Festive Floatwork

This year's series of Advent videos was based around my book Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Egyptian Zigzags, picking a random draft each day. I wound a rather longer warp than the one I estimated that I might need with the intention of having leftovers to play with as nothing says Christmas more to me than delicious leftovers! I used some of the mini-skeins from a Mothy and the Squid 12 Days of Christmas set from last year, along with a skein of her black yarn, and as expected when I'm exposed to that much colour, my brain started singing to me about new designs as I was filming the videos. Of all the different techniques I could play with, floatwork seemed the right one. Floatwork involves turning the tablets backward and forward in single turns, resulting in long floating warp threads on the top and bottom of the band.

 

I've produced 2 drafts for this design, one with the distinctive long floats in the warp (the first phot above) and one without (the second photo above). Both are twist-neutral for the pattern tablets, so you won't get a build-up of twist behind them. I recommend flipping the threading direction of the selvedge tablets (and continuing to turn them forward) every few repetitions of the turning diagram to weave out the twist behind them. Both turning diagrams use the same threading diagram as the one I used for the rest of the Advent band. If you're finding the number of tablets overwhelming, feel free to remove tablets 27-38. The turning sequence for the remaining tablets will be the same and the design will still be twist-neutral.

Click here for the float-free version TDD file

Click here for the float-free version text file

Click here for the floatwork version TDD file

Click here for the floatwork version text 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.

Festive Tablet Weaving 2025

Back in 2023, I made a video for each day of advent, picking a random draft from Warp-Twined Angles, then weaving in on a red, white and green warp. This year, I'll be doing something similar using the drafts from Egyptian Zigzags and some of the yarn from a 12 Days of Christmas set that my parents gifted me last year, combined with a skein of Mothy and the Squid black yarn. Like last time, I've modified the threading diagram from the book (the first of the two diagrams below) for this new band, removing one group of four pattern tablets and reducing down the selvedge tablets to just two on each side. Black remains the motif line, but I've switched the background threads for black and rainbow colours rather than white.

Egyptian Zigzags has 154 drafts in total (not including the reconstruction band), but many are have a vertical line of symmetry running down the centre which would look odd with nine groups of four pattern tablets rather than the original ten that the drafts were designed for. To prevent this, I've limited the pool of drafts to the remaining 64, which still gives plenty to pick from.

New Book Announcement!

It's time! It's finally time! This year's book is Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: From the Beginning, which is a beginner's guide to tablet weaving. You can find it by clicking here, or by clicking on the picture below, in the usual hardcover, softcover and pdf editions. From the Beginning has 8 new drafts to weave, each included to help you learn essential skills, and covers everything from selecting yarn, to measuring out a warp, to different tensioning methods, to weaving, to wet-finishing, to different finishing and sewing techniques for bands.

Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: From the Beginning (Softcover)

By Catherine Weaver

You could say that I started writing this one back in 2012 when I first started submitting articles on tablet weaving tips and tricks to my local SCA newsletter. I was collecting up my ideas from around 2015 onwards for what I intended to be my first book. During the process of trying to find a publisher for it, I decided to test things out by publishing a suite of designs I'd come up with when I'd injured an elbow and couldn't weave. That became Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Warp-Twined Angles which debuted in 2018. When I finally came back to the beginner's guide project in January 2025, I threw out quite a lot of what I'd previously written (why past-me needed to try to classify every possible fibre yarn could be made from, I will never know) and massively expanded many of the sections. The way I think about and understand tablet weaving has evolved over the years and I like to think that this has turned out to be a much better book due to all the delays. 

As I now have a significant body of work to draw from, I was able to use my designs for all but one of the examples I included (many thanks to Mervi Pasanen of Applesies and Foxnoses fame who allowed me to use a section of a band from Tablet-Woven Treasures as an example of Finnish double turns). You may notice that Lattice, my most recently published draft, turns up as an example too. I'm also lucky enough to be part of several thriving tablet weaving communities online. When the book had passed the initial round of copy-editing (many thanks to G, my wonderful copy-editor!), members of the Ravelry tablet weaving group very kindly volunteered to test-read it for me, which the text greatly benefitted from.

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. Instructions for dealing with the notation that Tablet Weaving Draft Designer uses for idling tablets can be found here. 

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.