Alison Winter – Tablet Weaving

This is my 2nd tablet weaving project.  I bought the loom at an auction and watched youtube videos – yay youtube instructional videos!  I got this pattern online and don’t know whether it’s a period pattern or period type of pattern in that:  With some patterns you could knot both ends of the warp, and the tablets turn backwards as much as they turn forwards, so that the warps beyond the tablets do not keep twisting until you can’t work any more.  This pattern, besides threading some tablets S direction and some Z, involves some tablets turning backward nearly every one of the 8 rows of the pattern, some turning forward much more often that they turn backward, requiring that the far ends of the warp be untied, untwisted and re-tied fairly often.I have tied the ends to dowels for convenience when moving the work on the loom.  I have the work on the loom working in what is probably reverse of the normal working direction – because I have so little free table space I wanted to be able to set the loom upright on my lap  😀  There are extra strings (some kumihimo some fingerloop) holding the dowels and holding things together.  In the course of the work I hope to gradually come to understand better and better how this process works rather than following the instructions blindly, so as to know exactly what I did wrong if something isn’t right and maybe modify or invent patterns in the future.  Not that there aren’t enough absolutely lovely patterns already!  So far I have at least learned how to rip back even when you got confused about which row you were on and couldn’t just turn the cards the other way and pass the shuttle back through!

Feedback welcome as I have had little contact with experienced tablet weavers with historical clue since attempting this.  Especially about whether period patterns did or did not ever have the tablets turn one direction more than the other requiring the warp threads beyond the tablets to be frequently untwisted – and whether the alternative solution of attaching them to something  with a joint that spins existed in period.

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