed it in GTT to make sure I understood what was going on. Yep. I changed the direction of the border cards and that was about the only change I made.
This pattern slowly accumulates twist. So it's not quite as fun as the one I did last time. It was still pretty fun and also easy to weave.
I did find a place within 50 miles from me that had some cheap crochet cotton for sale. I bought some so I can make the belts that I have been commissioned to make (well, requested to make by friends and family members, nothing professional in spite of using fancy words like commissioned). I think I will need to do some mail order to replenish my supplies with better materials. Either that, or take a road trip to some weaving supply stores that are around 100 miles away and do some serious shopping.
In other exciting news, a friend saw my bands and wanted to learn how to tablet weave. I made some charming cereal-box tablets and a pizza-box shuttle and showed him the basics. He has previous loom-weaving experience, so found it a fairly easy transition. He has completed his first band! I am so proud, even though all I did was point the way and he did the rest. Now a few other friends want to learn. They have their own cards, but haven't had the chance, or maybe the courage, to give it a try.
My friend did a basic zigzag using a pattern draft in Candace Crockett's book on Card Weaving. Sigh. Yet another drafting convention to learn.
For Candace Crockett, the left-facing arrow is S threaded (Z card orientation) and the right-facing arrow is Z-threaded (S card orientation). She writes something about how things are threaded front-to-back or back-to-front when the cards face left. We did that, and of course the pattern then appeared on the bottom of the band instead of the top. No problem -- flip the deck and keep working. Anyway, I'm not sure if her version of front-to-back, back-to-front is different from mine (as in, which end of the thread is supposed to be closest to the weaver?) or if I mis-read what she was writing.
But anyway, now I know how Crockett's pattern drafts are written (I think). Cards face left, lettered clockwise, going from card 1 on the left with higher-number cards on the right, starting to weave with AD on top, and the arrows as mentioned above (left arrow is S-threaded, right arrow is Z-threaded).
For the teaching band, we cut warp threads and threaded each tablet individually. I thought it would be good to do the most tedious warping method first, so that future warping would be easier. With the pattern my friend chose, we could have done a continuous warp. However, we would have had to rotate cards both horizontally and vertically to get everything in the right orientation before weaving. I thought it would be easier to have everything in the weaving orientation, so that the pack of cards all looked the same. It would make it easier to keep track of things and notice errors.
Cereal box cards work really well. I was pleasantly surprised. Given the dimensions of the box I used, we ended up with 12 cards that were 3" square. We used a hole punch for holes that were about 1/2" from each side, I didn't round the corners, punch a center hole, or anything else fancy. Pizza-box shuttles work just fine, too. As soon as we had another empty cereal box, I made another set of cards, just for fun. I'll probably weave a band with them soon. I left the original cereal-box tablets and pizza-box shuttle with my friend.
My friend weaves like the women seen in some of the old paintings. I had brought over the PVC loom. Instead of using it in a backstrap orientation, with the weaving side close to him and the far side away, he sat so he wove the band from left to right instead of from near to far. It was interesting. That might have been due to the space we had available to work, of course. Again, it's something I am going to try just to see how it differs from the usual orientation I've been using.
I am not sure what I will weave next. Probably one of the belts that I've been requested to do. One requires a bit of charting before I start. The other will be from a draft I found on pinterest. It is great to have all these random GTT charts showing up on pinterest, but dang, I would love to know where they came from. Someone is or was very prolific, and it would be cool to know who it is.
It's not that bad. In fact, it's pretty decent. The band is of course very thick, but it feels and looks reasonable. Whew. I can weave even when the weaving-yarn stash is running low. It's definitely a different feel from weaving with finer cotton yarn, though, and not necessarily in a good way.
I found the pattern on pinterest, no attribution or original source attached. I re-graphed it in GTT to make sure I understood what was going on. Yep. I changed the direction of the border cards and that was about the only change I made.
This pattern slowly accumulates twist. So it's not quite as fun as the one I did last time. It was still pretty fun and also easy to weave.
I did find a place within 50 miles from me that had some cheap crochet cotton for sale. I bought some so I can make the belts that I have been commissioned to make (well, requested to make by friends and family members, nothing professional in spite of using fancy words like commissioned). I think I will need to do some mail order to replenish my supplies with better materials. Either that, or take a road trip to some weaving supply stores that are around 100 miles away and do some serious shopping.
