As I’ve discussed in previous posts, my novel-in-progress Wyrd Weaving was inspired by women’s oft-overlooked leading role in textile production and trade in the early Middle Ages. In addition to general histories of Germanic and Baltic Europe in the 800s, I spent quite a bit of research time learning the mechanics of weaving and spinning methods common during this period. Yet even after hours and hours of reading something was missing.
The magical realism element of the story revolves around period spinning and weaving, and as a fiber arts person myself (knitting originally) I knew the tactile elements of these arts would be important to my portrayals in the book. Naturally the only solution was to try my hand at some traditional European spinning and weaving methods. Spinning, while infuriating to learn the mechanics of at first, is at least cheap to start, and fairly compact to carry around. Modern fabric weaving looms, on the other hand, cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. And while my partner is endlessly kind and patient with regards to his mad writer spouse’s hyperfixations, suggesting that we build a replica period loom in the garage was a shade too far even for him.
Enter: tablet weaving. I stumbled across card weaving by accident in my research, but quickly realized it was my solution to learning to weave in a reasonable-to-modern-life but still period-accurate way. In this video I talk about the mechanics of tablet weaving while waxing not-so-poetic about how bonkers it is that humans even figured out we could weave straps this way (seriously, whoever originally figured this out was a mathematical pattern genius).
If you want to try tablet weaving, I cannot recommend Karen Ostheller (aka Lady Elewys of Finchingefeld) and her blog/videos enough. I could never have figured out tablet weaving on my own without her highly informative and easy-to-follow videos.
For more info on my novel Wyrd Weaving check out the rest of my Substack, or my tumblr account linked in the Obligatory Socials on my page.
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