A blog about tablet weaving and how to design your own belts.
I really enjoy working on this belt in wool and silk. The silver and blue are pure silk and the dark blue (accompanying thread) is 100% wool. I was worried that they would stretch differently, but it works out great. So a sneak preview!
More to come later…
I wanted to weave with some lovely pinkish-mauve yarns for a while, so I set up a regular 16 cards weave with Oseberg edging using these these colours (even though I don’t really use much pink, but the colours spoke to me). But when I started weaving, I feel that it turned out a bit too pink and I hesitated to change it by cutting out one or 2 threads per card. In the end I flipped the motif colors (mauve) and the background colour (green) and continued to weave approximately 2 m. I also worked on some variations of the leaf theme for 16 cards, which I will upload on the design page.
Then I attached the weft and cut out the accompanying colours to do some pebble weave with 2 missing holes, and it turned out much nicer than my initial weave. I regret not doing it sooner, since I only had enough warp to weave around 60cm.
The 1st belt looks like this:
The second, shorter pebble weave looks like this:
It’s amazing how the mauve colour looks so different (nicer) when the lighter thread is gone.
The switch…
This post is to (hopefully) clarify on how to play with missing threads, background and accompanying colours. All my motifs can be woven with these 4 variants of threading (with different results). Please give some feedback if it is not clear.
Case 1: Classical Sulawesi: One motif colour (red), one background colour (blue) and 2 threads with the accompanying colour (White).
Case 2: Sulawesi with 2 accompanying colours: motif colour (orange), one background colour (blue) and 2 threads with different accompanying colours (red and yellow). This is the example to the right. The left shows the threading, but has a variety of colours.
Case 3: One missing hole/3 threads Sulawesi: One motif colour (red), no background colour (empty hole = X) and 2 threads with the accompanying colour (yellow).
Case 4: 2 missing holes/2 threads Sulawesi or “Pebble weave”: One motif colour (orange), one background colour (brown) and the empty holes (X) where the accompanying colours should be.
The photos don’t do it justice, but the yellow really looks like gold. It is the longest weave I have done so far, over 3m. It was a custom piece for a good friend. Unfortunately we could not meet in person, since I have been down with Covid/flu/nasty cold for the last weeks.
Anyway some photos below (I added some designs to the design page for 24 cards.
I got a request for the dragon in the bottom right of the combined picture on top. I have 2 versions (as with many of my designs), one horizontal (as shown here) and one vertical. I added both below and to my 24 card designs page. Enjoy!
Creatures in squares
I like to weave in silk, but I also feel limited with the colours I have (since it does cost a bit more). Well, I am slowly advancing on this one. A lot of see creatures and some horses.
It looks better in real life, since the yellow looks really golden, but on the photo it is somehow “flat”. I will add some of the new designs to the design page (and below).
After this one, I plan to take a summer brake. C U in September.
It took some time to complete, but now it is done. I like it, but not my favourite. Maybe it is a bit to complicated with all the colour changes going on. It is nearly hypnotising when you look at it.
Well, here it is:
The Beginning….and the end!
Since I been working on my “Summer” and “Spring” belts, I felt the urge to do an Autumn belt, and I have at least started.
I used 11 different shades of yellow, orange, brown and green. Sneak preview below…
Here is a sneak preview of the forest green belt that I am working on now. I took the opportunity to try some new variations of my leaf designs.
The belt I talked about in my last blog post is finally finished. I am happy with how the gradient turned out and I had quite some comments on the “fire” aspect. I like how the fire is flanked by “water” from the blue border.
I have also been drawing quite a few alternative designs lately. I could not weave them all, but at least some of them. I will add the weaving diagrams asap here on my page for 24 card designs.
Now to the pictures:
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