Intrigued by the number and variety of patterns offered on Babettes Website at www.b-oberholz.de but find that I am completely at a loss to interpret the pattern directions. The site being in German provides an additional challenge. My previous experience with tablet woven bands the patterns were in a numbered format (Linda Hendrickson) or with block charting (Candace Crockett).

With Babette's patterns I understand the number of tablets required, the S & Z threading, color shading and threading and hope that someone with more experience can guide me. A few questions regarding the patterns on Babettes website:

1. are the cards lettered and threaded clockwise..A-B-C-D?

2. using the color shading I believe I understand which cards are in their respective rows being either in the design or the background pack but am unsure of the movement of the card direction...i.e. does the symbol \ mean forward and the symbol / signify a backward movement? and does the color of the \ or / signify the upper most warp thread?

3.  in this charting system does the card starting point (I call it the home row) begin with A-B on the top? 

4. Does each pattern row consist of two movements of the cards and two passes of the weft yarn?

Any ideas, suggestions from other tablet weavers would be appreciated and welcome. With thanks, Carol

 

 

Comments

Weavingholiday

What a wonderful site, and how brave to tackle it in another language! I am not certain, speaking no German myself, if I am a lot of help, but think that, re: question 2, those back and forward slashes really just relate to the s and z twist (sort of an abbreviation of the letters by showing the "business" part). So, you can use whatever method you like when it calls for changing the twist from s to z, or z to s, changing the direction of turn, or flipping the cards. I noticed this book at Google books that might be helpful for some of your question: http://books.google.ca/books?id=0wsvZavVLbYC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=tablet+weaving+notation&source=bl&ots=DOx3gvpJK2&sig=D0np1ISd8NilrppLBf_DfRZiJn0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CoO6UJ38GaSw2wXIwoDQBg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=tablet%20weaving%20notation&f=false And there is no harm threading up a few tablets and giving things a test? My best guess, and I am sure there are folks here who can do better than guessing, is that each line is a turn, because, in the instruction for the letter "n," the area that stays blue has 2 turns either forward or back ( or the equivalent in flipping the cards to change twist) then 2 turns the other direction (I hope that made sense?) You might find this software helpful, for experimenting without having to thread your cards http://www.theloomybin.com/cw/index.html Hope this is a little help?

Sara von Tresckow

I don't do tablet weaving, but learned to Weave in Germany. The one thing you can count on is that instructions are normally done schematically and once you understand the symbols and the action represented, those symbols will be used consistently as you proceed. This means that you do not have to learn more than a few specific words to do what is shown.