Adventures in Historical Tabletweaving

Warp: Red, white and blue wool (fibreholics) Weft: blue wool (the original was a plant fibre) Pattern: Humikkala H31:18 -3/1 broken twill Cards: 33 Width: 2.8 Length: 14cm OK, here is my best effort at Humikkala H31:18. This band is covered in Hansen, and Hansen's pattern is converted into something that actually works by Guido (I think he tried to reconstruct the band based on the photo of the reconstructed band in Hansen, which differs from the actual pattern given). However after hearing from Silja Penna-Haverinen that there were some problems with Hansen's reconstruction, I really wanted to have a go at this band using other sources. Silja put me in contact with Maikki Karisto, who is working on a book which covers this band and many others, and who has examined the band closely. Maikki is understandably a little cagey about sharing all her information, since a) it is still evolving as she researches, b) she would like people to buy her book when it comes out and ...

Warp: Red, yellow and blue wool (fibreholics) Weft: blue Pattern: Masku Humikkala, 8658:H17 Cards: 14 Width: 7mm Length: 110cm Don't get too excited, this is not the well-known Masku Humikkala band covered by Hansen, but a simpler band from the same site. My information on this band comes from Maikki Karisto who is a weaving teacher from Finland. Her information comes from Seija Sarkki's 1979 thesis "Suomen ristiretkiaikaiset nauhat" which covers bands from the Finnish crusade period. The diagram above is from Maikki but doctored by me. The original diagram was missing the outer tablet on each side. Sarkki was unaware of these tablets because the band has a tubular selvedge and as a result the outer warps were hidden on the reverse of the band. The technique of the band is very similar to Snartemo II . The border tablets contain 4 threads of the same colour while the pattern tablets have two threads, diagonally opposite and alternating positions...

I have become interested recently in the medieval Finnish bands such as the Kaukola and Humikkala bands that appear in Hansen and the Kirkkomäki band described by Silja Penna-Haverinen in NESAT X. Imagine my delight when Silja herself commented on my previous post on the subject and said she would be willing to answer some questions I had. I thought I would share some information from her answers that might be of interest to people. 1. I feel a bit better about not being able to work out how the technique of altering the places of two adjacent tablets at the intersection of two diaonal lines works, because Silja says this research is out of date. Actually what was thought to be the two central tablets is only a single tablet (the pattern has an odd number). 2. Apparently there is no good source of photos of the Finnish bands from earlier than the 20th century (not even in Finnish publications), which is quite sad. There are some random published photos, but not any kind of compilat...

Warp: Dark green and white wool (fibreholics) Weft: same as above (varying colour) Pattern: I made it up Cards: 15 Width: 8mm Length: ~60cm I had a band all strung up on my Oseberg loom that I had been using at String Day to demonstrate doubleface techniques. Most of it was still unused at the end of the day so I needed to find something to use it for. I'd recently been reading Silja Penna-Haverinen's article in NESAT X: Patterned Tablet-Woven Band - In Search of the 11th Century Textile Professional , in which she hypothesises that bands from medieval Finland employed 180-degree turns. Her article focuses on a band found in the Kirkkomäki burial ground in Turku, but she mentions that the Masku Humikkala band uses the same techniques, and I think that the Kaukola band in Hansen falls into the same category. According to the article, 180-degree turns occur in pairs on either side of a reversal, giving the appearance of a tighter corner. There is also mention of a 180-deg...

Someone asked earlier today on the SCA-Card-Weaving list whether anyone had a pattern for the Kaukola band in Hansen. This prompted me to re-visit my pattern and check it against Hansen, since I've recently found instructions on how to read his mysterious patterns. It turns out the pattern I reconstructed by looking at his band was slightly off, so I've re-jigged my pattern to reflect that. The difference to the appearance of the finished band is pretty trivial. There are just a few extra reversals in column 4. They don't change what colour is up at any point, just the direction of twist. I did have this pattern marked up for half-turns but I've been informed this is incorrect so I've removed them.