Recapping Weaving

OK…now we are at a current post.  For the moment, I’m going to stop going back and adding posts that are 2-3 (or more) years old.  So many of the photos are missing now that I don’t know what it was I was doing at the time when it says “Saxon weave” since I did a half dozen of them.  So what I’m going to do is post pictures of stuff I’ve done without all the blah-blah-blah that went with it them, but just grouping them together into styles with a brief description.  Now that I look at it, I did a lot of weaving in the last five years.

Skip hole weave

tablet-skip-hole-3

I really like this one.  I believe that it’s period (I’ll have to find the documentation again).  Super easy and looks great.  It was a test piece so it’s only a couple yards.

Threaded in Weaves

 

tablet-2c

This one I did as a commission in 2012.  Unfortunately, she never picked it up and never paid me for it.

2012-bunnies

BUNNIES!  I made this for the Shire of Shittimwoode to put in their prize box.  This was from the Robin & Russ Handweavers’ book.

tablet-7b

This pattern I think I found on the Loomy Bin.

tablet-8b  Variation of the Loomy Bin pattern

tablet-12a  From EQoS on Deviant Art

I love this pattern.  tablet-15a

I’m not kidding.  tablet-5b

Seriously.  tablet-4a

I really love this pattern.  tablet-12b

Really…really….  tablet-14a

tablet-11b Gorgeous in RED!

I love it even more with really fine thread.

tablet-21a

Simplified version

tablet-17d

And another one…

tablet-18a

And another…

tablet-20a

Yet another version…

tablet-1b

tablet-13a  I think I made this one up.  Meh.

tablet-anchor-b

Anchors Aweigh!  This was for a high school buddy to be made into suspenders.

010

I drafted this “Tyr” pattern for Tyrssen of the Midrealm.  He was a middle school friend who I discovered was also in the SCA. 😀

tablet-molly-m

Super wide band for Molly McGurn!  This was also my design, although to be honest, I kind of strung this up at random.

tablet-aq-an-tir-3

I think this one got donated to the Barony…An Tir and Aquaterra colors.

tablet-aq-2  A better pattern of An Tir and AQ colors.

an-tir-weave-1  Another with An Tir colors only

surfboard-loom

Prototype of a surfboard loom for teaching a class.  Mostly worked.

surfboard-looms

So I made a whole stack of surfboards for the class!

6-hole-cards

Got some six-hole cards.  Mostly didn’t work on the inkle loom.  I bet they’d work fine on a backstrap or Osburg type loom with a much longer working space.  I’ll have to try that sometime.

Egyptian Diagonals

2012-crazy-egyptian-diagonals

This was assigned to me as a challenge by Master Fiacha.  This is super ugly, but I learned how the colors moved with the cards.

end-of-nov-2015-381

This piece was what I worked on after a failed attempt at a Dragon Head weave.  I gave up on the dragon heads and made more Egyptian Diagonals instead.  I love the dark blue and silver-grey together.

Ram’s Horn Pattern

tablet-10b 20141206_844

Not a period design, but very cool-looking and popular among the Historic Tablet Weaving folks!

20141206_773  Small test piece….just a bookmark.

Brocade Card Weaving

end-of-nov-2015-4264

Didn’t like doing it.  That’s as far as I got before I decided it wasn’t for me.

Saxon Weaves

This next group has a few documentable pieces and are all double-sided patterns.  I want to get back to making more of these now that I have translated the GTT patterns onto a more easily-accessible Excel spreadsheet.

Saxon weave, 5-6th century, Cambridge.

tablet-16a

Anglo-Saxon #8

weaving-anglo-saxon-8

Anglo Saxon 6a:  anglo-saxon-2

weaving-anglo-saxon-6b  Anglo-Saxon 6d

anglo-saxon-3a

Tried using fishing spinners….with little success.

Snartemo weave

snartemo-iic

6th century Norwegian and really easy to make.  25 turns forward, 25 turns back.

Birka weaves

birka-22

birka-23

end-of-nov-2015-362

end-of-nov-2015-359

end-of-nov-2015-357

Birka 6 end-of-nov-2015-353

Applesies & Fox Noses

end-of-nov-2015-367

end-of-nov-2015-385

end-of-nov-2015-402

end-of-nov-2015-387

end-of-nov-2015-4339

tablet-30

tablet-22a

Still working on this one.  It’s also made of really fine thread and I’ve been working on it for about a year.

Diagonals….Defeated by Dragons

(Originally published 10 Feb 2015)

This is a moment of sincere frustration.  I found a very cool Dragon Heads pattern called “Dragehoveder” on the Historic Tablet Weaving Facebook page, but despite several attempts, verifying the threading, varying the turning sequences, and a lot of cussing, I finally decided that this was not going to happen.

The threading isn’t very difficult…it’s all dark-light-medium-light…

I struggled with it for hours…literally…weaving, unweaving, cutting it off, trying again. [Later I think I know what I did wrong…]

I didn’t like having the orange-brown in it, either, so I replaced it with white (or rather shifted the grey to the “medium” color and made white the “light” color).  After nearly throwing the loom across the room a few times, I abandoned the idea and made Egyptian Diagonals instead.

It came up to just under 3 yards, which is a yard shorter than my usual trim lengths.  That’s how much loss I had in attempting to make the dragon heads work.  Grrrrr…

Now, if you want to do Egyptian Diagonals, it’s fairly easy!  So here’s now it’s done…

First, thread your cards (I used 14 in the project above):

W: white, G:  grey, N: navy

Egyptian Diagonals
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
A
 G
 W
N
 W
G
W
N
W
G
W
N
W
G
 N
B
 N
 G
W
N
W
G
W
 N
 W
 G
W
 N
 W
 G
C
G
 W
 G
 W
N
 W
G
 W
 N
W
 G
 W
 N
 N
D
N
 N  W  G  W  N  W G  W  N  W  G  W  G

 

OK…Now that it’s all warped up, get your weft anchored and turn a few passes forward to get the tension stabilized.
Each turn is a quarter-turn.  After each quarter turn, throw the shuttle.  Each turning sequence will be done twice.
So, turn all cards back and throw the shuttle.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1 and 2 forward, 3-14 back a quarter turn.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-4 forward, 5-14 back a quarter turn. Repeat.
Turn cards 1-6 forward, 7-14 back.  Repeat
Turn cards 1-8 forward, 9-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-10 forward, 11-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-12 forward, 13-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn all cards forward.
Now you’ll reverse stuff…
Turn cards 1-12 forward, 13-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-10 forward, 11-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-8 forward, 9-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-6 forward, 7-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-4 forward, 5-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn cards 1-2 forward, 3-14 back.  Repeat.
Turn all cards back.  Repeat.
The problem with this pattern is that the outside cards will be twisted up terribly and the middle cards will twist and untwist evenly.  If you have fishing spinners, this would be the pattern to use them on, otherwise, you will have to untwist your warp several times during your weaving.  Of course, I couldn’t find my spinners and had to untwist four or five times.  Time consuming, for sure.
Easy enough?  You can do it!