1st Tablet weaving design TW1

My first experiment was a success!

I had asked the advice of experienced weavers, whether practising using acrylic yarn would cause me more trouble than was worth it... opinions were divided but a couple of people said they'd used it when learning and found it useful for practising technique etc. 

So, having a good supply of DK (8 ply) acrylic yarn from various crochet projects, I decided to give it a go (see last post)

It worked! I ended up with a 1.5m band

It was really good having at least 3 colours on each of the pattern cards as it helped me see how the 4 threads on each card moved  dependent on the direction you turned the cards.

For my own benefit I'm noting here what issues I came across, and if I managed to sort them out!...

After weaving approx 1m of band I realised the border threads had become ridiculously tight (and looked pretty thin). I tried to undo the knots and untwist the threads - but it was too fiddly even though I'd done easy release knots. 
Instead, I flipped the cards, S-Z and Z-S) and this helped as it gradually unwound the twist and I was able to carry on weaving for another 50cm or so.

I kept making mistakes - sometimes I noticed quickly and I could just do the reverse of the previous card manipulation and unweave without issue.
Other times I had carried on for another couple of picks (woven rows) and it would occasionally take up to an hour to undo 2/3 rows - so frustrating!
I did however end up calling it a day after a tricky mistake came straight after having repaired a previous error - I didn't have much more warp left, so decided to cut my losses, literally :-)


I also found that occaionally, the threads would stick together, mainly after having to undo mistakes (which would involve me moving the cards up and down a lot to work out what I had done wrong) - mostly the threads could be pulled apart easily but other times I noticed a small bit of thread "fluff" had wrapped around 2/4 threads and it needed to be cut off (very carefully!) in order for me to continue.

Anyhow... time to plan my next band!

Sara ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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