New Video!

 

I have a new video up on my YouTube channel. In it I show you how I flip a tablet to change its threading direction.

Birka Band B22

When I was a beginner, all the way back in 2006, the very first band I tried to weave was based on one of the finds from a Viking cemetery in Birka, Sweden, dated to the 8th to 10th century. It's a lovely draft, but for me it was a tale of disaster from start to finish. I made pretty much every mistake there is and very nearly gave up on the whole thing. Several days later, I warped eight tablets for a simple four turns forward, four turns backward band and the rest is history. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try it as a beginner, but it would be helpful to have some muscle memory for turning the tablets before you tackle it.

I've been thinking about the draft again recently, as it turns up on Instagram pretty often, and I thought it would be fun to go back to the original source and take a look at the find that it's based on. Historiska Museet, Sweden, have kindly made many of the reports about the Birka digs available online as free pdf downloads. The textile finds are covered in Birka III - Die Textilfunde Aus den Grabern[1], with chapter VII "Bänder: Ein broschiertes Band — ein echtes Gewebe" (from page 75 onwards) discussing the tablet woven bands. The reports are in German, but copying and pasting sections into Google translate will produce something somewhat comprehensible.

The Carolyn Priest-Dorman draft[2] is based on a section from band B22, a label that Geijer uses for several similar finds, from graves 731, 750 and 824. The fragments from graves 731 and 750 were poorly preserved, but showed use of both gold and silver brocade wefts, like the better preserved example from grave 824 (detailed notes for the three bands are given on page 88 of Birka III - Die Textilfunde Aus den Grabern). Geijer describes the B22 band from grave 824 as having been woven with at least 29 tablets, with borders that needed a probable 6 tablets on each side (only the threads from 4 tablets on each side actually survive). The tablets were all threaded in the same direction and there were no turning reversals visible on the back of the band. She theorises that as the back of the band appears roughly woven and is rather unattractive, the band would originally have been sewn onto another fabric, leaving only the brocaded side visible. The band itself is 1.2cm wide and 9.5cm long and has around 20-25 brocade wefts per cm, with the gold weft at a greater density that the silver weft, perhaps because the gold was softer and easier to beat into place than the silver.

Several photographs of the B22 band (edited to remove a photo of a different band from the bottom right corner). Image from Geijer (1938) Birka III - Die Textilfunde Aus den Grabern, Plate 23

A schematic diagram of the motifs from the B22 band. Image from Geijer (1938) Birka III - Die Textilfunde Aus den Grabern Figure 20, page 83. I believe that the smaller section at the bottom is what Carolyn Priest-Dorman based her draft on. I chose to base my draft on the longer of the two sections

I freely admit that I don't enjoy weaving brocade, so I converted the motifs into 3x1 diagonals instead when I designed my version of the B22 find. I chose a yellow background colour to mimic the areas of the original that were covered by the gold brocade weft and "stave" borders for the selvedges, which are a fairly common feature of such bands[3]. I used red as my motif line and weft colour, as I liked the contrast between it and the yellow and the little spots of the red weft that show through in the large yellow sections mimic the brocade weft tie-down points of the original. I also chose to weave it in King Cole Merino Blend 4-ply (in mustard and scarlet) instead of the silk[4] of the original, as that was what I had to hand in the colours I wanted. This means that my band is 4.3cm wide, rather than the original 1.2cm.

I have designed the band to be twist-neutral for the pattern tablets (you will get a build-up of twist behind the four selvedge tablets on each side of the draft), so the pattern repeat is pretty long to incorporate a lattice section that twines in the opposite direction. I've split the draft itself into two pieces to make them easier to work from, in such a way that you can weave from just one of them without breaking the motifs, if you prefer. You can view them at their full size by clicking on the draft to select it, then right-clicking on it and selecting "open image in new tab", click on it one more time in the new tab and it should be much bigger.

You can download the TDD file for this draft by clicking here.

As the turning diagram for this draft is over 200 picks long, I've chosen not to include the text description in this post. Instead, you can download it by clicking here.

