Tablet Weaving Structures(1).pdf

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Tablet Weaving Structures

Theory and History

Sarah Goslee

12 March, 2004

There are a few tablet weaving structures commonly recognized by weavers,

including warp twining, doubleface and 3/1 broken twill. Others are known

from premedieval and medieval contexts, but are lessoften used, and many

more structures are possible. In this article, I present a systematic method for

classification and analysis of all possible tabletwoven structures. By

"structures", I mean only the physical form of the band, regardless of the color

patterns that may appear. Decorative color patterns are an essential feature

determining the appearance of a tabletwoven band, but they are not a

structural component the structure would be the same even if the warps were

all identically colored.

The structure of tablet weaving is determined by five main characteristics:

• the shape or number of holes in the tablets.

• which of the holes contain warp threads.

• the threading direction of the warp.

• the turning pattern.

• whether adjacent tablets are set up the same way.

Each of these will be considered in more detail below.

Basics

All of my explanations assume a common frame of reference, the "standard

setup" used by most tablet weavers (Fig. 1). This has the weaver sitting at the

cloth end of the warp, and the other end attached farther away from the

weaver. I also assume that the weaver is looking at the warp from the right

side. If you prefer to work in a different arrangement, you may need to make

mental adjustments while reading. I use this arrangement because then in

diagrams the weaving progresses from left to right, in the direction English

speakers are used to reading. Loom weavers may be used to looking at drafts

written in the opposite direction.

Figure 1. Standard position of weaver, warp and tablets. weaver / cloth end

warp end

weaver /

cloth end

warp

end

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Tablet Shape

The vast majority of weaving tablets are square, with four holes, one per

corner. Triangular tablets have been found, and there is evidence for the use of

six and eightholed tablets as well. The structural classification here can be

applied to tablets of any shape, but I am only going to work with square tablets

in this article since they are universal among modern tablet weavers.

While there are nearly as many schemes for labeling the holes of a tablet as

there are weavers using them (or at least authors and manufacturers), I am

going to use a particular system in this article. This is the one that seems most

logical to me. If you look at the right face of the tablet, the holes of the tablet

are labeled A B C D moving in a counterclockwise direction starting with the

top hole nearest the weaver (Fig. 2). This arrangement means that when a

tablet is turned forward, first the warp in A crosses over the top and is seen,

then the warp in B, followed by C and D.

Figure 2. Labels I use for the holes of a tablet, as seen from the right.

B C

Many (most?) commercial tablets are labeled in a clockwise direction. In that

case, just put the labeled face on the left side of the pack instead of the right

side so that the AD line is on top. For everything I'mgoing to talk about here,

the only important part is that A is the top hole closest to the weaver, and B is

the bottom hole closest to the weaver.

Even 4hole tablets have two different sets of sheds : the usual single shed

created when tablets are used flat, and the paired shed created by tablets on

their points. I'm only going to consider tablets used flat, as in Fig. 3a.

Figure 3. Possible sheds created by fourhole tablets used flat (a) or on their

points (b).

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Tablet Threading

Even with fourhole tablets, there are several possible threading arrangements,

since not all holes need to contain warp threads. A fourhole tablet can contain

4, 3, 2 or 1 warp threads, and two arrangements of two threads are possible

(Fig. 4).

Figure 4. Possible ways to thread a square tablet.

Note that there are two ways to thread a tablet with two warp threads. I'm only

going to discuss two of these patterns, a and c, which appear to be the most

common in historical finds. I also use examples with one thread per tablet (e)

as examples, but these are not really useful for actual weaving.

Threading two adjacent holes creates possibilities beyond the scope of this

article, since any woven structure can be created with tablets threaded this

way. In any form of weaving, there are four possible arrangements for adjacent

warp threads: both on the surface (Fig. 5a), both underneath (Fig. 5c), one

above and one beneath, and the reverse (Fig. 5b and d).

Figure 5. All possible sheds can be created using a tablet with two adjacent

warp threads.

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Threading Direction

The warp threads enter the tablet on one side and leave on the other, but with

a flat tablet there are two possible directions. Using terms borrowed from

spinning, one direction is termed S and the other Z after the directions of their

central strokes (Fig. 6).

Figure 6. S and Z threading of tablets from the top and from the right side.

From the top, the warp follows the same direction as the central stroke of an S

or a Z.

This is the definition used by most weavers and authors, but there are

exceptions, so as with tablet labels, always check for the source you are using.

Tablet weaving has the potential to create warp twining in the finished band. If

a tablet is turned continually in one direction, the four threads from that tablet

will twist together into a cord. This cord is bound to adjacent cords (from other

tablets in the pack) by the weft. There are other ways to produce warp twining,

but its presence in a band, especially in the selvages, strongly suggests that

tablet weaving was used. The direction of twist in the cord can also be

described as S or Z. An Sthreaded tablet turned forward will create a Ztwined

cord, and an Stwined cord if it is turned backward. A Zthreaded tablet will

produce an Stwined cord if turned forward, and a Ztwined cord if turned

backward (Fig. 7).

Structurally, an Sthreaded turned forward is identical to a Zthreaded tablet

turned backward. (This is important!)

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Figure 7. The relationship between threading direction, turning direction and

the resulting cord. Only one hole per tablet is threaded so that the course of

the warp on the back of the band (in gray) can be seen.

a. S-threaded, turned

forward: Z twining

b. S-threaded, turned

backward: S twining

c. Z-threaded, turned

forward: S twining

d. Z-threaded, turned

backward: Z twining

This relationship is possibly the hardest thing for novice weavers to

understand, and even experienced weavers occasionally have problems. While

working on this article, I came up with a trick for getting smooth diagonal

lines. The direction of colored diagonals needs to match the direction of the

twining of the cord, but I can never remember how to set up the threads in the

tablets to get the desired effect. If you look at the top of a pair of tablets, the

change in color sequence between them must follow the same direction as the

threading direction of the tablets to give a smooth diagonal color line in the

opposite direction (Fig. 8).

Figure 8. Trick for getting smooth diagonals. The color pattern matches the

threading direction but gives a diagonal in the opposite direction.

a. S-threaded

b. Z-threaded

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