I'm still finding it a bit difficult to find motivation for SCA things. So back in May when there was a call for people to help make ThrolfR and Halla a new wardrobe for their reign, I jumped at the chance to try some viking tablet weaving for one of His Majesty's coat. It took some time to figure out colours and what fibre to use, but eventually I got some 20/2 silk from Treenway in gold and white, to make a one inch wide Hochdorf band. Hochdorf #39 to be precise, using Amalie's pattern.
Two weeks ago I finally got around to making a warp. Since only two holes are threaded for this pattern, instead of the usual four, I had the BRILLIANT IDEA of putting both of my skeins on my yarn swift and making a continuous warp! The back of my mind was saying WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! because everyone knows string is evil, and string in skeins is exponentially more evil, so two skeins at once is a millionty times worse than the evil of just one skein.
Somehow, the string gods smiled on me and it worked! I have photographic evidence of two skeins on one yarn swift and a whole warp all neat and everything :D
That was two weeks ago. By now I should have finished the band, yes? Well, I think I'm paying my evil string debt or something, because it behaved during the warping process but as soon as I tried to move it to my loom it just tangled up into the most epic tangle ever tangled. So I have spent the last fortnight trying to untangle my 8m warp. There have been many tantrums, complete with swearing and throwing stuff. No photos because tantrum.
Yesterday I finally untangled my tangle, and I've used clothes pegs as bobbins to keep all the string separated and neat. So I tensioned the warp, wrote down the pattern and started weaving.
The first bit is where I tried to do the doubleface thing where one colour is on top and one on the bottom, because really this technique is the same as doubleface except there's just half the number of holes threaded. Obviously it wasn't working for me. After some searching on the internet I realised that every pair of tablets needs to have a thread in every hole. So it's like two tablets make a cord instead of one card making a cord. So I did some flipping and it started working! Kind of, my dimples are bigger than all the pictures of other bands and they're kind of in a line instead of being zig zaggy. Buuut I figured close enough, so I tried the pattern. The tablets are threaded alternating SS and ZZ, so I just guessed whether to start with S or Z. The first attempt of the pattern didn't have smooth lines, so I flipped all the tablets and tried again. STILL NO SMOOTH LINES AAAAAAAAAGH.
The other trouble I'm having is that since only two holes in each tablet are threaded, the tablets won't sit straight, they keep wanting to turn 45 degrees, which would be fine if they all wanted to turn the same way. But they don't so I've had to use one of my raddle clips to keep them all together, but I can't turn them while they're clipped, so I've been using the one pack method and turning my cards one by one, because I can hold them all together that way. It's very tedious. ALSO it's currently 2cm wide instead of 2.5cm because I didn't take into account the fact that I've only got half the amount of threads so of course the band will be narrower. DUH.
I'm not quite throwing another tantrum, I'm just taking a break because I'm on the verge of throwing stuff again. I have one more idea, and that is to swap which holes are threaded in each pair. At the moment the first card in the pair is threaded A and C, the second B and D so I'll try swapping them. Also I'm really hoping my calculations are correct and if I ever get this stupid thing figured out I'll still have enough warp left to get 6m of trim, because I refuse to do any unweaving with this. Unweaving will definitely lead to hulk smash and throwing stuff.
Honestly, this has just been a complete nightmare. I've never had this much trouble at every step of the process while tablet weaving, and usually if something goes wrong it kind of makes sense and I learn something. If anyone has any ideas of what I could be doing wrong and how to fix it, I'm all ears.
Two weeks ago I finally got around to making a warp. Since only two holes are threaded for this pattern, instead of the usual four, I had the BRILLIANT IDEA of putting both of my skeins on my yarn swift and making a continuous warp! The back of my mind was saying WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! because everyone knows string is evil, and string in skeins is exponentially more evil, so two skeins at once is a millionty times worse than the evil of just one skein.
Somehow, the string gods smiled on me and it worked! I have photographic evidence of two skeins on one yarn swift and a whole warp all neat and everything :D
That was two weeks ago. By now I should have finished the band, yes? Well, I think I'm paying my evil string debt or something, because it behaved during the warping process but as soon as I tried to move it to my loom it just tangled up into the most epic tangle ever tangled. So I have spent the last fortnight trying to untangle my 8m warp. There have been many tantrums, complete with swearing and throwing stuff. No photos because tantrum.
Yesterday I finally untangled my tangle, and I've used clothes pegs as bobbins to keep all the string separated and neat. So I tensioned the warp, wrote down the pattern and started weaving.
The first bit is where I tried to do the doubleface thing where one colour is on top and one on the bottom, because really this technique is the same as doubleface except there's just half the number of holes threaded. Obviously it wasn't working for me. After some searching on the internet I realised that every pair of tablets needs to have a thread in every hole. So it's like two tablets make a cord instead of one card making a cord. So I did some flipping and it started working! Kind of, my dimples are bigger than all the pictures of other bands and they're kind of in a line instead of being zig zaggy. Buuut I figured close enough, so I tried the pattern. The tablets are threaded alternating SS and ZZ, so I just guessed whether to start with S or Z. The first attempt of the pattern didn't have smooth lines, so I flipped all the tablets and tried again. STILL NO SMOOTH LINES AAAAAAAAAGH.
The other trouble I'm having is that since only two holes in each tablet are threaded, the tablets won't sit straight, they keep wanting to turn 45 degrees, which would be fine if they all wanted to turn the same way. But they don't so I've had to use one of my raddle clips to keep them all together, but I can't turn them while they're clipped, so I've been using the one pack method and turning my cards one by one, because I can hold them all together that way. It's very tedious. ALSO it's currently 2cm wide instead of 2.5cm because I didn't take into account the fact that I've only got half the amount of threads so of course the band will be narrower. DUH.
I'm not quite throwing another tantrum, I'm just taking a break because I'm on the verge of throwing stuff again. I have one more idea, and that is to swap which holes are threaded in each pair. At the moment the first card in the pair is threaded A and C, the second B and D so I'll try swapping them. Also I'm really hoping my calculations are correct and if I ever get this stupid thing figured out I'll still have enough warp left to get 6m of trim, because I refuse to do any unweaving with this. Unweaving will definitely lead to hulk smash and throwing stuff.
Honestly, this has just been a complete nightmare. I've never had this much trouble at every step of the process while tablet weaving, and usually if something goes wrong it kind of makes sense and I learn something. If anyone has any ideas of what I could be doing wrong and how to fix it, I'm all ears.
