Brocade Ergonomics
Ok, so remember how I said that although the illuminations show weavers sitting facing their band looms directly, I had to sit sideways to my Oseberg loom when I was weaving, because the crossbeam was at knee-height? That was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. At Canterbury Faire I was weaving the Baltic S-motif, which is not a brocaded pattern. When I got home and set up my loom there, I realised I could turn my chest seat on its side, which would make it low enough for my knees to fit under the bar. I set up the loom so I was weaving from left to right, and I wove the rest of the band doing a passable job of sitting face-on (no pictures, sorry). However, when I tried to do the same thing with a brocaded pattern, it just didn't work. When the band went from left to right, so the tiedowns were picked up to the left of the cards, I couldn't work out an efficient way to hold my hands. And when the band went from right to left, I just found myself gravitating to the old ...