Neuper #29

Warp: Purple silk
Weft: Purple silk
Brocade: White silk
Pattern: Anna Neuper #29
Cards: 29
Width:1.7cm
Length: Approx. 1.2 metres
What's new: Tiedowns under 1 thread

I just got a copy of Anna Neuper's Modelbuch (as published by Nancy Spies and Ute Bargmann). This is a book of brocaded tablet weaving patterns as recorded by Anna Neuper, a nun from Nuremberg, in 1517, at the time when tablet weaving was dying out in favour of other decorative fibre techqiques such as lacemaking. The patterns are all pretty obvious and geometrical. They're all pretty similar to the pattern I used on my garters back in my first brocaded tablet weaving experiment.

I was going to start the Mammen bands next but it's taking a while to get the silk. So I thought I'd make one of the patterns from this book. I don't have an immediate use for it so I may donate it as a prize for the Fighter Auction Tourney at Crescent Fence in August.
For this band I am using a double thickness of white silk for the brocade, and (for the first time) tiedowns under one thread only- except for the card at each edge, since this makes it look neater. I'm making the pickups as suggested in Peter Collingwood's Techniques of Tablet Weaving which I've also just got. The cards are rotated a 1/8 turn after passing the ground weft, so that one thread in each card is higher than all the others, and then pickups are made from there (plus some stuffing around to deal with the edge cards).

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