Brocaded Tablet-Woven Belt

Renonys de la Fueille

November Crown AS XLVII

Introduction

Tablet weaving, or card weaving, is the process of weaving a band using threaded cards. The most common form of tablets is square, but they can also be three, six or eight sided. Every tablet has holes punched in each corner. The warp threads of the weaving project are threaded through these tabletss, one thread for each hole, and as the cards turn a new shed is created for the weft to pass through. The cards can be threaded to form a pattern as each turn of the cards brings different warp threads of different colours to the top, or the band can be plain, with an extra brocade weft added to create a floating pattern on the top of the band (Collingwood 2002, p 10)

Tablet weaving was widely practiced in Europe from the end of the Roman Empire until the 1500s. Extant brocaded tablet weaving bands – bands which utilize a supplementary, non-functional weft purely for decoration – are found from the early 6th to the late 15th century (Spies 2000, p 2).

Brocaded bands were used for a wide variety of purposes. Most of the surviving bands were used for ecclesiastical garments(Spies 2000, p 19). They survive because priests were buried in their finest garments. Medieval lay-persons were not buried with their worldly goods, but evidence from paintings and carvings indicate that brocaded bands were probably fairly widely used for secular purposes. Nancy Spies outlines the secular uses of brocaded tablet-woven bands in her book Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance. They were used as headbands, trim on caps, veils, tunics, and cloaks, as belts, for coffin trim and other uses. Spies also notes that these valuable bands were probably recycled as often as possible, especially the more expensive bands with metallic brocade wefts. These bands could have been unravelled for their gold, and to reuse the expensive silk (Spies 2000, pp 38-49).

Design

The theme of my project is heraldic. The fourteenth century saw a rise in the popularity of heraldic display, and as I have a fourteenth century persona I decided to make a heraldic belt. The main charge on my device is an ivy leaf, and my colours are purple and green. The Latin words read folium saltans in ventum, which translates as a leaf dancing into the wind. The leaf was drafted on graph paper, originally with a height-to-width ratio of 3:2. Tablet weaving is warp faced, meaning that designs tend to be elongated vertically, so this graph paper is a useful tool to help visualise what the design will look like when woven. However, I found that my design elongated even further, so I adjusted the graph paper to stretch it out. The letters are adapted from Guntram’s Textura Quadrata alphabets for 48 tablets and 36 tablets. I was also inspired by Guntram’s brocaded tablet-woven belts on his web page. He has examples of recreated fourteenth century bands in his gallery, brocaded with metallic thread. One of his belts is striped along the band. I really liked the idea and decided to use it for my own project.  

Figure 1: Different threading direction of tablets

Techniques

This belt is woven with a basic ground weave of alternating S and Z threaded tablets, which were continuously turned forward. Most historical examples of brocaded tablet-woven bands used this method, although there are some that were threaded all in the same direction, and some in blocks of alternating S and Z (Spies 2000 p 66). The threading and turning direction of the tablets dictates the surface pattern of the band. Alternating S and Z tablets produces a chevron pattern. Many historical bands used a combination of twist-patterning and brocade to form designs along the band, but I decided that this basic chevron pattern was enough for my belt, as I was using stripes of different colours along with the brocading.

The brocade weft in my belt turns at the edges of the band, making visible loops. I have always used the same colour brocade weft as border cards, so this hasn’t mattered in the past. This time however, I used a metallic brocade weft, and should have taken into consideration that it would be visible on the edges. Nancy Spies outlines different types of turns found in historical examples, and though my method is found in one historical example (band B 21 from 8^th-10^th century Viking age Birka), the most common method was to thread the brocade weft through to the back of the band at the end of the row, leaving one or more border tablets. This means the brocade weft turns inside the band, instead of on the edges. This is the method that I should have used for this project, and will use in future when I don’t want the brocade weft to be seen on the edges of the band (Spies 2000, p 71).

I have used two types of tie-downs for the brocade weft. Tie downs anchor the brocade weft to the weaving, preventing long floats that could potentially move or catch on other objects. While functional, they can also be incorporated into the pattern. Most of the tie-downs I used were to pass the brocade weft under both top threads of a tablet. This sort of tie down was used in the words of my pattern, as the pattern called for bigger spaces between floats. Often the brocade weft would also pass under more than one tablet. The leaf design called for more of the brocade weft to be exposed, and a good way to achieve this was to tie the weft down under only one of the threads of a tablet. I used this method for the inside of the leaf, and these smaller tie downs form the veins of the leaf. I experimented with tying the brocade weft down under both top threads of a tablet, but this made the veins look quite chunky, and decided a more delicate looking solution was needed. Both of these methods of tie-downs are found on historical bands, with more than one method often being found on the same band (Spies 2000, p 73)

Materials

I had intended to use entirely period materials for this project, but I encountered some problems and had to compromise.

