Tablet-Woven Belt, 14th Centuty

Silk, made with 14 tablets. The pattern is a simple stripe (2 rows yellow, 2 rows green) based on a surviving fragment documented in Textiles and Clothing: Medieval Finds from Excavations in London (page 133, fig 100c) as a girdle or spur strap from the second half of the 14th century. It also appears in Dress Accessories (page 48). The original fragment is two colors: one source give pink and green/yellow, the other pink and yellow/white.

I wanted it to follow the narrow, long trailing belt styles popular in the 14th century (as on this statue or this surviving belt), which seemed congruent with the width of the surviving fragment. For the belt fittings, I used the "garter buckle and chape" set from Billy & Charlie's, which is meant to be 14th to early 15th century in style, and which fit the size of the band I was weaving.

The main lesson from this project was so fun that I got to learn it twice: re-read the instructions if you've set a project aside for months/years. For the weaving, I had gone so long between warping and weaving that I forget that 'using a finer weft on warp-faced tablet weave is necessary or else it will distort the pattern' is basically the first rule of tablet weaving. Alas, my clever idea of using the same silk for warp and weft to get cleaner selvedges also turned the lines of the pattern into zig-zags. And then when it came to installing the buckle and chape, I used an unnecessary extra pin (for which there really wasn't enough room), because there was a spare in the kit and I incorrectly assumed both should be needed. Again, if I'd taken a moment to check the item specs, this could have been avoided.

That being said, I did like working with the silk thread. The simple pattern made it very easy to bring this project out to public events, since it was easy to stop and start without losing count.