Monday, October 3, 2011

The Devil's Own Band

You may remember my hopeful post of a few days ago about the start of my second tablet-woven band using the 4-tablet, 12-strand Lagore Crannog pattern. Sadly, my hopefulness (hope of weaving a tight, consistently-patterned band) did not last long. When I picked up where had I left off, I was entirely unable to continue or resume the pattern shown in my photograph. Instead, all I got was a monotonous, pebbled mush of a pattern...or rather a non-pattern.

After unpicking what I had done several times, I finally realized that the problem was that one of the tablets had gotten flipped to the opposite orientation. I could have sworn that I had never released the cards for long enough, or given them enough room, to flip. But flipped it was.

Unfortunately, even after re-flipping the tablet I could not reestablish the pattern, and the lack of tension in the warp from having had to unpick the weave several times meant that I could not even weave the band with the tightness of my original 9 or so passes. So I cut the monstrosity free, rewarped the loom, and started over. 

I still haven't reachieved the pattern shown in the photo in my last post, but at least I have a better idea now how to tell when a tablet gets flipped, and my band is reasonably tightly woven. So far. We'll see what happens next.

4 comments:

  1. It's so incredibly irritating when that happens! Or when a tablet or two mysteriously switches places... I hope it all comes together for you!
    /Fanny

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  2. Fanny, thanks for the kind words of encouragement. Hopefully, I can at least manage to weave a consistent pattern...ANY pattern...this time.

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  3. Tablet weaving is an exercise in persistence and patience. Wool is not easy, so cut yourself a little figurative slack!

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  4. Thanks, Kim. Now that you mention it, the Lagore Crannog band was the first project I worked with wool; my previous efforts were cotton. I actually like the way it weaves, but when the warp stretches, it sags with a vengeance.

    Ah well, It's a good thing I'm experimenting now, before I try the Snartnemo II band in fine wool thread!

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