Tablet Weaving Update and Loom Musings

I finished another tablet weaving band! Here it is:

I took a break about halfway in, and it ended up sitting half finished for about 6 months. I guess I'm not motivated to weave in the warmer months? But as Autumn arrived (here in the Southern Hemisphere), my motivation returned, and I picked it up again. I even went to the trouble of finishing off the ends straight away. This one is long enough that I can use it as a belt. (I will model it another time. To be honest, I'm not sure I have any clothes of the style it would go with, and might not end up using it as a belt anyway.)

I was so excited that I started another band straight away, an even longer one this time. I wanted to try a different pattern, but unfortunately I had forgotten which pattern I used for the previous one, it being so long ago, and I ended up choosing the same one from my notebook! Even the colours are the same. (I've found that spare pages in my Hobonichi diary are great for recording patterns that I find online: the grid lines are perfect for tablet weaving patterns!)

I had written "Oseberg Weave" next to it, but not the source. Also, I think there was actually more than one kind of tablet-woven band found in the Oseberg burial. I should be more comprehensive with my notes in the future!

When I googled it, I remembered that I had sourced the pattern from this video on the Elewys of Finchingefeld Youtube channel. I highly recommend this channel! Not only is Elewys an expert weaver and excellent explainer, but I love her friendly and down-to-earth attitude. I hope to do more weaves from her channel in the future.

If you'd like to see some of my previous janky tablet weaving efforts, check out this blog post!



After only having done 2-and-three-quarters pieces on my 'new' loom, I'm already starting to see its limitations. (I say 'new', but I've had it for a year -- Husband helped me to make it as a sort-of birthday present, and my birthday is coming up again!) The loom is incredibly simple: it's just made up of a board (actually a shelf) with a drawer handle at each end. In theory, this isn't even the simplest set-up that's required. But it's also certainly not the most complicated, either. I very much like the idea of this kind of loom. It's only a few of the details that are off.
(Note: in the photo below, I have taken off the bobbins at the far end because I was getting towards the end of the weave. Normally the yet-to-be-used threads are wound on to them and they hang off the back end.)

Firstly, the tablets should ideally hang off the threads, not touch the base. There isn't enough of a gap between the drawer handles and the base. The big box hardware store I went to had a large range of handles, but these were the most 'gappy' ones I could find. I hoped they would be okay ... and they are ... But the tablet set I have is made of cardboard, and having them hit the base all the time is eventually going to damage them. I can always get some wooden or plastic ones later on down the track. Or buy some smaller ones, once my lil clumsy fingers are more used to weaving (they'd have to be pretty small to clear the base, though!). As you can see in the picture below, they don't tend to sit upright, but veer off to the side, leaving the weaving sort of half-twisted. It's still perfectly possible to weave that way, but not ideal. I also have a feeling that it mucks with the tension, but more on that later. The biggest issue, though, is that it's going to make more complicated patterns, well, even more complicated. In a lot of patterns you have to separate the tablets and turn some forwards and some backwards on every turn. Having them sitting all hinky is going to make that very difficult. So that's the first problem I'd like to solve.

Secondly, I sometimes have trouble with the tension. I've tried a few different things to attach the work in progress to the handles at each end, and landed on bag clips as the easiest solution. (They are absolutely not historically accurate, I know, but dang they're convenient!) The clip at the front end works fine; the only problem is that it leaves an impression in the finished piece (which you can see in the second photo from the top in this post, on the right hand side). It's a minor inconvenience that you can only see close up. The clip at the far end though, I've had some problems with. At first I tried using weights to give the band tension (a common historical solution) but found them cumbersome and annoying. I tried winding the threads around a piece of dowel -- in pictures I've seen it locks them in place -- but it didn't work for me. (The technique is shown in this blog post; photos near the bottom.) The bag clip worked better than these solutions, but it doesn't grip the threads evenly, and they tend to lose their grippiness over time. (I've ruined two clips already!) I really want to find a solution that reliably locks the threads in place and gives them a taut tension, while still being quick and easy to release for when I get to the top and need to move the finished weaving down and off the loom.

