Totally pyramid.
I spent all day yesterday doing something I’ve meant to do for years. I made albums of each different pattern I’ve woven and copied a picture of each band into it. It doesn’t help anyone else because I don’t think I’ll post them anywhere [maybe on Flickr], but now I have a study of each pattern in different colors I’ve used. At some point maybe I’ll make a collage of each one.
Interpretation of the Durham Cathedral Seal Tag from 1194-1211CE, scaled up and modified to be a belt.
1.5″ wide, 7′ long including checkered split warp and tasseled ends.
Motifs repeated in descending order to extend the length, ABCDCBA
Two motifs replaced.
3-2 perle cotton in medium brown and new bud green.
Pattern from A Simplified Guide to Historical Tablet Weaving
Short version why I wove this belt: the year and location match up with my partner’s persona, I wanted to make him a special item for winter- gift- exchange holidays, and after another project I had enough warp left to weave it and it was already set up to weave double face and with enough cards!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYZ2uZAredQ/?utm_medium=copy_link
A couple years ago, before we even started dating, my Champion asked me to make him a Favor. I didn’t know what that is or anything about that tradition in LARPs and the SCA specifically. He explained it’s something he could wear onto the battlefield, tournament field, or jousting list to show he fights for my honor, or with me as his inspiration. It seemed like a big deal to me, especially finding the right inspiration for me to make something; I love card weaving but my output isn’t super high so I rarely give it as gifts and I’m not very crafty in other media. And frankly, I was apprehensive about making anything for a guy I’d just met.
Now, I’m comfortable making him something. Though I hadn’t planned to weave him a Favor.
For my birthday last year, he got me a new book of patterns I asked for: A Simplified Guide to Historical Tablet Weaving. It’s spectacular, there’s half a page of information about each extant artifact including where it was found, when it’s from, the specific width, original materials, and sometimes cultural information about how it was used or the people who used it. Honestly, I wasn’t thrilled about or planning to weave must of them because most are two hole patterns which frustrate me.
This summer I was considering what to make for him when I realized that the remaining warp left after a project was wide enough to weave the Durham Cathedral Seal Tag, which is wider than I typically weave so to do it as a main project I’d have to set up the warp specifically, and it was long enough to make it a belt. I hate warping, so even though I wouldn’t have intentionally chosen these colors, I couldn’t pass up an already- set up warp, half of which I wouldn’t have used for subsequent projects, otherwise. My Champion’s favorite color is green and he really likes trees, so luckily green and brown isn’t too weird for him.
His persona is 12th century Anglo- Norman from York, and would have been Catholic as Martin Luther didn’t nail his theses until several centuries later. Durham is near York and the seal tag is a few decades late but is close enough to be in the appropriate ballpark. I was very excited to weave a belt so appropriate to his persona! I don’t know how long it would take me to find a closer pattern or if there even is one.
I decided to replace two of the four motifs. One was actual swastikas, the other was too reminiscent of them for my comfort. I asked in the SCA card weaving group about replacing motifs as a practice and was told it’s commonly done for various reasons and how to address it if I do a writeup about this project. I had an idea for one replacement and was given other ideas. I actually used three replacements; because I repeated the motifs again in descending order to make the piece long enough to be a belt, I chose to alter one motif the second time I wove its set of three because I decided I preferred it. While it probably would have been more in the spirit of the original to be a perfect mirror image, changing and altering motifs throughout a band is typical of card weaving as a medium through history, so I’m not too bothered by it in this band. There are also two major mistakes that I hid from the camera in these pictures but are on full display when he wears it.
I wove this over the summer intending it to be a Twelfth Night gift. However, my Champion and I are flurby and like ceremony and pageantry, so I wanted to make a show of giving it to him. We were able to go to a campout this fall with many of his friends and members of his Household also attending. I conspired with the head of his Household to set the scene, telling stories and gathering friends around. Then she provided a segue for me to bring up his request for a Favor, my being unsure of its significance or what one should even physically be, and then present him with this belt woven by mine own hand. He was very touched and was then a little hard to pin down to explain the significance of the pattern to! Then at my prompting, but to my relief giving no resistance, he ran around the gathering we were at showing it off to his friends who hadn’t been directly present. My heart lept into my mouth when he came back and said he’d shown the weaving Laurel and her newly minted Apprentice, whose ceremony to formalize that relationship we had just witnessed. We were at the reception that followed. I was frankly shocked when he told me they oohed and ahhed over my work and complimented specific elements.
