Tablet-woven band from Saint-Maurice
This early medieval band, woven in the combination of tabby weave and floatwork technique, intriqued me ever since I learned about it in Collingwood's Tablet Weaving, and after reading more in Schmedding's Mittealterliche Textilien, my interest grew even stronger.
For understanding this band both books are necessary, as each of them contains incomplete information. According to Schmedding, white linen was used for a weft, and white linen, red, yellow, orange and dark blue wool were used for a warp, but no explanation was given how these five colors were aranged in tablets. Collingood clarified that three central yellow threads were replaced by orange ones, but according to his description it seems that only wool was used as a warp.
Collingwood reconstructed this band using 18 two-holed tablets (and published a pattern for it), with a note that it "can be woven by using half the number of four-holed tablets, each carrying all four colours. The result is almost identical but the work is more difficult and involves using some tablets on their points and some ontheir edges." In the black and white photo of the reconstructed band he published, readers can distinguish white and yellow threads, but red and black (his substitution of dark blue colour in Schmedding's description) threads are undistinguishable.
The photo of the original band in Schmedding's book is even worse, with only the white pattern recognizable on the dark background. On the other hand, it shows that the whole band looks different from Collingwood's reconstruction. Most of the pattern consists of quatrefoils (or St. Andrew's crosses), which are separated by diagonal lines only ocassionally, not regularly like in most of the reconstructions based on Collingwood's pattern (e.g. this one.) Collingwood also did not mentioned a fringe made of the weft.
In my attempt to weave as accurate replica as possible, I combined information from both above-mentioned books. However, I decided not to follow Collingwood's pattern, but to make my own for nine four-holed tablets, as I consider less difficult to deal with the tablets on their points than with twice the number of tablets. Already during drawing the pattern I realized that some 'point positions' are not necessary. I learned this when weaving the band from Dürrnberg: After turning the tablet from position 1 (with colours A and B on the top) to position 2 (with colours B and C on the top) and back to position 1, the thread of colour C stays hidden under the colour B and does not show in the pattern. Therefore, where Collingwood's pattern requires only the yellow thread above the weft, I allowed the white thread from the same tablet above the weft as well. The positions on points are needed only for quadrefoils, and even those positions soon stayed only on paper, after I found out that it was quicker to keep all the tablets with the white and black threads on the top and create sheds by picking up the individual threads until the whole quatrefoil was woven.
Although I was quite satisfied with the result of my experiment, I decided to try Collingwood's method too, as I had been wondering about his words "almost identical result..." and also about Schmedding's description "Der rote Grund ist farbich differenziert durch Gelbe und Orange". Since the yellow (and orange) colour dominates over the red in my band, I would rather describe the background as yellow with red edges.
The bottom band in this picture was woven by my method on nine four-holed tablets (+ edge tablets), the other two using 18 two-holed tablets for the pattern, but the top band was woven following Collingwood exactly, whereas for the central one I manipulated tablets similarly to my experiment. The bottom and top band look the same (at least their right sides do), in the central band, white threads are visible next to yellow threads, when you look at the full resolution picture. Neither of these changes in the pattern had any effect on the proportion of yellow and red colours. However, the wrong side of the bands changed significantly:
The bottom band was woven according to my pattern on nine tablets (with some white threads above the weft, even though they are not visible in the pattern on the right side), the top band was woven folowing Collingwood's method. Collingwood wrote about long floats on the wrong side, but it is unclear whether he was describing the original band or his reconstruction. Schmedding, on the other hand, wrote about warp floats passing over 1 to 5 wefts, but again it is unclear, whether her descripton applies only to the right side, or to the wrong side too.
Moreover, there is one place in the photo of the original band, where under the damaged dark threads, white threads appear to be interlaced in tabby weave, which contradicts both reconstructions of this pattern. Unfortunately, it is difficult to see more details due to bad quality of the photo. One can only hope for the new examination of the original band.
References:
Collingwood, P. (1982): The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, pp. 155-157.