Thirdly (don't worry, this is the last one!), my back gets really sore when using the loom. I certainly can't have it sitting on a table horizontally, as my arms won't even reach the far end, and there's no point in having a long loom if you can't reach the far end! I tried using it at a shallowish angle (with the far end resting on a cardboard box) while sitting at my desk, but even then my back gets really sore from reaching forwards. Lately I have tried leaning it almost vertically on the edge of my desk, with the front edge resting on my lap, and that works a lot better back-wise, but dang: those sharp shelf corners really dig into my thighs! (Excuse my messy hobby room and non-period-accurate outfit, it was just a quick selfie to demonstrate!)

Okay, one more tiny thing -- I'd like a way to keep the finished part of the weaving neatly out of the way and clean.

Okay, that's all I want! I don't want to ditch my loom completely, because I'm proud that I made it myself -- and the finishing on the surface of the shelf looks cool. I would rather try and modify it to solve these problems. I have been doing some research. More on that soon!

Unfinished Crafts, June 2021

Plushy Letters : O

Continuing the plushy letter theme from my last post, I started a Plushy 'O', as it seemed the second easiest letter to design after 'I'.

Floral Skirt

I started this skirt a few months ago, and it's almost finished. I just need to finish the bottom hem, and I'll probably add some of this lace to it. To be honest, it's deep Winter here now, and this is a rather summery skirt, so I'll probably put it aside until the season comes around again and work on other things in the meantime.

Grannyland Blanket

This is such an easy go-to project to grab when I'm feeling the urge to craft, but don't want a lot of brain-work to do. I realised a while back that the overall blanket will look better if I edge each square in the same colour. I finally got around to purchasing some wool for the purpose. I don't know why I chose red. Black is too common for this purpose, and I'm already making another blanket with white edgings. I thought about the primary colours and red just felt like the right one. I've started the epic task of adding one row of red to each of the 36+ squares. To be honest, I'm still not sure what dimensions I want the finished blanket to be, so there may be more squares before this thing is through!

Art Projects

The last two projects are ones that I'm doing under my artist umbrella, rather than 'private' craft projects. They're both still in the early stages, so I won't talk about them too much now. They both involve a lot of cross-stitch, bead embroidery, knitting and other crafty details, so I thought I'd mention them here at least.

Take care and keep on crafting!

Finished Crafts May 2021

More Tablet Weaving Bands

I took a few months off from tablet weaving, but then I became obsessed with it again. I was halfway through Band No. 3 (left) and when I took it up again, I forgot the pattern I was weaving. So one half of the band is wavy, and the other half stripey. But that's okay. It's long enough that I can make it into a bag strap, and hopefully I'll get around to that soon. Bands No. 4 and 5 (middle, right) are shorter. I was more wanting to try out different published patterns to see how they would turn out. I came across various problems while weaving, like twisting, bulging and bumping, but all of them have been explained by various Youtube videos and I feel like I'm learning more with every band.

Plushy Letters : I

A project I've been thinking about for a long time, but only started to act on recently, is to make a set of plushy letters that spell out words. For some reason I felt like knitting them instead of sewing them, which takes a lot longer but is a more portable craft. I couldn't find any patterns online that made letters as plump as I wanted, so I decided to design my own. I started with the easiest letter -- I.

Plushy Dinosaur

Last but not least -- the greatest triumph! I made this plushy dinosaur for my two-year-old friend, for her birthday. It took a very long time, and the process was filled with ups and downs, but at last at the end of March it was finally finished. I redesigned the back plates to make the shape more realistic, and also a smaller version to go along the tail. The original pattern was perfectly fine, but I just preferred the way it looks this way. Here is the pattern.

Next time I'll be looking at crafts still in progress!

My November

November seemed to go by very slowly for me. It was a typical late Spring / early Summer month, perhaps a little more rainy than usual. There were a couple of really cool thunderstorms, and only one very hot day. I was feeling better health-wise than I have been, and I managed to get out to see a couple of exhibitions and do some shopping for some things I needed (art supplies) and things I already have a lot of (books!).

I tried to do NaNoWriMo, vowing to write a short story every day, but I didn't get very far unfortunately. I think I wrote 6 before I ran out of steam. I think I will have to actually crack on and write a novel one day though, just to prove to myself that I can do it.