In other exciting news, a friend saw my bands and wanted to learn how to tablet weave. I made some charming cereal-box tablets and a pizza-box shuttle and showed him the basics. He has previous loom-weaving experience, so found it a fairly easy transition. He has completed his first band! I am so proud, even though all I did was point the way and he did the rest. Now a few other friends want to learn. They have their own cards, but haven't had the chance, or maybe the courage, to give it a try.
My friend did a basic zigzag using a pattern draft in Candace Crockett's book on Card Weaving. Sigh. Yet another drafting convention to learn.
For Candace Crockett, the left-facing arrow is S threaded (Z card orientation) and the right-facing arrow is Z-threaded (S card orientation). She writes something about how things are threaded front-to-back or back-to-front when the cards face left. We did that, and of course the pattern then appeared on the bottom of the band instead of the top. No problem -- flip the deck and keep working. Anyway, I'm not sure if her version of front-to-back, back-to-front is different from mine (as in, which end of the thread is supposed to be closest to the weaver?) or if I mis-read what she was writing.
But anyway, now I know how Crockett's pattern drafts are written (I think). Cards face left, lettered clockwise, going from card 1 on the left with higher-number cards on the right, starting to weave with AD on top, and the arrows as mentioned above (left arrow is S-threaded, right arrow is Z-threaded).
For the teaching band, we cut warp threads and threaded each tablet individually. I thought it would be good to do the most tedious warping method first, so that future warping would be easier. With the pattern my friend chose, we could have done a continuous warp. However, we would have had to rotate cards both horizontally and vertically to get everything in the right orientation before weaving. I thought it would be easier to have everything in the weaving orientation, so that the pack of cards all looked the same. It would make it easier to keep track of things and notice errors.
Cereal box cards work really well. I was pleasantly surprised. Given the dimensions of the box I used, we ended up with 12 cards that were 3" square. We used a hole punch for holes that were about 1/2" from each side, I didn't round the corners, punch a center hole, or anything else fancy. Pizza-box shuttles work just fine, too. As soon as we had another empty cereal box, I made another set of cards, just for fun. I'll probably weave a band with them soon. I left the original cereal-box tablets and pizza-box shuttle with my friend.
My friend weaves like the women seen in some of the old paintings. I had brought over the PVC loom. Instead of using it in a backstrap orientation, with the weaving side close to him and the far side away, he sat so he wove the band from left to right instead of from near to far. It was interesting. That might have been due to the space we had available to work, of course. Again, it's something I am going to try just to see how it differs from the usual orientation I've been using.
I am not sure what I will weave next. Probably one of the belts that I've been requested to do. One requires a bit of charting before I start. The other will be from a draft I found on pinterest. It is great to have all these random GTT charts showing up on pinterest, but dang, I would love to know where they came from. Someone is or was very prolific, and it would be cool to know who it is.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Two Decks (Running S Band)
Another band has been woven, with another bad photo to share.
So far, when I've done a continuous warp, I've woven on the clamps that the warp is wrapped around. I tried that, but things kept popping off the clamps. Also, the tension wasn't quite as even as I liked. Apparently, it's fairly easy for me to vary the tension while warping, which of course leads to uneven tension when weaving. So I took the weaving off the clamps and draped it over my little loom. After that, the weaving went smoothly. I do like using weights on the warp instead of having the warp fixed (either on clamps or on an inkle loom). (Hmm, I should re-try backstrap weaving at some point to see how that compares to having the warp tied to weights that are draped over something.)
The above photo (the second one for this post) shows the band after two motifs have been woven. Isn't it cute? I really like it!
I use the bamboo skewers at the beginning to make sure I've threaded and arranged all the cards properly. It also gives me a good beginning to the band so that I can start it with a consistent and reasonable width.
This pattern seems related to the kivrim-style patterns and also to diagonal-type patterns in general. It is easily done by splitting the deck into two packs that turn independently of each other.
The weaving was rhythmic, pleasant, and quite fast. Each pack had an 8F-8B turning sequence, with one pack offset from the other by 4 rows. I like how complex the band looks considering how very easy it is to set up and weave. There's the purple spiral meandering through the center of the band, separating the orange into S and h motifs. I don't really have a name for the band, but Running S seems as good a name as any.