Schmedding, B. (1978): Mittelalterliche Textilien in Kirchen und Klöstern der Schweiz, p. 171.
For understanding this band both books are necessary, as each of them contains incomplete information. According to Schmedding, white linen was used for a weft, and white linen, red, yellow, orange and dark blue wool were used for a warp, but no explanation was given how these five colors were aranged in tablets. Collingood clarified that three central yellow threads were replaced by orange ones, but according to his description it seems that only wool was used as a warp.
Collingwood reconstructed this band using 18 two-holed tablets (and published a pattern for it), with a note that it "can be woven by using half the number of four-holed tablets, each carrying all four colours. The result is almost identical but the work is more difficult and involves using some tablets on their points and some ontheir edges." In the black and white photo of the reconstructed band he published, readers can distinguish white and yellow threads, but red and black (his substitution of dark blue colour in Schmedding's description) threads are undistinguishable.
The photo of the original band in Schmedding's book is even worse, with only the white pattern recognizable on the dark background. On the other hand, it shows that the whole band looks different from Collingwood's reconstruction. Most of the pattern consists of quatrefoils (or St. Andrew's crosses), which are separated by diagonal lines only ocassionally, not regularly like in most of the reconstructions based on Collingwood's pattern (e.g. this one.) Collingwood also did not mentioned a fringe made of the weft.
In my attempt to weave as accurate replica as possible, I combined information from both above-mentioned books. However, I decided not to follow Collingwood's pattern, but to make my own for nine four-holed tablets, as I consider less difficult to deal with the tablets on their points than with twice the number of tablets. Already during drawing the pattern I realized that some 'point positions' are not necessary. I learned this when weaving the band from Dürrnberg: After turning the tablet from position 1 (with colours A and B on the top) to position 2 (with colours B and C on the top) and back to position 1, the thread of colour C stays hidden under the colour B and does not show in the pattern. Therefore, where Collingwood's pattern requires only the yellow thread above the weft, I allowed the white thread from the same tablet above the weft as well. The positions on points are needed only for quadrefoils, and even those positions soon stayed only on paper, after I found out that it was quicker to keep all the tablets with the white and black threads on the top and create sheds by picking up the individual threads until the whole quatrefoil was woven.
Although I was quite satisfied with the result of my experiment, I decided to try Collingwood's method too, as I had been wondering about his words "almost identical result..." and also about Schmedding's description "Der rote Grund ist farbich differenziert durch Gelbe und Orange". Since the yellow (and orange) colour dominates over the red in my band, I would rather describe the background as yellow with red edges.
The bottom band in this picture was woven by my method on nine four-holed tablets (+ edge tablets), the other two using 18 two-holed tablets for the pattern, but the top band was woven following Collingwood exactly, whereas for the central one I manipulated tablets similarly to my experiment. The bottom and top band look the same (at least their right sides do), in the central band, white threads are visible next to yellow threads, when you look at the full resolution picture. Neither of these changes in the pattern had any effect on the proportion of yellow and red colours. However, the wrong side of the bands changed significantly:
The bottom band was woven according to my pattern on nine tablets (with some white threads above the weft, even though they are not visible in the pattern on the right side), the top band was woven folowing Collingwood's method. Collingwood wrote about long floats on the wrong side, but it is unclear whether he was describing the original band or his reconstruction. Schmedding, on the other hand, wrote about warp floats passing over 1 to 5 wefts, but again it is unclear, whether her descripton applies only to the right side, or to the wrong side too.
Moreover, there is one place in the photo of the original band, where under the damaged dark threads, white threads appear to be interlaced in tabby weave, which contradicts both reconstructions of this pattern. Unfortunately, it is difficult to see more details due to bad quality of the photo. One can only hope for the new examination of the original band.
References:
Collingwood, P. (1982): The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, pp. 155-157.
Schmedding, B. (1978): Mittelalterliche Textilien in Kirchen und Klöstern der Schweiz, p. 171.