Sometimes, things just line up, and then exciting things happen. Such as a weekend workshop on tablet weaving that I will give, on January 18-20 2019 - in a stunningly beautiful house in Méry, Belgium. I am utterly, utterly thrilled by this - and maybe you are too?

The house is the Merveille de Méry, a 19th century country house, lovingly restored and beautifully situated in woody grounds. It's near Liège, which means it is easy to reach by train (and there will be a shuttle service to the house).



My workshop will run from Friday late afternoon to Sunday afternoon, and we will explore in depth the structures of tablet weaving. The aim is to give you a deep understanding of how patterning in tablet weaving works:

- the differences in s- or z-warping
- their relation to patterns and turn directions
- how to tell where you are in a pattern
- how to see which thread colours will appear next in your band
- how to fix mistakes
- how to transition from threaded-in patterns with two colours to doublefaced weaves

These things are taught as part of a system, starting with making a continuous warp. The deep understanding of how tablet weaving works, together with this system, will enable you to:

- analyse, understand, and copy bands that you see
- draft your own patterns with two or more colours
- weave patterned bands without any pattern draft, similar to how bands have been woven in the past.

This workshop may even take you to the basics of weaving 3/1 broken twill - the type of patterning used in the most complex of medieval tablet woven bands.

Workshop start is Friday, January 18, 6 pm; you can arrive at the house from 2 pm. The workshop ends on Sunday, January 20, at 4 pm. If you are travelling by train, a shuttle service from Liège to Méry on Friday and back on Sunday is possible.

I'm so delighted to be able to offer this - I've been wanting to do a larger tablet weaving workshop for a while now, and to have the opportunity to do it in such a stunning house, where we will have one room dedicated to our weaving and the rest of the house to relax between sessions, this is just awesome.

If you are interested, you can book your spot - including food and drink! - via my shop. If you book before December 10, you get the Early Bird Special Price of 395 €; after this, the regular fee is 425 €.

I'm already looking forward to this so much!

In 2017, Anja got together with me to organise a weekend meet-up for sewing, chatting, and having some workshops with me, called "Historisches Nähtreffen", and that was such a success that we decided to do it again.

So we asked people if they would like a second one (they did!) and what kind of workshops they would like, and in the end, we decided on the basics of sewing and on how to spin with distaff and spindle, just like last year, and two new kids on the block: medieval embroidery and an introduction to sprang.

Which means I've been sitting down doing some sprang in the last weeks, too - to find out about possible frame solutions for the workshop, to test materials and, of course, to make a plan for the actual workshop. As in "what to teach and in what sequence".

The result? This:



That's the preliminary test run, and there will be more tests - but I really like how this came out, and that it is actually large enough to fit a phone (or a powerbank, in this case). I'm also amazed, as usual, how stretchy this is. When it came off the frame, it was really long and really narrow, and I had my doubts that it would actually fit. It still gets longer and narrower when taken off:



Sprang. Fascinating.

I need some guinea pigs. Or, as the Germans call it, "Versuchskarnickel".

I have mentioned I was planning to make a video workshop on the pattern-free tablet weaving method, right?

Well, the "planning to" has progressed to "I have a script, and a camera, and I am getting started". Which is nice. However, since this is the first thing in that line of work, and since I want to make sure that what I am doing is going to work for those who will be watching the videos, I need some guinea pigs to give me feedback on the test runs of the lessons.

What does that mean? It means I will send you download links to the videos I have made, taking you through the course from start to finish, with probably some wait times inbetween as things get into the way or I get sidetracked or have technical issues. You will be getting test run videos that are probably badly cut (I will not invest oodles of hours into the test run) and contain the occasional verbal blunder. Some of them will not be made with the final materials.

Your task, if you are joining the merry band of furry victims, will be to watch the videos, follow the instructions, and tell me everything that was not good, not clear, not helpful, or otherwise shitty. (And yes, I fully expect to hear a lot of "this was shitty" - after all, it's first steps in many regards for me.) That starts with the instructions themselves, obviously, but goes on to camera work and camera angle, lighting, or maybe just the fact you find that my beheaded upper body is twitching too much while holding shears and bits of yarn into the camera. (I will also ask you to provide your full contact data, and sign an agreement form that you will not pass on or publicise the videos or parts of them in any way.) I'm not keen on hearing that I am doing a lot of things badly, but I much prefer hearing about them from a band of testers with minds steeled against weird takes than from the paying customers later on.

What do you need to join in? Basically, just the will to do it, and enough time for doing the tablet weaving according to the instructions. It will eat some hours, as it is a slow task, but if you are interested in this, you will probably find it fun and not tedious. You do not need to be an expert in tablet weaving - in fact, I'd be happy to have one or two absolute beginners in the group, and you will be able to follow along just as well, as we're doing the system from scratch.