References

[1] Geijer, Agnes (1938). Birka III - Die Textilfunde Aus den Grabern. Birka: Untersuchungen und Studien III. Uppsala: Almkvist and Wiksells B.A., Kungl. Vitterhets Antikvitets Akadamien. Retrieved from: https://historiska.se/digitala-resurser/filer/pdf/Birka_III.pdf (17/05/2021)

[2] Priest-Dorman, C. (1993). Viking-Style Tablet Weaving: Birka Strapwork Motif, Retrieved from: https://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/birkarcp.html (17/05/2021)

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

[4] Ostrom Peters, C. (2002). The Silk Road Textiles at Birka: An Examination of the Tabletwoven Bands, The Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, Retrieved from:  https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1407&context=tsaconf (17/05/2021)

New Video!

 I have a new video up on YouTube. It's all about how I use TDD to generate narrow drafts from tablet weaving. I'll be sharing the draft on my blog for free, just as soon as I finish the sample band.

The New Warp-Twined Angles is Ready!

I'm really excited to share the new Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Warp-Twined Angles books with you!

Over the past three months, I've been working on a new (old?) project and it's ready to share! In fact, it went live in the Blurb online book shop on the 1st of June.

Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Warp-Twined Angles Volume One
The 42 drafts from the first edition of Warp-Twined Angles, reformatted to make them easier to use, with all new samples and photography.

Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Warp-Twined Angles Volume Two
65 new drafts in the same style as the first edition, published separately for people who have the first edition and just want the new drafts.

Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Warp-Twined Angles Combined Edition
All 107 drafts collected together in a single volume. There's no material in the Combined Edition that doesn't also appear in the separate volumes and vice versa.

My Design Process for Large Drafts

At the beginning of the year, I was working through a set of designs for a sample band and I thought you might like to see the way I use Tablet Weaving Draft Designer during my design process. For large drafts like this one I work a bit differently to the way I do for smaller drafts, as I find that otherwise I get lost in them (thanks, dyslexia!). To reduce the amount of visual noise, I focus on the pattern of backward turns against forward turns rather than the colour and direction of the threads. For smaller drafts like the ones in my two books Warp-Twined Angles and Vacant-Hole Pinwheels, I turn the backward turn saturation to zero and work with the flow of the threads in the boxes instead. 

I wove these drafts as 2x2 diagonals, but I designed them in 1x3 diagonals, as the turning sequence will be the same and it results in a pencil sketch that's easier for me to read.

Step 1

Draw out the motif. I use metric graph paper as my standard "thinking paper" as I can fit quite a few designs on the same sheet.

Step 2

Draw 4x4 zigzags around the motif and draw in all the vertical and horizontal mirror lines. 

Step 3

Shade in all the areas that contain left leaning lines (these will be the backward turns in the final draft).

Step 4

Draw a simplified schematic of the shaded motif, where each square in the schematic is equivalent to a 4x4 square in the motif. Add vertical and horizontal mirror lines down the middle of the schematic.

Step 5

Turn off the threads in the display section of the control panel of TDD and set the rulers to the same position as the mirror lines in the schematic. Open the previous draft from the batch and alter the dark and light squares to match the new schematic. I also reduce the visual scale until I can see the whole draft on my screen at once. The 4x4 squares at each corner of the draft will produce the filler between the motifs.

Step 6

Turn the threads back on, the rulers off, and the backward turn saturation down to zero and check that the motif looks the same as the pencil sketch motif.

Step 7

The final draft with both the threads and backward turn shading in place, ready to weave. I do this straight from TDD without printing anything out, as I can use the horizontal ruler tool to help me keep my place.

Step 8

Weave the draft! 

For this band I used yellow onion dyed yarn and purple/almost black logwood dyed yarn from the stash I've been dyeing for over the last few years. I'm hoping to play with some indigo this summer to get purples from my red brazilwood yarn and greens from my yellow weld and onion skin yarns.

Exciting Book News!

Since the beginning of March, I've been working on a new project or maybe I should say that I've been working on an old project? 

At the back of my first book, Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Warp-Twined Angles, I wrote that when I designed the drafts for the book, there were more that didn't make it in, as there wasn't enough warp to weave all of them. I hadn't originally intended to turn them into a book (I designed them as a way to keep myself from going stir-crazy when I couldn't weave for a month due to an elbow injury), so I wasn't planning for it when I wove them. I wrote that I hoped to revisit them at some point in the future and maybe add some more drafts to the list.

