Lattice

During a series of videos I made for Advent last year, I showed a band each day including a few that I've never published the drafts for. One of the most requested out of the unpublished drafts was this one. It uses a tablet woven structure commonly called "Anglo-Saxon" technique, despite the key historical example having been proved to be medieval. You can read more about the original fragment in work done on it by Shelagh Lewins by clicking here. Tablet Weaving Draft Designer can't (currently) generate drafts in this style, so I've constructed this one using draw.io and edited the text description of the draft to match the turning sequence described below. I'm hoping that we can add this structure to the next TDD update, but time will tell.

  

The sequence of turns needed to produce this band is extremely straight forward. Separate all of the even numbered tablets from the odd numbered tablets into two packs, then:

 1. Turn all odd numbered tablets forward, then pass weft from left to right

 2. Turn all even numbered tablets forward, then pass weft from right to left

Continue repeating these two rows, only turning half of the tablets each time and letting the remainder idle, passing the weft from the side where the outermost tablet has just been turned. Additionally, you will need to pull the weft in much tighter than usual for the yarn you're working with, to the point where the threads that make up the design become almost parallel with the selvedge. The tighter you pull the weft, the smoother the motif lines will become. The result will be a thick and extremely sturdy band with the pattern on both sides, excellent for use as a belt.

You can download the TDD file by clicking here

You can download the text description by clicking here

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Book News and a Blurb Sale

Apologies for the radio slience over the past few months. I've been deep in writing the next book in the series (still am, but at least two thirds of the way there now) and it's been tricky to motivate myself to doing any additional writing. 

I've shared a few details in a few places, but I can officially say that this year's book will be a beginner's guide based on the way I understand tablet weaving. It will act as a bridge for the absolutle beginner and advanced beginner to make the other books in the series more accessible. I have another book project I've been playing with too, but that's gone on the back burner until this one is out in the world, hopefully around November.

Speaking books, Blurb, my publisher, is having a 20% off hard cover and soft cover books (use the code AUGREAD20 at check out by 11.59pm local time on 19th August 2025 to get the discount). If you're in the US, Blurb is a print on demand service and will use their printer closest to you (just make sure you select your location flag in the top right corner of your screen), so there's no need to worry about tarrifs or customs fees. You can find links to all my books by clicking here.

Hallstatt Triforce

Every now and then, I'm feeling whimsical (who am I kidding, it's pretty much all the time!) and I want to weave something a bit different to the sensible book samples I've been working on. My husband has a green summer tunic for SCA events, but last year during a heat wave, he was wearing his thicker winter one and risking melting because his summer tunic didn't have any of my trim on it. The time has come to fix that! He's a big Legend of Zelda fan, so I wanted to work an element of that into it. Having pondered various options, I settled on the Triforce. Once I had drawn it out on graph paper for 3/1 broken twill double-face, the arrangement of the triangles reminded me of a historical band known as Hallstatt 123[1][2]. The band was excavated in 1990 in Hallstatt, Austria, and dates to the Early Iron Age. It is held by the Natural History Museum in Vienna (inventory number: 89.832). I worked the meandering line of the Hallstatt band into my design as it frames the Triforce nicely and is in keeping with the types of designs found in Legend of Zelda. I wove the sample band with King Cole Merino-Blend 4ply in the colours Buttercup and French Navy, with Buttercup as the weft.

The Triforce symbol does, of course, not belong to me and is a trademark of the Nintendo Corporation.

You can download the TTD file for this draft by clicking here
You can download the text version by clicking here

[1]Bichler, P. et al (2005): "Hallstatt Textiles" Technical Analysis, Scientific Investigation and Experiments on Iron Age Texiles. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 2005, 81-90 https://www.academia.edu/11916994/Tablet_woven_Ribbons_from_the_prehistoric_Salt_mines_at_Hallstatt_Austria_results_of_some_experiments

[2] Hartl, A. et al (2015):Reproducing colourful woven bands from the Iron Age salt mine of Hallstatt in Austria: An interdisciplinary approach to acquire knowledge of prehistoric dyeing technology. Journal of Archaeological Science Reports 133 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275897796_Reproducing_colourful_woven_bands_from_the_Iron_Age_salt_mine_of_Hallstatt_in_Austria_An_interdisciplinary_approach_to_acquire_knowledge_of_prehistoric_dyeing_technology

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Frogs

This is the first new band I've woven entirely at the new house we moved to in October! It's taken quite a while to finish thanks to my current never ending to-do list, but I'm hoping to get back into the swing of thigs soon as my naked loom is currently looking at me reproachfully.

