A ribbon of thread

[igenlode]

Well, it worked... sort of.
click for closeups

I rethreaded my eight cards with extreme care, using the original groups of four threads unknotted and separated out again, and lo and behold it did work, eventually. When I wedged the end behind the staircase and held the end of the threads in my left hand, I was able to turn the cards with complete ease.

And oddly enough I actually got a neater start to the braid than when I was doing it with wool; the threads just packed flat immediately.

But it's definitely not a viable solution to the idea of manufacturing ribbon. First of all, I'm not good enough at it (the ribbon illustrated was supposed to be the result of a steady pattern of eight turns one way followed by eight turns the other way, which should theoretically have produced a consistent zigzag pattern!) I constantly lose track of which way I'm turning the cards every time that one of the threads snags up over a corner and/or one card fails to turn properly and I have to use both hands to sort it out. I still get stripes and tags of weft sticking out all over the place.

Secondly, it's incredibly slow, partly no doubt because I couldn't get a steady rhythm up and partly due to the scale of the work; it took me three sessions of well over an hour each to achieve eight inches of ribbon, and the result is only an eighth of an inch wide. I'd need more cards, and while each pass of the shuttle itself wouldn't take any longer, the threading-up process would get more and more difficult, and the possibilities for tangling ever more frequent.

Thirdly, after eight inches I found that the threads snagged up so often that it became impossible to continue; the pattern was getting messier and messier and I was simply spending all my time untangling and resetting the pack every time the cards failed to turn properly. I don't know if it was the angle of the remaining thread (though I got much closer to the end using a wool warp before I had to stop) or simply wear and tear on the cards; I had to take one of the address-label tags off because the thread running through that card persistently caught under it. So even if I spent hours and hours threading up a larger pack of cards and used a longer set of warp threads and deployed some kind of row counter to let me keep better track of the pattern, and dedicated hours to the task working very very carefully, my chances would be pretty low of generating a sufficient length of custom ribbon rather than ending up with an unworkable mess. Towards the end I tried pinning the start knot to my jumper again so that I could theoretically weave with both hands, but it didn't help at all with the tangling problem when turning the cards.

Tablet weaving *can* be done with thread, but I'm not sure it's a good idea.

Comments

[watervole]

If you're trying to make ribbon for wrapping gifts or whatever then it's not worth the effort, but if you're doing it for something else, then there are all sorts of tricks that help.

Do you fancy a chat via Zoom, Discord, etc? I could probably show you some things more easily than trying to describe them.

I don't think sewing thread is worth bothering with.

There are tricks for getting an even start to the work, ways of avoiding the warp threads twisting (though not worth using on a zig-zag as that should be self-correcting) (and incompatible with continuous warping)

And there's an easy way of telling where you are on a zig zag pattern without counting rows.

[igenlode]

I wanted the ribbon for threading through gathers, for which tablet-woven braid isn't really very suitable; it's too stiff, which is why I was trying to use sewing thread in order to produce a floppier result. However I eventually solved the problem in only a few hours' work by using a *knotted* flat cord, which was both less stiff than braid and less bulky than one would expect -- in fact it even proved slightly stretchy, which I certainly hadn't anticipated!

I can't find any diagram of the technique online, but basically you take four strands laid out from left to right, take hold of the rightmost strand, and make two half-hitches over it with each of the three other strands in turn from right to left. So if the strands are A B C D, you take strand D and tie two half-hitches around it using strand C, then move to the left and tie two more around strand D using strand B, then move to the left again and finish by tying two half-hitches around this same strand D using strand A.
You have now 'carried' strand D diagonally across so that it sticks out to the left-hand side, and the ends are laid out as D A B C.

Then you take the new rightmost strand, strand C, and repeat the process, knotting two half-hitches over it first with strand B, then with strand A, and finally with strand D, which is currently located to the left of strand A. The ends now run C D A B, with strand C having been carried all the way across from right to left.

You then proceed by knotting from right to left around strand B and finally around strand A, at which point everything is back to the initial order and you can repeat the process. Once you've completed a single repeat, it's pretty easy to see how the pattern forms itself and you can lay it out across your knee and maintain the progression by eye (I did a complete cord in the process of watching several TV episodes). The only thing you need to keep an eye out for is to make sure that you remember to pick up and hold the right-hand strand at the start of each new 'row', and knot everything else around it, rather than carelessly starting off by knotting the righthand strand itself around the strand to its left, as you do at every other stage!

To get a wider ribbon, you simply use each strand to tie more than two half-hitches. The end result is a flat but flexible and quite springy cord - the book recommends using this technique for a belt which needs to be knotted (e.g. a dressing-gown belt), and it proved ideal for threading through and tying in a bow.


(N.B. Thanks for the offer, but I don't have the hardware/software for video chat -- I'm more diagram/instruction minded anyway. I'm one of those people who actually sits down and reads the rules *first* before starting to play a game, and reads the manual to see what a program is supposed to be able to do before attempting to use it in anger!)

ways of avoiding the warp threads twisting (though not worth using on a zig-zag as that should be self-correcting)

Yes, that was why I was going for zigzag -- the book said that it was easier for a beginner just to keep twisting the tablets until the threads were wound too tightly to use, then undo and untwist them, but that wasn't my definition of 'easier', so I attempted a pattern that was supposed to untwist itself!

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, you've ended up making Friendship bracelets for your 'ribbon'. I make those sometimes. I usually use embroidery floss, simply because I have a lot of it in hand.

The simplest way to do zig zag for a beginner is not to count the rows, just to keep on going until you feel like a direction change. I still do it that way, sometimes.

(Untwisting threads is a pain, and always shows on the band where you did it)

When starting a band weave, one trick for getting it all straight, is to insert a lollipop stick, turn the cards, insert another lollipop stick, repeat once more.

This also allows you to hold the warp threads closer together.

[igenlode]

So that's what it's called! It's incredibly difficult to track something down on the Internet when you don't know its name; "A Wide Flat Cord" is not very helpful :-D

Oddly enough, the immediately preceding method of knotting a cord in my needlework book -- tablet weaving comes under "Weaving at Home on Small Looms", where it recommends 'strong fine threads such as cotton or silk', presumably covering embroidery floss -- is "A Square Knotted Cord of Four Strings", which according to the drawings appears to be the very one that I associate with those plastic friendship bracelets from the 1980s. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/02/93/3a/02933ae000d7034fe19f4fdd931e10fa.jpg

Unfortunately I literally only have the one lolly stick, apart from the one currently acting as a plantpot marker; I don't eat a lot of ice-lollies! I could probably cut some strips of cardboard.