This final poster marks the completion of our project as it will showcases our project including its successes and struggles while also featuring our concluding remarks.
Thank you for following our journey,
Kierrah, Tika, and Quynn
Hello again!
With my cards threaded, as I detailed in my last post, I was ready to begin weaving! Or so I thought…
As any sane person could probably tell by looking at my weaving – I don’t believe I provided a picture of the beginning of my band last time, so I will do so below – my tension was awful. Horrible. My band did not look AT ALL like it was supposed to, but I was hopeful! I kept going! I was somehow convinced it was going to get better.
(It didn’t.)
However, it is interesting that if one looks at the entirety of my woven band, you can pretty clearly see my progress from hopeless to mildly-skilled, might be able to use my skills to catch a husband in the Middle Ages weaver.
So without further ado, I present to you: A Guided Tour Through Learning How to Tablet Weave, through the medium of hopefully not to awful pictures of said tablet woven band.
Chapter One: Tension, or Yes How You Tie Your Threads Is Important
This is the beginning of my band. It looks a little weird because one, it is, and two, I just took this photo, and part of the band is wound around the belt. At the top, you can see where I attempted to begin weaving. In my pattern, when you simply turn all four cards forwards, it creates that sort of alternating white and then green ‘v’ pattern, which is what you see in this photo. As you can see here, my tension was not good, but somehow I convinced myself to keep going.
Chapter Two: Rushing Headfirst Into Things Is Not Always the Best Option
So here you can see I attempted to begin the pattern at the very top. I was running into an issue where I had tied the threads to the belt, and to the table leg I was using at the other end, without making sure all of the threads were equally taut between them. With fifty-two separate threads, it’s easy to accidentally leave one a little looser. So when I would go to ‘beat down’ the weft, a thread would pull and leave bumps, which meant I didn’t want to pull it as tight. Essentially, it was a mess.
Luckily for me, a repreive came in the form of reading break, where I completely untied everything and brought it home with me. And proceeded to not work on it the whole reading break, of course. But, when I came home and retied it, things started to look up… a little bit.
Chapter Three: A Light At The End Of The Tunnel?
When I came back from reading break, I re-tied my project and attempted to do it in a way that kept the correct tension. As you can see here, some of my pattern is visible in the band, however it is very stretched out and there are some… problems. Part of the problem I believe is that I wasn’t ‘beating down’ hard enough – at the time I thought I was, but I think that’s why the pattern is so stretched out.
At the top end of this section, you can see that things get a little… wacky. I’d reached a spot in the pattern that I like to call the ‘reset’ section, where I’ve completed the full round of the pattern and for four rows all I do is flip every card forward. I chose to take this moment as a proper reset, retying the threads again, keeping everything very tight, and vowing not to restart the pattern until everything looked right.
Chapter Four: I Put Things Back In Order
If you’ve been paying attention, you may already have spotted what I did – that something was wrong with the right side of my cards. The lopsided ‘v’ shape you can see here should not be lopsided at all. I went through my pattern and some of the cards had switched around – it took me three rounds of four turns to get it fixed properly, which you can see pretty clearly if you compare the top ‘v’ of the photo to the ones below.
It was handy to know what the ‘blank’ state of my pattern was supposed to look like, as I don’t think I would have noticed my cards got switched otherwise!
Chapter Five: Success Comes To Those Who Fail A Lot First
Okay, I think you’ve suffered through enough photos of badly-woven bits of thread to finally see something a little better looking.
Seriously though, I’m super happy with how the weaving is going now and I think it looks so good! I’m not sure why it took me so long to get here, but I guess practice makes perfect, right! So here you go.
Chapter Six: Things Eventually Get Better
I can now pretty reliably get through a cycle of my pattern without messing up, though I do sometimes occasionally forget to put the weft thread through before turning the cards, which is the most frustrating thing on the face of the planet.
Finally getting the pattern to work has made me very exited to try more tablet-woven patterns. I definitely think this is a craft I want to keep doing. (Now I only have to learn how to sew so I can have garments to attach the bands to…)
I think it takes me about 20 minutes to half an hour to get through a cycle of my band, maybe less now. If only I could find a comfortable way to sit… seriously, there’s no way when you’re using the backstrap method. At least not for me, because I don’t have anywhere to tie it to high enough that I could then sit on a chair. So your options are basically numb butt, your feet falling asleep, or your back hurting.
I’m excited to see the band getting longer, and to see it when it’s finished. I’m sure casting it off will be a quick and easy process, right? (ha.ha.)
Until next time,
Quynn
During my last progress report I talked about the inspiration behind my tablet weaving project and discussed the process of creating a warp and setting up to weave. Now I have had a chance to complete some weaving and I’m here to talk about it!
To start weaving I tied two knots in one end of my warp to provide myself with a sturdy loop I could wrap around a door or dresser handle to hold my project in place. I ended up primarily weaving off of a handle on my dining room table as I was then able to keep my weaving chart on the tabletop for easy access.
Starting the weave was more challenging than anticipated for a few reasons.
Firstly, I automatically noticed that the knot I had used to secure the warp was affecting the thickness of the fabric as the threads were being held together by the knot. Consequently, The fabric I was creating was narrow, thick, and stiff.
I also noticed that the pattern was not showing up as pictured. At first I figured that this was because of the issues caused by the knot so I continued weaving hoping the threads would begin to straighten themselves out.