Warp:

My warp is Fine Cord from Treenway Silks. It is a three-ply reeled silk. It is the tightest twist yarn from this online store and is recommended by the store as an excellent choice for tablet weaving which requires a firmer hand. I chose it because of this recommendation and because I have never bought silk yarn before and was a little confused with the number labels of the spun silk. I had also seen a sample of the fine cord and I was happy to try weaving with it. Warp threads in period were almost exclusively silk. It was valued for its beautiful sheen, its strength and its ability to hold dye in a range of brilliant colours (Spies 2000 p 57). I threaded up fifty tablets to make a band approximately one inch wide.

Structural Weft:

I had originally planned to use the same thread for the structural weft as for the warp, but I found that it was too thick and didn’t compress enough, so my picks were very wide. I was averaging four picks per centimetre of weaving. When I added my metallic brocade weft, the picks spread out even further because of the extra bulk, so the brocade pattern was spread out too much and didn’t look very nice. I tried linen sewing thread next, which worked much better until I added my metallic thread. The two threads did not agree at all and the linen thread ended up snapping. I ended up using a polycotton top-stitch thread, which while being not at all a period material, was softer and stronger than the linen as well as thin enough for me to beat smaller picks.

Brocade Weft:

Figure 3: Weaving with real gold thread

I had originally planned to use a #5 real gold passing thread from Van Sciver Bobbin Lace. This thread was real gold wrapped around a silk core, or a ‘spun’ thread. Spun threads were the most popular metallic threads with medieval tablet weavers, both silver and gold (Spies 2000, p 60). I encountered a few problems with weaving with this material. The first was that it didn’t compress at all, so even though I had narrowed my picks with a finer structural weft, this gold thread widened them again. Figure 3 illustrates the amount of space between each pick with the real gold thread. I experimented a lot with the thread, and it was starting to deteriorate through so much use. I decided to use some metallic look DMC thread instead, which worked more like a fibre in that it compressed when it was hidden in the shed and spread out over the top of the band in the pattern.

Fastening:

Fastenings in period ranged from a simple metal loop to elaborate buckles with plates and strap-ends. I used a brass D-ring and left the tail end with loose warp threads. Many extant buckles exist today, but it is often difficult to ascertain what their function was, as materials like leather or fibres like silk or linen deteriorate a lot faster than metal. Geoff Egan and Francis Pritchard have studied buckles in their book Dress Accessories 1150-1450. They believe that buckles “... present a modest opportunity for fashionable expression at virtually every level of society.”(Egan 2002, p 50). One late fourteenth century buckle has been found with tablet weaving remains preserved inside the buckle plate (figure 101, Crowfoot 2001, p 133). I would have liked to have made a buckle with a buckle plate for this project, but time and money constraints didn’t allow me to. A brass D-ring is a functional and period solution.

Conclusions

While the finished product is not what I envisioned, I think it is the best I can do right now with the experience and skills that I currently have. This is my first time weaving with materials other than cotton, and I found that they behaved quite differently to what I’m used to. I would like to revisit this project in the future when I am more skilled, and use completely period materials, including my gold passing thread. I would like to try using a finer silk warp, a spun silk rather than a reeled silk. I have a better idea now of what 60/2 and 30/2 spun silk means, and I would like to experiment with these to see if I can weave a finer ground weave. My quick search for structural weft materials to find a substitute for what I had originally planned to use came up empty, so I would like to take a more in-depth look into what was used in period and how weft threads were different to warp threads, if indeed they were.

I also struggled with keeping the width of the band even. I’ve never had a problem with cotton before, but I’ve also never used more than 25 cards. Along with this I also had unexpected issues with the stripes going crooked. The purple stripes on the edges of the band are smaller in width than the middle stripes, and in places where the band widens, it is the middle stripes that widen.

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, my email is renonys@gmail.com.

References:

Collingwood, Peter (2002) The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, Robin & Russ Handweavers, Inc., Oregan

Crowfoot, Elisabeth, Frances Pritchard, Kay Staniland (2002) Textiles and Clothing, Boydell Press, Woodbridge

Egan, Geoff, Frances Pritchard, (1991) Dress Accessories, MNSO Publications Centre, London

Spies, Nancy, (2000) Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance, Arelate Studio, Maryland