The band width is fairly consistent throughout. The weft spacing is less so, unfortunately. I don't know how much is my frustration with the first few motifs while I was still weaving between the two clamps.
What have I learned with this band?
I really like this style of pattern. It has a simple threading sequence. It has two (or more) blocks that turn in different ways to generate a more-complex-looking result. It is neutral in twist, with equal amounts of forward and backward turning.
I like using a weighted warp.
Continuous warping can be a pain to do under the wrong circumstances, no doubt due to operator error. It seriously would have been faster to cut warps and then thread each tablet individually. When I buy more thread, I should make sure I have multiples of the cone/skein/ball so I can use one cone/skein/ball per tablet hole if/when I next do continuous warping.
Mostly I learned that this band was a ton of fun and I want to do more patterns using these kinds of techniques.
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My other tablet-weaving trick this week is to finally download Guntram's Tablet-Weaving Thingy (GTT), a well-known tablet-weaving design software. I wasn't sure it would work with Windows 7, but thought it was worth a try. I've seen so many interesting patterns on the 'net that are shown in a gtt format.
It took a little while, but I'm now able to get the program to do stuff. It turned out that the secrets of how to get it to work could be found in the manual. Who knew? For fun, I am using the program to re-draft the patterns I've been doing. I'm also playing around with my own ideas. We'll see if anything comes of it besides a bit of fun.
Soon I should start a collection of links for this blog, hopefully more comprehensive and better organized than I am finding elsewhere. There's a lot out there, and I find more every time I search. I like a lot of the non-English-language sites, too. Maybe I should also add a list of tablet-weaving terms in various languages to aid in our searching. And ditto for other narrow wares. But not today.
I found the pattern draft on a Finnish website. It's the second draft from the top. The person uses \ and / to indicate S and Z threading direction. The draft shows ABCD going from bottom to top. I did it with cards facing left, numbered with 1 at the left and 10 at the right, and AD at the top when I began weaving.
I did this with a continuous warp. It only has two colors, so I used both ends of each ball of thread. That turned out to be a giant hassle. The two ends of course wind around each other, and eventually this creates a tangle that has to be undone. Ugh.
My cat was there to assist, as usual, and was less than helpful, again as usual. He would pop a thread or two off the warping posts (i.e. clamps) every now and then. He sat on the threads. He batted around the cards. And so on.
But I finally got it done. After a lot of very careful checking and card-re-arranging, weaving finally commenced.
The above photo (the second one for this post) shows the band after two motifs have been woven. Isn't it cute? I really like it!
I use the bamboo skewers at the beginning to make sure I've threaded and arranged all the cards properly. It also gives me a good beginning to the band so that I can start it with a consistent and reasonable width.
This pattern seems related to the kivrim-style patterns and also to diagonal-type patterns in general. It is easily done by splitting the deck into two packs that turn independently of each other.
The weaving was rhythmic, pleasant, and quite fast. Each pack had an 8F-8B turning sequence, with one pack offset from the other by 4 rows. I like how complex the band looks considering how very easy it is to set up and weave. There's the purple spiral meandering through the center of the band, separating the orange into S and h motifs. I don't really have a name for the band, but Running S seems as good a name as any.
The band width is fairly consistent throughout. The weft spacing is less so, unfortunately. I don't know how much is my frustration with the first few motifs while I was still weaving between the two clamps.
What have I learned with this band?
I really like this style of pattern. It has a simple threading sequence. It has two (or more) blocks that turn in different ways to generate a more-complex-looking result. It is neutral in twist, with equal amounts of forward and backward turning.
I like using a weighted warp.
Continuous warping can be a pain to do under the wrong circumstances, no doubt due to operator error. It seriously would have been faster to cut warps and then thread each tablet individually. When I buy more thread, I should make sure I have multiples of the cone/skein/ball so I can use one cone/skein/ball per tablet hole if/when I next do continuous warping.
Mostly I learned that this band was a ton of fun and I want to do more patterns using these kinds of techniques.
-----------------
My other tablet-weaving trick this week is to finally download Guntram's Tablet-Weaving Thingy (GTT), a well-known tablet-weaving design software. I wasn't sure it would work with Windows 7, but thought it was worth a try. I've seen so many interesting patterns on the 'net that are shown in a gtt format.