I drew the original design for this draft back in March 2023 and when I came back to it, I added the little wave that the pairs of frogs are giving each other for a touch of whimsy. The green yarn I used is called Lime Sorbet and is by Mothy and the Squid on her sock yarn base. It seemed fitting as she's a bit of a frog enthusiast herself. Lime Sorbet is one of her summer yarns, but she currently has plenty of others currently for sale in pleasingly froggy colours.

This draft comes in two halves; Frog A and Frog B. If you weave both halves, you will have four fully twist-neutral pattern tablet frogs. The draft will still work if you only weave one of the halves, you'll just have a small amount of build-up behind the middle pattern tablets.

Frog B

Frog A

Link to the Frog A TDD file
Link to the Frog A text version
Link to the Frog B TDD file
Link to the Frog B text version

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Bonus (Egyptian Zigzags)

If you're reading this, it means that my next book is out! It's called Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Egyptian Zigzags (click the link to go to the sale page over on my publisher's site) and is based around an Egyptian band (catalogue numbers ÆIN 958 and ÆIN 959) held by the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has instructions for a direct reconstruction band plus drafts for another 154 designs in the same style.

ÆIN 958 and ÆIN 959 were skillfully woven in fine white linen and vibrantly coloured wool threads, with a combination of warp-twining and brocade work. Each of their selvedges is around 5.5mm wide, with their intricately patterned centre sections being around 17mm wide, to a total of around 28mm wide*. ÆIN 958 is around 48cm long and ÆIN 959 is around 48.5cm*. Both bands have significant damage to both their selvedges and brocade threads, with some sections missing entirely, suggesting that they saw significant wear before deposition, although the selvedge damage may have occurred after excavation, when they were removed from their original context in preparation for for sale*. Due to the absence of any context for the objects, we cannot be sure of their age, but they were proposed as being from the 7th-8th centuries in a museum catalogue from 1930 or from the 14th-15th centuries by Nancy Spies, herself an expert in tablet woven brocaded bands. (Statements marked with * are based on my personal observations of the bands)

The objects were woven with groups of 4 tablets turning togther for four turns for the majority of their motifs and I had a lot of fun with extending the technique to make new designs. All the extra drafts in Egyptian Zigzags are woven with 54 tablets (40 pattern tablets, with 7 selvedge tablets on each side), but I've reduced the number of tablets and changed up the colours they carry for the Bonus draft here. I picked red, white, blue and yellow as they were the selvedge colours of the original band. The Bonus draft is twist-neutral overall, as well as the two halves being twist-neutral, so you won't get a build up of twist if you weave the entire draft or if you only weave the first 24 or second 24 rows.

Link to TDD file
Link to text version

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Bulgarica

This draft is a reproduction of a piece of Bulgarian national dress. It is a variation on a school of designs generally called Kivrim that has been assigned to the Anatolian region of Turkey. Tablet weaving is an important part of folk costume in Bulgaria, providing many an intricately patterned belt or piece of trim. Bulgarica also happens to be the name of a genus of land snails, which I thought fitted the spiral nature of the motif rather nicely. I've included a picture/link to the original Bulgarian band on Facebook that inspired this one below. If you know anything more about its context, please do get in touch! Bulgarian tablet weaving is a rich tradition that I would love to know more about.

I wove the sample band, at the request of a friend, in King Cole Merino-Blend 4ply in the colours black, white, grass and red (instead of the original pink) with black as the weft. Unlike many of the drafts you'll find on my blog, this design (picks 1-8) is not twist-neutral, so I've included a reversed version from picks 9-16 to if you want to weave out a build-up of twist.

