Tablet-weaving / Card-weaving

One of my first learning projects, showing how you can make many patterns with one warp setup.

A new thing I researched and learned last year, and wrote an illustrated how-to paper on. And I really fell in love with it. The weaving process can be simple and quick (a few hours or days for a band). Or it can be very complex and time-consuming. I might not tackle those - my strength has always been to learn a simple technique, and then design complex patterns for it. And I am already doing that.

The technique is ancient (at least Roman, Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 1500BCE at Hallstatt, 1100BCE in Italy are recent discoveries), and related to weaving on the warp-weighted loom (which is at least neolithic in age). The woven bands can be very strong, "camel straps", or 1 cm wide delicate silk strips used for headbands (fillets), or clothing borders, sometimes woven-in. 

My enthusiasm for this is encouraging me to get involved again with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), which I have always considered myself part of the community of, and make some clothing. Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 12th century London. . .

But of course, current retro/boho fashions are also the perfect place to wear these decorative bands. Wish I had run across it back in the day.


One of the things I was doing while I wasn't posting. (While I didn't have internet from home)

Partial Solar Eclipse Aug 21, 2017

Partial solar eclipse photo through the bottom of a colander

written and back-posted April 26, 2020

I would have had to drive north to see a total eclipse, it was just partial here, so I used this colander to watch the shadow cross the sun in the round spots of light that came through the round holes.

When I was a kid there was a partial eclipse, and Dad made something like a pinhole camera with a box, and aluminum foil, and a pinhole, for us to watch the spot of light.

Somewhere in the late '70s, there was a total eclipse visible in Washington. I was home at the time, and Mom and I drove halfway across the state looking for a hole in the clouds. We found one near a farm, and pulled up just as the eclipse was starting. As it darkened, Mom said the cows started 'lowing', and they moved towards the farm buildings. I think there were birds calling too, like at dusk.

The eclipse itself was spectacular too.

Totally worth traveling to see.

Lassie Had the Most Beautiful Green Eyes — January 2017

Lassie Reflected Nov 24, 2016
Written4/20/2017. First posted Oct 12, 2017

I had just noticed that again recently, as she came in the window from the balcony.

I don't know what happened to her. She had fallen off the balcony again in the fall. One of the rose pots was 8 feet away, in the bushes. Something scared her ... Maybe the great horned owls. It was still warm enough that I could lock up the other cats, and leave the door open to the top floor porch, and in the morning she had found her way in. I was thinking that next time, she could find her way home easily. ...  She seemed fine.

There were a couple of weeks, twice, when she was being unusually friendly with me. Not pushy, like in the past. Just sitting next to me on the bed, and being happy to be petted. I had to go invite her back, when she went away the first time.

I used to say"Everybody hates Lassie" because there used to be fights, and chasing away. I never knew who started it. But they aren't all friends now, as they were as kittens.

Then one day she climbed the bedspread up onto the bed instead of jumping up.

The first time I really noticed something was wrong, she didn't come running to eat with the others.

There was one last warm day in the middle of January, when I carried her out to be in the sun on the balcony again. Previous pictures out there were from November.

For a couple of days she licked the juice off canned cat food, and drank water and broth. She stayed near the heater, and I put a warm nest for her to sleep in. The last day, she was crying out. She calmed when I petted her very carefully on the back of the head.

She had swallowed a hair; that can be fatal. And then there are the 2 potentially fatal diseases, the one the kittens had, that they wouldn't have gotten if Mom's cats had had their shots, and the one that killed their father a month or so later...

Even waiting as long as possible between rainstorms for the heavy clay ground to dry, it was still very wet and heavy. Luckily a friend finished digging the hole for me, before the next rain. Next to Buddy, and with more rosemary.

Goodby Lassie. I love you.