It took a little while, but I'm now able to get the program to do stuff. It turned out that the secrets of how to get it to work could be found in the manual. Who knew? For fun, I am using the program to re-draft the patterns I've been doing. I'm also playing around with my own ideas. We'll see if anything comes of it besides a bit of fun.
Soon I should start a collection of links for this blog, hopefully more comprehensive and better organized than I am finding elsewhere. There's a lot out there, and I find more every time I search. I like a lot of the non-English-language sites, too. Maybe I should also add a list of tablet-weaving terms in various languages to aid in our searching. And ditto for other narrow wares. But not today.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Little Chevrons
And another band is done! And the usual lousy photos have been taken!
This is from the Mim's Muddle pattern I mentioned yesterday.
I think it turned out fairly well. Both the band width and the consistency of weft spacing are getting to be pretty good except for the spot where I ran out of the green crochet cotton I was using as weft and changed to a different green crochet cotton. So I will continue to work on consistency when changing weft.
The reverse side is different but also attractive.
I tried the idea I had about offsetting the diagonal lines by two so it would look like a little tree. I didn't like it, so unwove and continued with the original pattern.
I turned all cards forward continuously, occasionally working out the extra twist from the warp. I knew there might be an effect from half the cards being S-threaded and half Z-threaded. Indeed there was! It wasn't much, but slowly, extra twist accumulated in the thread that was plied in the same direction as the weaving, while some twist was removed from the one that went in the opposite direction. By the end of the weaving, the un-twisting side of the unwoven warp was slightly longer than the extra-twisting side.
This is clearly a small motif that can be added to many other bands. Borders, of course. Adding several more groups of 4 tablets to zigzag across the band. Changing the 1/3 pattern of the arrows to 2/2 blocks (probably totally different colors from the solid-color tablets), and possibly offsetting those. And so on.
These little bands are fairly quick to warp up and also quick to weave. I think I am in the mood for something a little more complex for the next band.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Fun With Drafting Conventions
So, the next tablet-weaving band is the Chevron pattern from Mim's Muddle. (Yeah, the link to the Chevron pattern goes to a pdf file, and it's labeled chevon instead of chevron. Whatever)
Luckily, there is also a page on the drafting conventions used for the patterns on the website.
Good.
Note that ABCD run top to bottom. The cards are labeled clockwise with the ABCD. The S and Z refer to threading directions. And the cards all face right, but are numbered left to right. So card 1 is on the left and card 10 is on the right, and all of them face right rather than left. Also, one starts weaving with AD at the top.
This is an easy little pattern of arrows or chevrons. It is turned forward continuously. I will probably work out extra twist rather than do reversals when the twist builds up.
I am thinking of making the chevrons offset for part of the band instead of having it be symmetric. We shall see.
Eventually I'll probably be able to read my weaving and not need the numbers and threading and which-way conventions, but for now, it is helpful. I can handle different systems as long as I know. Eventually I should be able to know even without clear labels and explanation pages and what-not. Given the plethora of interesting yet now-semi-anonymous patterns on the 'net, that seems to be a worthwhile goal.
Onward with chevrons! I'm sure I'll have help. The cats have already helped. As usual, their assistance was not actually helpful in the way that most people define the word. But they are cats, and their definitions are different from mine.
Luckily, there is also a page on the drafting conventions used for the patterns on the website.
Good.
Note that ABCD run top to bottom. The cards are labeled clockwise with the ABCD. The S and Z refer to threading directions. And the cards all face right, but are numbered left to right. So card 1 is on the left and card 10 is on the right, and all of them face right rather than left. Also, one starts weaving with AD at the top.
This is an easy little pattern of arrows or chevrons. It is turned forward continuously. I will probably work out extra twist rather than do reversals when the twist builds up.
I am thinking of making the chevrons offset for part of the band instead of having it be symmetric. We shall see.
Eventually I'll probably be able to read my weaving and not need the numbers and threading and which-way conventions, but for now, it is helpful. I can handle different systems as long as I know. Eventually I should be able to know even without clear labels and explanation pages and what-not. Given the plethora of interesting yet now-semi-anonymous patterns on the 'net, that seems to be a worthwhile goal.
Onward with chevrons! I'm sure I'll have help. The cats have already helped. As usual, their assistance was not actually helpful in the way that most people define the word. But they are cats, and their definitions are different from mine.
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