I’ve waited with great anticipation until now to make this post, given that last week was Twelfth Night! I started writing it several times since giving it and each time remembered I wanted to wait. I would have posted it earlier, but I was laid up after my Covid-19 booster shot! Happy Twelfth Night, happy end of the interminable xmas season, and most of all happy boostering!
Drachenwald is starting a 30 Day Arts Challenge in November. Every day, you spend 15 minutes on art. It could be sewing, researching (Pinterest counts), calligraphy, block printing, stained glass, etc.
Monday, Nov 1st I accompanied William to Monday night fighter practice. I spent the time sorting out a card weaving warp that had gotten disheveled from toting it about.
A later day that week I started hand sewing the top of a center- set gore, including French seaming, an endeavor that I’ve put off for three+ years.
The next day, I finished it. It’s a little puckered, and I’m very mad it’s off-center. It’s definitely noticeable because it’s a different color. But it’s done.
Friday the 5th we prepared the custard for a quiche in case we needed lunch at an event Sunday. Not exactly art [not that it can’t be, but specifically I’m certainly no artist in the kitchen] but relevant to SCA participation.
We didn’t eat it for lunch, but it’s been nice to have it this week.
Sunday I didn’t weave, but I brought my loom along.
Monday, Nov 8th, I hand sewed the top of the back center set gore. It’s not perfect, either, but it’s better than the front one I sewed last week. And it’s centered. Of course.
I also wove during fighter practice.
Today, Day 9, I hand sewed a rolled hem on two wool gussets I need to put into a wool tunic. I have one and a half sides to hem on one gusset.
I also posted a short entry about the gussets and tweaked past entries mostly with tags. That’s all after I recovered my forgotten password, oops.
Then, I want to roll the edges of the sleeves before whip stitching the gussets into place. The edges of the body of the tunic are already rolled and ready to be connected. I hope to get it wearable for Saturday.
All these things took far longer than fifteen minutes each. I don’t work quickly.
I want to write entries in chronological order, partly because I don’t produce all that much. But maybe I’ll write about contemporary projects sometimes.
I hate sewing and I always make it more complicated than it has to be. A few years ago I picked up a yard of a wool remnant and started hand sewing a Celt tunic from it. I didn’t understand how they work and didn’t cut the sleeves wide enough. I hadn’t read anything giving dimensions and don’t have an innate sense of how pieces work together.* I need to add underarm gussets, which makes it incorrect construction. Oops. I have a little extra wool remnant, it’s another fabric but it’ll be fine.
I cut the gussets but decided I better roll and sew the edges. I’m doing it by hand with the same wool yarn I’m sewing the tunic from.
One down. Here’s hoping they’re big enough.
*If you’re trying to make a tunic without underarm gussets, the body should be wide enough that the shoulders fit at least 1/3 or 1/2 way down your upper arm, or even all the way to your elbow.
The higher your shoulder sits, the wider your sleeve needs to be, at least at the top. My bicep is only about thirteen inches wide, but the top of my sleeve should be 20″-23″. Maybe even wider, I haven’t tested that yet.
This was supposed to be Pattern Draft 9 again, but I forgot to thread Black Black Green Green to make the stripes double wide. Instead I threaded them alternating, Black Green Black Green.
I wove it for the silent auction for a day event. Turlough and Finé ended up winning it!
My first attempts at double face double turn. The grey and black is Sampler Pattern B from Card Weaving by Candace Crockett.
After I started posting my weaving to Facebook in early 2015, a few friends commissioned belts or straps from me. I only charged for my materials, not time or effort, and stressed that I was a beginner so there were definitely going to be mistakes and I couldn’t guarantee how the bands would hold up. I wasn’t even familiar with the fiber I was using, Pima Cotton Ultra Fine. The book recommended using “weaving yarn”. My LYS [local yarn shop] was not familiar with that and recommended this. It worked to learn with. Greek Key was the pattern everyone asked for out of the few I could offer. It’s always been one of my favorite motifs, which is why it was one of the first patterns I learned. It was Pattern Draft 13 in the second edition of Candace Crockett’s Card Weaving. I focused on the patterns that I thought may be most likely to be like what was woven historically.