What I've been growing ...
Here is our cherry harvest for 2019! It doesn't seem like much, but it's more than last year. The tree itself has grown quite a bit too -- not taller but wider. We decided to try picking the cherries while they were still unripe, to prevent them being ravaged by birds. It worked very well. They ripened up in about 3 days sitting on the kitchen bench, and we ate them for dessert last night.

The larger fruits are coming along nicely too. They take a bit longer to ripen up -- the apricots here should be ready at the end of December. I really want to be ready to harvest them and process them properly this year.

The roses are blooming strongly this year, too. They seem to be in larger clumps (as opposed to single flowers). Perhaps it's because we've had slightly more rain? They smell divine, too, and when I leave the side door open, the smell wafts into the house.

What I've been planting ...
The garden bed I showed in last month's update post is coming along nicely. It's taken a long time because it kept raining, and we needed a few sunny days near the weekend so Husband and I could lay the concrete base, let it dry, and then later lay the bricks and let them dry. After that was achieved, things went much faster. We bought some bags of garden soil and filled up the bed with them, then put in the lemon tree. The final steps to go are adding a layer of pebbles over the soil, and planting some smaller decorative plants around it. I already have some chosen out. Stay tuned for the final result!

What I've been painting ...
I've been having fun with watercolour painting lately, and also drawing human people, which is different for me. I had a dream that I painted this, and then I turned it into reality. There are a few more too, and I'll show them in a separate post soon. P.S. the painting is still attached to the stretcher board in this photo.

Where I've been shopping ...
I finally visited a Melbourne institution -- City Basement Books. It was pretty overwhelming at first, but after browsing the whole shop I felt settled in, and I think it's become my happy place! I only bought 8 books on my first visit, and I'm resisting going back again too soon. It's one of the few bookshops I've been too (new or secondhand) where you can go in with a shopping list of books by certain authors or on certain topics and have a reasonable chance of finding most of them.

What I've been designing ...
I created a meme, and yes, this is really happening to me tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Bonus pic ...
I dressed up for a fancy birthday brunch for a friend earlier in the month, in my fancy dress in a fancy pose, against a fancy background. Excuse the fancy look on my face! I've let my fringe grow out in the last few months, which you can see quite well in this photo. I like how it looks.

My January & February

I skipped over my January post as I was too busy with preparations for the Zine Fair, hence this bumper, two-month update. January seems like a world away now, and I can't possibly imagine that I had three whole weeks off work. I did do a few crafty things during this time, though.

I finished two crochet projects, both monsters, and both started in 2013. The first was Mixtro Monster by Stacey Trock. I was up to the stage of stuffing and sewing on the embellishments. His eyes are zanily quirky, though as the eyes come in pairs I have two single mismatched eyes in my stash now. I'm sure they'll come in handy for another zany monster.

The second was one of my own design. It was meant to be a test piece but I really like the way it turned out, particularly the mouth. I had so much fun making him. Choosing the eyes was especially satisfying. Husband and I named him Urgg.

I decided to glue some gems to my earphones so as to more easily tell left from right. I thought I may as well decoden a few other things while I was at it: some makeup brushes and the lid of my foundation pot.

I was also briefly inspired to do some watercolour painting in my Hobonichi. I posted this picture on Instagram, even though I wasn't entirely happy with it, and got quite a bit of encouragement, which was nice. (Parts of it are shiny because the paint was still wet.)

Over the holidays I had time to have fun with my food, too:

There was also work to do, though -- harvesting my fruit trees. There was a lot of everything this year: apricots, plums, then nectarines! We were caught a bit unawares this year, so decided not to make jam, but used the slow cooker to stew nearly everything. We ate the last box of nectarines fresh, and it was lovely!