Link to text version

Link to TDD file

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Counterchanged Diamonds

This design is a based on a band I wove back in 2011 (the black and white one in the picture above) to use up the last of the long-discontinued acrylic crochet thread I learned to tablet weave with. I set up a warp to weave two thread wide diagonal lines and improvised the design, changing the turning direction of pairs of tablets in a technique often known as Egyptian Diagonals (despite it being extremely doubtful that it has any historical link to Egypt). I had been planning to share it with you unedited, but when I came to draft it out in TDD, I found a number of odd decisions that could be improved on. The new version I'm sharing here has two more pattern tablets and 2 more picks, retaining the twist-neutral design of the original, while making it make rather more sense.

Counterchanged is a term used in heraldry to mean that two colours have switched position on either side of a dividing line, the motif colour becoming the background colour and vice versa. In combination with the weaving technique, it comes together to make a pretty fun design. The yarns I used in the sample band were King Cole Merino-Blend 4-ply in the colours black, blackcurrant, sapphire, grass, mustard, cinnamon and red, with black as the weft, the same as my Rainbow Triangles band.

If you would prefer a shorter turning sequence, repeating only the first 24 picks will give you just the simple rainbow diamonds and repeating only picks 25-48 will give you just diamonds on the background of diagonal lines.

Link to the text version

Link to the TDD file

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Ulrich

The motif in this new free draft is based on a section from an object refered to as the maniple of St. Ulrich (hence the name). You can find a picture of it here: https://www.meganmcnamee.com/projects/tabletweaving It has been dated to the 10th century and is held by the Church of Sts. Afra and Ulrich in Ausburg, Germany. The maniple (a type of priestly vestment) was tablet woven in green, red, and white silk with a combination of 2x2 diagonals, 3/1 broken twill double-face, and gold brocade. Celtic knots and hand motifs with inscriptions ("DEXTERA DEI" - Hand of God) are surrounded by lozenge-shaped frames formed from the interlacing designs you see here, albeit translated into a different technique and somewhat simplified.

Ulrich is twist-neutral for the pattern tablets, as I've included a reversed version of the pattern repeat as the second half (above the black line) of the draft. For the sample I wove 3 repeats of each half of the draft before moving onto the next half. If you'd prefer to weave just the first 48 picks, you'll get some twist build-up, but not a lot, as each pattern tablet only has 8 more turns in one direction than the other.

I wove the sample band in King Cole Merino-Blend 4ply, with the colours French Navy, Ivy and Mustard as the warp and Mustard as the weft. Be aware that other than green, these are not the colours used in the original object, they're just ones that I have a lot of and thought would look good together!

Link to the text version of Ulrich:

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k4vb8H2hKNiWk3nGXoZ_D-vHBtyJbe6A/view?usp=drive_link

Link to the TDD file for Ulrich:

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1laUdZnl9PgCsqDxHFFkrinuwUhhrTGNL/view?usp=sharing

Further Reading:

Spies, N. (2000). Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance: A Thousand Years Of Brocaded Tabletwoven Bands, Arelate Studio.

Collingwood, P. (2002). The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, Robin & Russ Handweavers Inc.

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Valentine

Sometimes drafts pop into my head fully formed, with a name and colour scheme, and sometimes it takes a few attempts to refine them and work out what they want to be. This is one of the first kind. It came about during part of the sample weaving for my next book, when my mind wandered, and was my treat for finishing the final sample.

It's twist-neutral for the pattern tablets, but you will get a build-up behind the three selvedge tablets on each side. I flipped mine every 64 picks during weaving to weave out the excess twist. The sample band for this draft was woven in King Cole Merino-Blend 4ply in the colours Bordeaux, white and rose petal. It is named for the hearts that appear above and below each knot motif.

If you're finding a 64 pick draft overwhelming, it will work just as well if you only weave the first 32 picks, repeating as many times as desired. If you go that route, there will be some twist build-up behind some of the pattern tablets.

Link to tdd file for this draft

Link to text version of this draft

As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.

Quick Book News Update

The sample bands for my next book are now finished and I'm on to the writing up stage! It's taken about 2 months of work to get to this point, so I'm very glad it's done and I can go back to hobby weaving of an evening.