These were woven over February through April, 2015. I was weaving about two belts a month. The brown and green was my first art trade! I wove it in exchange for a linen lined wool viking hat, as one of my personae at the time was generic viking and I couldn’t get the pieces to lay right. I wove it for https://instagram.com/badgerreclaimed who will be reopening her Etsy shop soon. The green/ natural and blue/ natural were commissioned by a friend of mine, Sho’nuff, who is a Tuchux. He was particularly supportive when I started card weaving and still compliments my work and my progress. Support and encouragement meant a lot to me when I first started. It means a lot to me, now, but it seemed so difficult at first that I needed outside encouragement and people showing interest kept me working at it.
The double sided bands happened to use an entire skein of each color, which were 136 yards long.
I was using cardstock expired coupons with holes punched in each corner for cards. For a loom, the book recommends a board with a C clamp at each end. Luckily, someone gave me a 30″x8″ piece of plywood and two C clamps. I didn’t know what C clamps were at the time and get utterly overwhelmed in hardware stores. I discovered that the cards have to be cut square, leaving them rectangular messes up the tension of the warp.
I tried a few different patterns using highly contrasting colors, black, grey, and cream, to practice the mechanics. I didn’t finish any of them, I don’t think I’d cut them long enough to be belts, anyway. Finally, I felt confident enough to make a belt. I chose Pattern Draft 9 from my second edition Candace Crockett Card Weaving, chevrons in which the center two cards are all one color except one hole each, making a line with dots down the center. It’s striking and a little less busy to look at than full chevrons. It’s still one of my favorite patterns. At the end, for fun and experimenting, I split the warp for several inches, then brought it back together. I thought it might be more convenient to hang a mug or pouch from.
I finished this band in early February, 2015, and for Valentine’s Day gave it to the guy I was dating. We’d gotten him garb and I was hoping he’d get into nerdcamping. He had seen me weaving this belt and knew how hard I’d worked on it and was completely surprised when I gave it to him. He was very touched.
I had been in a medievally LARP for several years. In 2014, I was really itching for a handicraft more portable than sewing. I had heard about card weaving but I’d never seen it done, not even on YouTube. In middle school I got pretty into making friendship bracelets. I thought card weaving might fulfill the same drive.
For xmas I was given a hardcover copy of the second edition of Candace Crockett’s book, “Card Weaving”. I made cards, got out some embroidery floss which was over a decade old, and gave it a try. My attempt was atrocious, I didn’t understand how the pattern is produced, nor how to read a pattern.
But I loved it and I’ve been doing it ever since.
I had been to Pennsic several times.
First post. Are you as excited as I am?
I’ve been encouraged to start a blog to catalogue my crafting for the SCA. I won’t update this regularly or frequently. Here’s hoping I don’t forget about it. And more hope that I passably figure out how to use this, I’m a little dubious.
WordPress suggests answering these questions in one’s first post:
Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal? This will hopefully be about my crafting, mostly for the SCA. I’ve been encouraged to record such things. I’ve also been told recording the challenges I encounter may help others doing similar things. That would be nice.
What topics do you think you’ll write about? I sew mediocrely. I’ve been card weaving since 2015. I finger loop braid. I’m trying to learn sprang. I’m starting an Iron Age Insular Celt kit from scratch, so I’m trying to make it plausibly accurately from the skin out. I do a casual Roman kit when it’s hot [don’t tell the Celts 😉 ]. I want to make at least one generally accurate Safavid Persian outfit. I suck at research so I get all my information filtered through other people’s blogs like this, it can be very frustrating.
Who would you love to connect with via your blog? I guess I’d like to connect with people doing similar things.
If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished? I’ll hope to have not just posted pictures of my finished work, but works in progress and my thoughts about them and things I learn in the process.
Scheiny: threading my way through the SCA