This spring, I picked the project back up, initially intending to add a few extra drafts and update the photography, layouts, samples and explanations to create a revised edition of Warp-Twined Angles. Well, one thing lead to another and the number of drafts grew to over 100 in total; enough for a second volume in its own right. I had a lot of fun coming back to this project and I really enjoyed weaving something so completely different to the double-face drafts I spent much of 2019 and 2020 working on for my book Double-Face Inscriptions.

The new Warp-Twined Angles will be in three different editions:

Volume One, which will have the 42 drafts from the first edition

Volume Two, which will have the additional 65 new drafts (with notes on the historical examples that some of them are based on)

A Combined Edition with the full 107 drafts together.

They will be in hardback, softback, ebook, and pdf and will be available to buy in June (if everything goes to plan) from Blurb.com.

Petre

This draft is based on a German brick-stitch pattern from the Hildesheim Cope (accession number: 17-1873), specifically the section that deals with the martyring of Saint Peter (spelled "Petre" in Latin). I've been fascinated by the Cope since I first saw it in the summer of 2016, on display in Medieval and Renaissance Room 9 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It's a large embroidered semi-circular vestment, dated to the 12th century, adorned by a number of tablet woven brocaded bands. I discuss the motifs of these bands in more detail in my book Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Vacant-Hole Pinwheels.

I decided to design this draft as vacant-hole (one or more holes of the tablets are left intentionally empty), but to set up the tablet threading so that all the tablets would turn together in the same direction to make a quick and simple weave. This makes it an excellent first band if you've never tried the technique before. 

When I was weaving the sample, I flipped the threading direction of the selvedge tablets (tablets 1, 2, 3, 36, 37 and 38) so that I could turn them together with the pattern tablets. When you flip a tablet, then turn it in the opposite direction, its threads will continue to twine in the same way as before. A Z-threaded turned backwards will produce the same result as an S-threaded tablet turned forwards.

If you take a break during weaving this draft, be sure to secure the tablets with an elastic band or by tying a cord around them (or what ever method you prefer) as they may re-orient themselves so that the vacant-hole is either at the top or bottom of the pack.

The vacant holes of the tablets are represented by empty squares in the draft below and by the word "Empty" in the text version of the draft. The sample was woven using a white weft, flecks of which can be seen on the surface of the band, where they would normally have been covered if the vacant holes of the tablets were filled. If you'd prefer, the draft's turning sequence will be the same if the vacant holes of the tablets are filled. If you do this, I suggest picking a thread that is the same as your background colour and using a weft that's the same colour as the lines for your motifs.

You can download the TDD file for this draft by clicking here.

The text version of this draft is as follows:

• Threading:

1. S threaded tablet
   1. White (#ffffff)
   2. White (#ffffff)
   3. White (#ffffff)
   4. White (#ffffff)
2. Z threaded tablet
   1. Red (#ff0000)
   2. Red (#ff0000)
   3. Red (#ff0000)
   4. Red (#ff0000)
3. S threaded tablet
   1. White (#ffffff)
   2. White (#ffffff)
   3. White (#ffffff)
   4. White (#ffffff)
4. Z threaded tablet
   1. Red (#ff0000)
   2. White (#ffffff)
   3. Empty
   4. White (#ffffff)
5. Z threaded tablet
   1. White (#ffffff)
   2. Red (#ff0000)
   3. White (#ffffff)
   4. Empty
6. Z threaded tablet
   1. Empty
   2. White (#ffffff)
   3. Red (#ff0000)
   4. White (#ffffff)
7. Z threaded tablet
   1. White (#ffffff)
   2. Empty
   3. White (#ffffff)
   4. Red (#ff0000)
8. S threaded tablet
   1. White (#ffffff)
   2. Empty
   3. White (#ffffff)
   4. Red (#ff0000)
9. S threaded tablet
   1. Empty
   2. White (#ffffff)
   3. Red (#ff0000)
   4. White (#ffffff)
10. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Empty
11. S threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Empty
    4. White (#ffffff)
12. Z threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Empty
    4. White (#ffffff)
13. Z threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Empty
14. Z threaded tablet
    1. Empty
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Red (#ff0000)
    4. White (#ffffff)
15. Z threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Empty
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Red (#ff0000)
16. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Empty
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Red (#ff0000)
17. S threaded tablet
    1. Empty
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Red (#ff0000)
    4. White (#ffffff)
18. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Empty
19. S threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Empty
    4. White (#ffffff)
20. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Empty
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Red (#ff0000)
21. S threaded tablet
    1. Empty
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Red (#ff0000)
    4. White (#ffffff)
22. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Empty
23. S threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Empty
    4. White (#ffffff)
24. Z threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Empty
    4. White (#ffffff)
25. Z threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Empty
26. Z threaded tablet
    1. Empty
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Red (#ff0000)
    4. White (#ffffff)
27. Z threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Empty
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Red (#ff0000)
28. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Empty
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Red (#ff0000)
29. S threaded tablet
    1. Empty
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Red (#ff0000)
    4. White (#ffffff)
30. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Empty
31. S threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Empty
    4. White (#ffffff)
32. Z threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Empty
    4. White (#ffffff)
33. Z threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Empty
34. Z threaded tablet
    1. Empty
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. Red (#ff0000)
    4. White (#ffffff)
35. Z threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. Empty
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. Red (#ff0000)
36. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. White (#ffffff)
37. Z threaded tablet
    1. Red (#ff0000)
    2. Red (#ff0000)
    3. Red (#ff0000)
    4. Red (#ff0000)
38. S threaded tablet
    1. White (#ffffff)
    2. White (#ffffff)
    3. White (#ffffff)
    4. White (#ffffff)

