First try at Double Faced Tablet Weaving

As I stated before, there are two main purposes to this blog. 1) to document the woven bands I make and 2) so that hopefully readers will learn from my mistakes and have their lives made a bit easier. This post will try to hit on both points and specifically will focus on the double-faced tablet weaving technique.

In my previous post, which was my first attempt at tablet weaving, a couple of very important lessons
were learned:

1. Twist is a big issue that must be dealt with, and there are ways to cope
2. Many mistakes will be made and learning how to unweave those mistakes is paramount
3. The tools you use will make your life much easier
4. DON'T get too ambitious

Of course on my second attempt at tablet weaving I made some changes to accommodate for the first three lessons, but completely ignored the fourth. This will become a running theme with this blog, I think.

My second tablet weaving project was an attempt at double faced tablet weaving. This method is able to create very complex patterns with the added perk of giving you a color-switched version of the same pattern on the obverse of the band (thus the term 'double-faced').  Being still a complete beginner, I decided to take advantage of a great youtube tutorial by Marni Niles, which you can find here and here.  Marni is nice enough to provide the climbing vine pattern she uses in these tutorials, and all I did was slightly modify it to make it easier for me to read.

Now, onto the process.


Using the Right Tools

1. Fishing swivels make taking care of warp twist a breeze (no this isn't period appropriate, but at this point I'm not going for historicity, rather I'm trying to get the process down). The idea is that each warp thread is tied off to each end of a swivel. When the twist accumulates, it can be combed out and the swivels will turn independently on each side such that you will end up with a straight warp again. The swivels I used I purchased from Amazon.  These were super cheap and very effective. I wish they had the larger loop on both ends, but they serve their purpose well. One thing I did notice is that it's best to trim off as much of the excess warp after you tie off the swivels, otherwise, the threads tend to get caught in the swivel while it is spinning fast which can lead to it becoming jammed.  One other thing I'd change is to also use swivels on the pattern threads since this pattern is not twist neutral.
   

      

   Swivels are a must-use for the selvedges. Note too much excess warp which did end up making the swivels jam eventually.

    
2. Home-made tablets (made from playing cards as can be seen in the previous blog post) will do just fine in a pinch, but they wear out very fast.  Store bought tablets are laminated and will last longer.  They will also have nicely rounded edges, clearly marked hole,s and are all the exact same size and shape.  All these features makes them a little easier to turn.  This is more of a personal choice rather than a must-have, many many people do just fine by making their own tablets.  Eventually I'd like to have wooden tablets, but that is more of a pipe-dream right now.                                                                                                                  _                     
3. It can be difficult to keep track of where you are on the pattern, which will lead to mistakes.  I've noticed that each person has their own method for keeping track of where they are on the pattern.  One thing that worked for me was to use a metallic board (I bought one at Target meant to be a message board) and use a magnet with a straight edge to keep track of my location. Any magnet will do, mine came right of the fridge (an of course is super geeky!).

Having all of the necessary implements to make my life much easier, I embarked on the creation of this new band. All in all, the process was not as difficult as I had imagined. I was very confused at first and had to unweave a few lines, but a few careful watches of the above-mentioned tutorials was enough to clear most of my questions and make the rest of the process much easier.

Learning Though Mistakes

The real difficult part was noticing I had made a mistake and having to figure out what the mistake was. One thing which made this process easier is that this technique gives you a little hint as to what the mistake was. In my case the background threads are white and the pattern was green (with blue selvedge cards that continuously turn forwards). If I suddenly found myself with the colors inverted, that is, if I ended up with green where there should be white and white where there should be green, then that means that I either skipped a line in the pattern (a pick) or I repeated a line I already wove.  This is due to the way the cards are threaded for double-faced tablet weave. If you make either one of these mistakes, the cards will be either a quarter turn ahead or behind, and the wrong color thread will come up. This is explained by the First Law of Tablet Weaving, which I will make a separate post on later.

Now Onto the Results!

All in all, I was very pleased with this project. There are a couple of mistakes here and there, but they are minor and barely noticeable (unless you know what you are looking for). Pictures below:

Close-up of the pattern. Climbing vine.

"Obverse" side of the band, green pattern on white background.

"Reverse" side of the band, white pattern on green background.