Last week I got my nails done! For most people perhaps that's no big deal. For me it was a huge step in overcoming my anxiety. I went to Miss Jay's Nails and Beauty, who I highly recommend. What a sweetie! I celebrated by posting it on Instagram with lots of cute graphics:

More selections from Instagram:

My May

The weather really turned cold by the end of the month. We've broken out the extra blankets, and there are frost warnings already. There's been a lot more rain. I heard about the 30x30 Challenge, which is to spend 30 minutes outside every day for 30 days, starting on 1st May. I wanted to do it, but then it rained for 3 days straight, with barely a 30-minute letup, so I decided to wait until Winter is over before trying it. Of course, I want to spend as much time outside as I can, but at this time of year it would be quite difficult to do it every day.

What I've been sorting ...
My KonMari adventure has been continuing. I've almost finished my clothes, and most of my accessories. I've unpacked a lot of boxes in the last few months, but there are still quite a few things packed (or lost??!) which mean I can't gather everything in some categories together to KonMari them.

I'm also pleased to say that I've unpacked all my books now, which was No. 96 on my 101 Things in 1,001 Days list.

My hair decos. Not too many?
What I've been making ...
I finally finished this crocheted mushroom. I wanted to make one as part of the Mori Girl Challenge, and, I have to admit, this project did double-service. I had two Geocaching Travel Tags to send off. The Travel Tags can be attached to any small item you like, and the tracking code turns it into a trackable item. It's then placed into a geocache for other players to pick up and move to another cache. There's more information here for the interested.
One of the fun things about creating a trackable is to attach something to it that will be fun for other players. And that was the problem! I didn't know what to attach them to. Being me, something handmade was preferable, but I'd been procrastinating for months because I couldn't think of anything. Then an idea struck me: make amigurumi mushrooms!
I (quite cleverly if I do say so myself) embroidered the tracking code under the cap of the mushroom but unfortunately I can't show it to you. It's against the rules. Otherwise anyone could log the trackable when they aren't actually in possession of it.

At this stage, I've almost finished the second one. I used a different pattern so I might write a separate post with my thoughts comparing them.

I also started a new design for a knitted monster plushie. I've made crocheted ones before, but I wanted to see if I could design a knitted one. I ran out of steam though, when I couldn't decide how to do the arms.

What I've been dreaming of ...
Not so much dreaming, but meaning to get around to it. With the rainier weather, the garden is greener than ever. I've started to notice dandelions popping up all over. They're one of the few wild plants I can recognise and know to be useful. There's a wonderfully informative post on The Woman Who Married a Bear on the very topic, so it just remains for me to give it a try.

Selections from Instagram

Mulled wine and drinking games for the Eurovision Song Contest:

I planted a tree! Well, more of a small shrub, really.

I also decorated the fernery a bit more with this gnome from Daiso:

A Scarf for Emmy

I'm quite ashamed to say that I put my Lammily doll aside for a long time. I was making some Summer clothes for her, and the effort of designing them and writing down the pattern was too much. I bought some furniture for her as well, but I didn't have anywhere to set it up. Not to mention set-up for photography, which gets more and more difficult as Summer turns to Winter. I slowly gave up and went back to my zombie-crafting projects.

A few weeks ago though, I received an email about Lammily TV, a new youtube channel with amazing-looking projects like a parachute and an X-Wing Fighter. It must have stirred something deep inside me, because a few days later I had a dream that I was buying clothes for her on Etsy. At the time I bought my Lammily doll, there was nothing like that out there -- no clothes for sale (except from the official store, and those are out of my price range), no knitting or sewing patterns. I'm pleased to see now that there are quite a few crafty people making clothes for the Lammily doll. I bought an adorable retro dress and I'm waiting for it to arrive. So you see, my dream came true!


Meanwhile, I've been very motivated to knit or crochet some Winter accessories for Emmy. I found a pattern for a scarf and hat. I tried making the scarf first, but the pattern didn't make sense to me.

Worsted weight yarn with a 2mm hook?
DC into the chain below when there is no chain below??

After several false starts, I gave up and made up my own stitch pattern. Well, it probably already exists out there somewhere, but this version of it came out of my own brain. I was going to write it up as a pattern if it went well, but I don't think I will. The fabric is very thick and stiff. It would be better for a coat or even a floor rug. But still, I persisted with it and now Emmy has a nice warm scarf that even doubles as an ear warmer!

I really need to make her some pants, poor thing. Brrr!