Adventures in Historical Tabletweaving

Warp: White and blue wool Weft: White wool Pattern: Hochdorf find no. 39 Cards: 32 pattern + 4x2 border Width: 1.8cm Length: Approx. 1m This is my first go at the technique sometimes referred to as "pebble weave" due to the sort of dimples or "pebbles" of the contrasting colour that appear in the ground areas.  "Pebble weave" can also refer to an Andean technique which is not the same thing. Excluding the border tablets, tablets are threaded in two holes, alternating in pairs of SS and ZZ. Each pair is turned as a unit.  To get the background area (white with blue dimples in my version), all rows do a quarter turn twice in one direction and then twice in the other.  To bring the other colour to the front, do not reverse the turning direction of a pair. In the pattern above right, each B or F represents 2 tablets turning backward or forward for 2 quarter turns.  Originally I just had a "pattern" showing what the finished band looks ...

Warp: White and blue wool Weft: White wool Pattern: Laceby Cards: 12 pattern + 2x2 border Width: 0.8cm Length: Approx. 1.1 metres So you may have noticed, I'm kinda obsessed with two-hole patterns at the moment, and this is one that people mention a lot.  It is described by Grace Crowfoot in Antiquaries Journal 36 (1956), in the article Anglo-Saxon sites in Lincolnshire by F.H. Thompson. The preserved fragment is only 3x1.1cm, found in the back of a 6th century brooch from Laceby, England. The original is made of linen. Crowfoot posits two different ways of weaving the band, one using a heddle (ie not using tablets), and one using "six 2-hole tablets, with two threads in each hole".  I'm utterly unable to explain how the latter system would result in the pattern reconstruction given (same as the one pictured) so I assume that the reconstruction was a bit of a stab in the dark.   This reconstruction uses a tabby weave.  You can see a similar (possibly...

Warp: Thin white silk Weft: Light green silk Brocade: Yellow silk Pattern: Anna Neuper #32 Cards: 27 Width: 1.2cm Length: Approx. 1.1 metres I had some time to kill while I waited for some books and materials to arrive so I did another band from Anna Neuper's Modelbuch using colours I don't like very much.  I'll donate it to something.

Warp: Wool (fibreholics) Weft: Wool (fibreholics) Pattern: from Latviesu Jostas Cards: 20 pattern + 2x3 border Width: 1.5cm Length: 55cm   This technique came up on the SCA-Card-Weaving list recently and I was inspired to give it a go.  The pattern is from Latviesu Jostas by Aleksandra Dzérvítis & Lilija Treimanis.  Wonder of wonders, this book was in the National Library of New Zealand (Finding a book I'm looking for domestically is a minor miracle).  The book is in Latvian and English.  Mostly it covers traditional patterns but it also has some 12th century patterns, although information from an archaeological perspective is lacking.  This one is described as "Stameriene, blue wrap". The book is pretty emphatic about getting the colours to have the characteristic greenish tinge of local dyes.  I gave this a crack by overdying my blue, red and yellow wools with green dye.  It didn't really result in the rig...

Warp: Blue (fibreholics) and white (Anna Gratton) wool Weft: white wool Pattern: Evebo band, pattern by Maikki Karisto Cards: 22 pattern + 2x1 border (original has a wide border) Width: 1.5cm Length: 76cm (43 cm for 1 full repeat of pattern) I had just strung up my inkle loom with the intent of weaving the Evebo band using this pattern - which I believe is based on Lise Raeder Knudsen's pattern which is the one in Hansen- when Maikki Karisto coincidentally emailed me with suggestions of bands I might like to try- including this one, which she offered to share her pattern for.  Maikki's pattern has 22 pattern tablets as opposed to the 23 in the GTT pattern .  It also includes the partial 6th figure from the edge of the band.   The GTT pattern also does not include the zigzag region which occurs twice in the pattern.  This region is particularly interesting because the tablets lose their offset to one another so that the zigzag is...

Warp: Red, white, yellow and green silk (fibreholics) (original in wool) Weft: White silk (fibreholics) (original in linen) Pattern: St Maurice monestary, 8-10th century (Collingwood p. 156) Cards: 18 pattern + 2x2 border (2x3 in original).  2 holes per pattern card Width: 7mm (original 11mm) Length: 78cm This band is quite different to any I have done before.  The pattern area is woven with 9 pairs of 2 tablets, each threaded in two holes.  One tablet carries a red and a white warp thread, and the other a yellow and a green (note: these are the colours I used; discussion on the colours of the original below).  The tablets are manipulated individually to form the pattern.  The interesting point is that there is no warp twining: tablets "rock" from one colour to another but never complete a full rotation.  In the pattern to the right, the coloured squares show the colour that is up.  In the squares with the grey line through them, no colour...

Warp: Dark green silk (fibreholics) Weft: Dark green silk (devere) Brocade:  Tambour thread (Hedgehog handworks) Pattern: Taplow Barrow Cards: 23 pattern + 2x2 border Width: 1.2cm Length: 85cm This is just a quick brocade pattern I did while waiting for some other stuff to come together. The pattern caught my eye when it was executed by opusanglicanum not long ago.  Since them I've also spotted a version by Gina-B which made me want to buy the metal strip she used on the spot.  Unfortunately Benton and Johnson's website is under maintenance so I will just have to be patient. The pattern is from page 45 of Crowfoot and Hawkes's Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids . I used the tambour thread which I bought after having trouble with the cornering in the Mammen band.  It's definitely more supple- whether it's supple enough I'm not sure yet because the fibreholics silk I used for this warp is about 5x thicker than the devere stuff I used for the Mam...