The band that I am currently weaving is the most complex I have tried yet. Consequently, it is taking a very long time to weave, mostly thanks to the huge amount of unweaving I've had to do to fix some mistakes. This got me thinking that it would be a good idea to make a blog post about a basic rule of tablet weaving which is invaluable in figuring out where you went wrong. This rule is so important, in fact, that I like to call it the First Law of Tablet Weaving.
The first law of tablet weaving states:
"When turning a tablet, the thread which is up and moves across the top will tell you what color you will be weaving that pick."Think of it this way, before turning the tablet you will have two threads at the "up" position (I am defining "up" as the face of the band you are weaving). When that tablet is turned, one of these threads will move towards the "down" position, and one of the threads will move across the top of the band but still remain the the "up" position. Here is an illustration which shows what I mean:
Note that before turning the tablet, the thread labeled A is in the "up" position, after turning it has moved across the top but yet remained in the "up" position. Conversely, the thread labeled B is in the "up" position at first, but drops into the "down" position after turning the tablet. In this example the line being woven will be red for this pick because that is the color of the thread that has moved across the top of the band.
I cannot over stress how important it is to understand this rule if you are tablet weaving. It will not only let you know ahead of time if you are weaving correctly, but if you have made a mistake, it will be invaluable in figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it. As in all arts and sciences, understanding the theory of what you are doing before you do it will demystify the "magic" behind the patterns you are following and you will then be able to solve your own problems. In fact, once you understand this rule, it becomes possible to make your own complex patterns.
How can understanding this rule help you figure out a mistake? Well, when unweaving, paying attention to the position of the threads in the tablets which are giving you the mistake will tell you which thread moved up when you turned it. If that thread does not match the color that you are expecting, then you can further deduce whether you perhaps turned the tablet an extra turn, or maybe missed turning it altogether. It takes some practice, but since any weaver will make plenty of mistakes, and therefore do a lot of unweaving, then you will eventually be able to quickly pick out where mistakes were made.