As I went on it became clear that I had a mistake in my warp as the pattern was still not clear.
I checked my threading time and time again making small changes here and there in hopes of fixing the problem but nothing seemed to work. That is until I finally realized my most crucial mistake. It seemed as though I had mixed up my s and z threading. That is the direction that the yarn is threaded into the tablets, as seen in the photo below.
Although I am sure I had originally threaded my warp correctly I think all the fiddling messed something up so I was forced to flip my cards. I also had a few cards that needed to be adjusted forwards or backwards to ensure I had proper threading. This is why, as you will see in my photos, the marks on my tablets do not match up entirely, as those are the cards that had to be shifted.
After all that hassle I thought I had fixed the problem and began weaving again. The width and texture was improving but my pattern still remained unclear. That is until I looked at the back. It wasn’t exactly my pattern but something was showing up and I could tell it was a start.
Realizing that for some reason my weaving was showing up on the bottom even though my cards were threaded properly I decided to try weaving in reverse, or at least moving my cards in the opposite direction of that instructed on my pattern.
It was surprisingly nerve wracking weaving without seeing what I was doing. Only hoping that it would work. But In the end I was pleasantly surprised. The pattern was there and it looked better than I could have imagined!
Since then I’ve continued my weaving. Although I’m still working upside down (I don’t want to chance it) the weave is only getting better and better. I’m getting faster too. At this point it takes me 40 minutes to an hour to complete the whole pattern repeat and It’s becoming easier to remember what steps come next. Although some days weaving is still frustrating, like when I forgot to add a thread or the tension is off, I am finding it more and more relaxing. I’ve been working on it so much I am almost out of warp!
Anyway, I can’t wait to see the final project so that I can reflect on what i’ve learnt.
Until next time,
Kierrah
My pattern for this project is the Oseberg Narrow band, from a Viking-age burial in Norway. I will be using cotton thread in brown, beige, and green, modifying the pattern slightly to give it a border in order to use all three colors.
To begin my pattern I first had to warp my threads, meaning I had to measure, cut, then thread each piece through the tablets in the correct direction. To measure my thread I used the length of a table, and cut each thread the same length across it. I followed the amount of each color, with modification on the borders, based upon my pattern, and first organized the threads into bundles based upon the card they belonged to. This organization method worked out alright for me as my pattern was not too complicated.
Once I had every thread cut, I then had to thread them through their respective cards. I realized that I had been following an alternative pattern when cutting my threads, but it was quickly rectified as both ultimately required the same amount of each color. Next, I had to figure out the difference between S and Z threading.
The difference between S and Z threading took me a while to understand, but with the assistance of multiple google searches, I finally had all my threads sorted properly. However, my threads became very difficult to work with once warped. The longer end kept getting knotted, and it took me about 30 minutes to untangle them. This continued to be a problem as I started weaving, as at some point while I was attaching one end to a door handle, the threads had managed to flip. It took me quite awhile to fix this, sorting the ends into two bundles which then tied to my belt, but once I had I was able to begin weaving.
My pattern called for all my tablets to be turned the same way, which allowed for me to focus on my tension and keeping my cards organized. I didn’t anticipate how much thread I would need for the weft, so as pictured there is not enough currently on my shuttle. This is a problem that will have to be fixed at a later date, as my partners have already suggested how to fix this. I also didn’t understand how much I would have to pull the weft through, worried that it may unravel, so there are green bumps throughout the section I’ve done. I’m proud of how much I achieved in an hour of work, and while bumpy, the tension is good and the pattern is clear. I foresee this becoming cleaner as I continue, and hope that the end product will demonstrate my learning.
Thank you for reading! Until next time…
-Tika
For this project I chose to reproduce the tablet woven Birka band B2 which originated from the archeological site, Birka, which is located on the Björkö Island in Lake Mälar, Sweden. The band in question dates to the 9th-10th centuries and was discovered in grave 824 In two separate pieces connected to two oval brooches.
The pattern I used in the reproduction of this band was written by Shelagh Lewins and was made available for free download through her blog. The pattern utilizes a missing whole technique and in an attempt to replicate the motif present in the original brocade band.
In order to begin weaving I first had to make up the warp as directed by the pattern. The warp is the direction of threads which will be threaded through the tablets and woven into.
I began setting up my warp by picking my colors, ultimately deciding to solely use the brown and cream we had purchased as a group. Following the warping diagram from the right side of the image I cut my threads to my desired length prior to laying them out on a table. These were taped in place so that I could keep the threads organized.
As we set up our warps as a group on campus my warp needed to be transported home prior to being threaded through the tablets. To do this I chained my warp threads together to stop them from tangling.
At this point I began threading my tablets, following the diagram from left to right, placing the threads in the designated holes on the tablets. Unfortunately, although my threads had been taped in the proper order and chained together in an effort to keep them organized it did take me a while to figure out how to thread my warp as a few of the threads seemed to have shifted positions. This meant I had to spend some time reorganizing my threads to get them back in the proper order.
Unfortunately, it also seems that throughout the transportation of my warp some of my threads were tangled, which meant I had to spend a great deal of time untangling the threads before I could begin weaving.
Thankfully, after about 1-1.5 hours of work with a helping hand I was able to get my threads untangled and am now ready to start weaving!
Until next time,
Kierrah