Tablet Weaving - First Attempts

My first attempt at basic tablet weaving, using crappy acrylic wool from Value Village smile emoticon

I did about 13 inches today on my lunch, about 40 minutes work, getting the hang of how to turn the cards and pass the shuttle etc. etc. Had some fun trying different numbers of turns to see the resulting pattern. All in all I think it came out pretty darn good for my first ever try!

Started out a bit rough, getting the tension down and feeding the shuttle through, but quickly caught on.
I had my strands clipped to a wall mounted rack on my cubicle and the other end looped around the arm of my chair. Worked okay for this little bit, but not particularly practical for any real projects. There be a loom build in my future 
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The middle section, as I played around with different numbers of turns forward and backward. I need to pay a bit more attention to making sure my weft is pulled tight when I go from left to right. Had a few loose spots that made uneven edges, but some parts turned out quite well I think.

I started doing odd turns at the end, patterns of three forward and three back, and then finished with a couple turns of two before I had run out of room and had to stop. 
I have already learnt so much just from this first test piece! Really pleased with the progress I've made and I'm excited to try something more!

My first attempt at a tablet weaving loom.

Made from the left over shelf bits I had from my plate rack project and some dowel. It's about 26" long.

The tension end. I have a dowel that can twist and is stopped by a peg to tie the strands to, and a second dowel that can be in either a low or high position for an extra bit of tension or to raise the work angle. Here it is in the bottom slot.

And here it is in the top slot. I may also be able to use them to take up extra length of the strands, not sure yet. I'm not working from any plans here, just trying an idea, so I'm not sure how well it will all work yet

The working end, with a dowel to tie onto. I made this one a slot so that it could be easily removed if I need to, though it might have been a better idea to make it the same as the tension one at the other end with a loose removable pin... these two extra dowels are loose when not warped which means they could be lost I suppose... Will try setting it up and doing some work on it tomorrow!

Second tablet weave attempt, first selvedge, first weave on my loom.
Had some tension issues, and in the end decided to start over so cut it off.

Third attempt, using the loom as a 'backstrap' loom, with the ends tied together to make a continuous warp. Worked much better for moving the piece as I worked. I dropped the selvedge for now, but still had the same weft yarn on my shuttle so you can see orange dots here and there.
Oh, and when I put it back on the loom I ended up reversing the direction of the cards, hence the curvey shapes instead of the angular ones of the previous attempt. Neat!

Mercerised cotton - purple and variegated yellow, approx. 40 cm (both pieces)
Nice to work with.


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4 forward

Mercerised cotton - close up of small piece.
I tried a triangle pattern here, but I think something wasn't quite right, as evidenced by that trailing line of yellow that loops around the edge... not sure why that happened, maybe just because I didn't have an outside edge to hide it.

Wool/wool blend, approx. 48 cm.
This is my favourite one so far, even though it's 'plain'. Was going to be a diamond pattern (double triangle) but ended up with the points facing into each other instead of the bases, so it's a strange sort of hourglass/bowtie. I like it though.

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4 forward, 4 back

Mercerised Cotton, double diamond weave, 52 cm.
Had the worst time warping this one, for some reason. Then it turns out two cards were threaded wrong, but I was able to fix them by simply rotating them to the correct orientation. Finally got a chance to start weaving once I got home from work. Then snapped two of the threads while pushing the twist back. But I spliced them and kept going. Until they snapped again, at which point I'd had enough of this one. At least I probably got enough to do two cuffs if I want.

Started playing with figuring out the double faced weave. Had some trouble to start, and then started getting it, though my image still didn't look the same on the other side. Will require much more practice.

Also did a continuous warp this time, what a time saver! I am definitely going to make myself a continuous warp loom for those styles that have all the same threads in every card, it's so much easier!