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I’ve always enjoyed braiding and have made many items out of alpaca by spinning the yarn into cord and then using different types of braids to make rope, leads, collars, reins, etc. What I love about braiding is the speed. In about an hour I can have a finished product. The drawback is the ability to have patterns. I’m confined to solid colors, a random color insertion or stripes.
Always thinking about other ways to use my alpaca I came across tablet weaving. The tablet weave has been around for 100’s of years and is the basic form of weaving. You can use any type of fiber like, silk, cotton, wool and yes alpaca. What I like about tablet weaving is the ability to insert patterns and more colors into your work that braiding can’t do. I’m currently learning how to make a simple checker pattern as you can see from the photos.
Tablet weaving is a slower process. With the pattern I’m currently working on the most time consuming part constantly having to untie and take out the twist that forms in the tail. I think I’ll be working on a better board with some swivels that will take out the twist as I weave. Other patterns involve a forward and back movement of the cards so a twist never builds up making the weave faster.
To learn more about tablet weaving here are the 2 sites where I learned the most.
http://www.stringpage.com/tw/basictw.html
http://www.lindahendrickson.com/