• Turning:

1. 38F
2. 38F
3. 38F
4. 38F
5. 3F 32B 3F
6. 3F 32B 3F
7. 3F 32B 3F
8. 3F 32B 3F
9. 38F
10. 38F
11. 38F
12. 38F
13. 3F 32B 3F
14. 3F 32B 3F
15. 3F 32B 3F
16. 3F 32B 3F
17. 3F 32B 3F
18. 3F 32B 3F
19. 3F 32B 3F
20. 3F 32B 3F
21. 38F
22. 38F
23. 38F
24. 38F
25. 3F 32B 3F
26. 3F 32B 3F
27. 3F 32B 3F
28. 3F 32B 3F
29. 38F
30. 38F
31. 38F
32. 38F

As with all of the free 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.

Threading Errors Video

 

In this video, I talk about some of things that can go wrong with tablet weaving and the threading errors that cause them.

Knitting Patterns

As part of tidying up my account ahead of Ravelry becoming even less accessible, I'm moving the small collection of knitting patterns that I designed to here.

Aesculus Shawl 

A knitted heart-shaped shawl with lace motifs based on the horse chestnut tree.

Pattern download

Charts download

Hugs by Post Shawl

A simple textured knitted heart-shaped shawl.

Pattern download

Lace Draw-String Bag

An easy knitted lace pouch.

Pattern download

Needle Roll

A quick to knit holder for your knitting needles.

Pattern download

Yarns I Like for Tablet Weaving

Recently, I wrote about and made a video about the criteria I use when I'm selecting yarn for tablet weaving. In this post, I thought I'd tell you about some of the yarn that I like using myself. I'm not sponsored by any of the companies I mention and everything I say here is my personal opinion.

When I weave rigid heddle and tablet woven bands for the sale box I take to events with me (in non-plague years!), I mostly use Drops Karisma DK. It's 100% wool, 100m/50g and comes in a good range of colours. It's also pretty economical, especially if you buy it during one of the Drops discount events that happen several times a year.

I like to use King Cole Merino Blend 4-ply when I'm weaving trim. It's 100% superwash wool (meaning that it's machine washable)and 180m/50g. It's the yarn I used when I wove the samples for Noughts and Crosses and Tic Tac Toe and makes a lovely trim, as it makes bands that weave up fairly fast, but are less bulky when stitched to a garment than DK.

For the samples I make for my books, I like World of Wool Weaving Yarns, although at the time of writing, it has been discontinued. It's 100% wool and 8000m/1000g and came in black, white and orange. To extend the range of colours, I've been using the white yarn for natural dyeing. For one of the samples for my book Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Double-Face Inscriptions, I used Brazilwood dye and an alum mordant from George Weil to get the lovely red colour that I needed.

Lastly, Piper's Silks. For very special bands, I use their 80/3 spun silk, which is 75m per spool. It's beautifully smooth and because of its tight twist, it stands up to tablet weaving really well. It's pretty fine, so when I use it to make a belt, I laminate together several layers of buckram, then sandwich that between the band and cotton twill tape and stitch them together. This yarn comes in a great range of vibrant colours and the woman who runs the company is an absolute pleasure to work with.