I just finished and packaged up about 12' of trim.
The trim was for a friend that's being elevated to the Order of the Mark (for those not in the SCA, a lifetime achievement award).
Talking with them, I showed them trim that was made with inspiration from trim found at the Oseberg dig, often called "Oseberg trim".
What I made was a modified version of the "cog teeth" pattern (my husband's description). I added some extra warps on either side, including some warps of contrasting color, as the recipient wanted the trim to be wider than what others had made.
Now, I've done tablet/card weaving before that were done on Inkle Looms that were balanced weaves. Four turns forward, four turns back.
I didn't want to do that for this, and in fact, I didn't want to flip the cards to "untwist" the warps. So, I went with a small tape loom I had.
Which worked... itsh. Not great and I wasn't able to get much woven before having to manually untangle the warp threads.
I moved to a "loom" that was gifted to me. the inspiration was a loom from another Scandinavian find, but modernized. It's pretty and it worked... ish. The problem again was that I could only do so much before having to untangle the threads.
There were two things I decided to change to see about improving the experience.
I had put the warp threads for each card on a weighted bobbin thread holder. Thinking to untangle some of that, I put two threads on one bobbin instead. The added weight, I thought, would help tension the warp better, thinking of warp weighted looms.
For the record, I think it helped, but it did make the loom(s) more than a little "back" heavy. And the weights did add up making the whole weaving surprisingly heavy.
I also switched to a "bow loom", which was a first for me. It did allow me to do more than 2 inches before needing to untangle, but the most was about 10 inches. I spend a lot of time untangling. It seemed that I would weaving for about 10 minutes, and then spent 50 minutes untangling.
When I got to the last foot or so, I needed to switch to a smaller loom, and went back to the other loom inspired by a Scandinavian dig. It allowed be to get the final stretch because there wasn't as much "dead" space. Or "tangle" zone. On the bow loom, the bobbins were all let out all the way, but the tension became off because I took off the clip I was using to tension. I did that because there were a few bobbins that held less than others, and I was trying to use the shorter warps to keep the tension. Didn't work. Moving to the smaller loom, I was able to tension better and get the last bit done.
So, lessons learned.
1. The loom type matters. But having options isn't a bad thing.
2. Plastic clips made for bags (think potato chip bag), work very well for holding threads. I got a pack with several sized clips off That Website. They worked really well. I used large ones for tensioning on the ends, medium ones to hold threads around the tablets/cards when I was detangling or was done for the day (and having three cats, on needs to make sure that if something is knocked over that it's still secured and the cards won't randomly jumble), and I used the smallest ones to hold groups of the warp threads (four cards worth, which was eight bobbins). This allowed me to detangle sections, and keep the warp threads as orderly as I could.
3. Good audiobooks are really helpful.
4. If I were to do this again, I might break it down into to two pieces. Or use one bobbin/thread, and one clip per card. I was also thinking about getting a wide tooth comb and somehow spacing the warp threads out better.
5. I need to take more pictures.
6. I was asked for 4 yards of trim (12 feet). I measured for 16' (5.333... Yards), figureing on 20% shrinkage while weaving, and some extra for loss at the start and end. That seemed to work well, but I might even add an extra foot next time.
And with that, I need to get my ass to bed.
I finished the trim, packaged it, and the other half is dropping it off on his way home from work.
I'll add a few pictures when I get up later. If I remember.