You will also, apart from your general willingness, a way to watch the downloaded videos, and the time to do stuff and then give me feedback, need 30 tablets plus yarn to weave with... and two points to tie your warp to. There will be a video bit about tools and materials, so you'll be informed properly. (Or so I hope.)

I am aiming for about a dozen folks. So... if you are interested, let me know via mail, or contact form, or through the comments here - preferably with a short summary of your previous tablet weaving experience, so I can get a basic idea, and I'll get back to you with further info!

My current holiday knitting has finally been finished! Now winter can come (it was a scarf).

It is actually already blocked and the (two) ends are sewn in, so it really is finished and not just in the "finished but not completely so" stage that a lot of my knits spend a while in.

And because knitting progress is much nicer in pics... here you go:



This is what came off the needles - and the tiny ball of yarn is what was left. I modified it a tiny bit by leaving out one of the repeats of the middle section, though in retrospective I could have done that and still have one or two repeats of the last section - this way, I have three of the last section. Also good.

This scarf was supposed to measure about 150-160 cm in length after blocking, with about 20 cm of width.

Well...



Mine turned out more than 2 m long, and significantly wider than 20 cm. So I now have a really long, really wide scarf.

 
(I also realised that blocking a plain straight edge is better done from the middle outwards than from one side... made a huge difference. One day I will learn how to block, I'm sure.)



It is a really nice scarf/stole, and it was nice to knit as well. The pattern is Siren Song by Louise Zass-Bangham, yarn was my handspun.



One happy knitter.

There has been holiday knitting, and there has been non-holiday knitting.

The difference between those categories, by the way, is that holiday knitting has to be

a) easy enough to be worked on trains, buses, and planes, so no utterly elaborate lace or other things that require me to look into instructions all the time,

b) a large enough project to make sure it will last the whole of the holidays, yet

c) small enough (or divisible into small enough parts) for me to take along.

Non-holiday knitting does not need to be any of this. Now an almost-finished cardi definitely does not fall under holiday knitting, so Cushing Isle stayed at home, where it has seen some more action now. So much action, in fact, that both sleeves are now finished and have been blocked.



As you can see, I'm still not the Queen of Blocking Things To The Same Size On The First Try... they did get to be similarly sized, though, eventually, and now they are waiting to be seamed up. Then they will be waiting for the button bands to be finished (I'm still picking up stitches for that), and then, eventually again, there will be a new cardi in my wardrobe.

Which is nice - because there's the next project already waiting!

And the doggy is done - finally!

This one was actually inspired by an original published in Audrey Henshall, "Five Tablet-Woven Seal tags"(article behind paywall). It's not looking as elegant by far as the original, which has a proper eye and keeps its head up much more, and has a nicer jaw and slightly different paws... but it's a running dog-like critter, and, most important to me, was woven with only very slight residual muddling up of tablet directions and alignments.



As you can see, my version turned out a little club-headed and thick-necked. I'm still very, very happy with this, though; weaving it was an interesting mix of excitement and relaxation, with only very few "oh my goodness now I have to fudge this bit" moments. I'm also getting better at transitions between the different design elements and at getting the timing for these transitions right.

Now I'll have a think about what to do next... it might be time to tackle some geometric motif for a change, to see how that works. Or another peacock, in a different design. Or a phoenix (that might be really interesting, with flames and such). So many choices, so little time - it takes me about a full day of work to weave one of these critters, so it's still a time-consuming thing.

Speaking of time and time-consuming things, as usual, my autumn will be getting rather crazy, so I am taking a few days off before the final craziness that is preparing for the ETF. Which means a little blog break as well - I'll be back on the blog on Wednesday, October 10.  Have fun until then!

... that's appearing on this band.

 


Some more things have fallen into place, and I've invented some more mnemonic rhymes that are more or less silly, but all very helpful for me.

Now there's only (hah!) the torso and front paws and head to weave, and I will have a doggy on my band. Making the hind paws was exciting, especially the first one, and I was very proud to have gotten the distance to the second leg large enough. Which, on retrospective, would have been very hard not to - due to the structural rules when weaving. Anyways, it was a lot of fun up until now, and a very exhilarating feeling of "oh my goodness this all works as it's supposed to!" which is a nice change from "oh my goodness I've gotten totally muddled and this may look pink but it's all in the wrong direction and I'm out of the rhythm so I need to fudge this and hope it won't be too obvious".

So... half a dog done, half to go. Though I should probably also take care of some other things...