The city of Birka was thriving trade center on the island of Björkö, Sweden during the 8th - 10th centuries. Archaeological finds include a number of tablet woven fragments. Many of these are in the brocade technique, in which threads of precious metals were woven into the top of the bands. Apparently, this is an advanced technique, but many of the Birka patterns have been interpreted as threaded in for less experienced tablet weavers. Birka 12 is one of those bands.
Pattern
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| Credit: Lady Eleyws of Finchingefeld |
This is the third in the Weave Along with Elewys series. New for this lesson are an increased number of tablets, plus the two-color border.
Yarn
Lion Brand Coboo (cotton / bamboo rayon blend)
Warping
Elewys uses an inkle loom for her tablet weaving. Since I'm using the backstrap method, I've pretty much skipped over the warping section of her videos. I was de-stemming cherry tomatoes the other day, however, and so watched the entire episode to pass the time. What I noticed was that she was able to measure her warp threads in pretty much color order. If I could do that, it would help eliminate the huge tangle I get from measuring my warp by color sections. For this pattern, each tablet contains two colors, so measuring two colors at a time was easy.
I also decided to add a warp cross to help keep track of thread order!
Side note: In Tablet Weaving: Skip Hole Ladoga, I showed you how I used ponytail elastics to stabilize the tablets with skipped holes. I also like to use them to stabilize the cross when I use my warp holder. It helps me to not pull out too many threads at once and mess up the warp order.
Conclusion? This measuring method is a keeper!
My band
I think I had more challenges with this one than any so far!
What I learned
One challenge of this band was that it was wider than any I'd done previously. The tablet turning sequence is short, which helped keep track of it. Even so, I messed up on one card which made a mistake in the pattern. I just turned it to the correct position and restarted from there. This was just a learning piece, so it didn't matter, but it told me I might want to add extra warp when weaving a project.
The other challenge was the building up of twist in the pattern cards. The pattern repeat is 10 turns long, with cards turning forward for a total of 7 and back for 3. Twist can be dealt with a number of ways, typically by reversing the direction of turning the tablets. A fancier set-up attaches warp ends to fishing swivels. I've been using the method of flipping the cards, so that S becomes Z and Z becomes S. This is what I tried for the pattern cards and it changed the pattern! Another interesting lesson learned.
One thing I'm getting better at is my selvedges. I'm finally pulling the weft firmly enough to get a smooth looking edge, instead of little weft bumps.
After I got my two problems behind me, weaving went quickly, and I finally managed to get a section of correctly woven Birka 12, which you see pictured above.
4 comments:
I don't understand any of the language, but I sure love that sample!
Michelle, lol. It's like anything else. You start at the beginning and make baby steps. Before you know it, you've built a knowledge base. :)
Your band is looking good. Tablet woven bands have really high tensile strength. Traditionally they have been used for animal harnesses and other things you need a strong strap for. I know I used one to tie down a load on a trailer once and it worked great.
Anonymous, now that's interesting! I'm just weaving shorter lengths for learning at the moment, but I've been thinking about what to do with them. I've thought of collars, but harnesses is a great idea. Thanks!
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