If you're reading this, it means that my next book is out! It's called Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice: Egyptian Zigzags (click the link to go to the sale page over on my publisher's site) and is based around an Egyptian band (catalogue numbers ÆIN 958 and ÆIN 959) held by the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has instructions for a direct reconstruction band plus drafts for another 154 designs in the same style.
ÆIN 958 and ÆIN 959 were skillfully woven in fine white linen and vibrantly coloured wool threads, with a combination of warp-twining and brocade work. Each of their selvedges is around 5.5mm wide, with their intricately patterned centre sections being around 17mm wide, to a total of around 28mm wide*. ÆIN 958 is around 48cm long and ÆIN 959 is around 48.5cm*. Both bands have significant damage to both their selvedges and brocade threads, with some sections missing entirely, suggesting that they saw significant wear before deposition, although the selvedge damage may have occurred after excavation, when they were removed from their original context in preparation for for sale*. Due to the absence of any context for the objects, we cannot be sure of their age, but they were proposed as being from the 7th-8th centuries in a museum catalogue from 1930 or from the 14th-15th centuries by Nancy Spies, herself an expert in tablet woven brocaded bands. (Statements marked with * are based on my personal observations of the bands)
The objects were woven with groups of 4 tablets turning togther for four turns for the majority of their motifs and I had a lot of fun with extending the technique to make new designs. All the extra drafts in Egyptian Zigzags are woven with 54 tablets (40 pattern tablets, with 7 selvedge tablets on each side), but I've reduced the number of tablets and changed up the colours they carry for the Bonus draft here. I picked red, white, blue and yellow as they were the selvedge colours of the original band. The Bonus draft is twist-neutral overall, as well as the two halves being twist-neutral, so you won't get a build up of twist if you weave the entire draft or if you only weave the first 24 or second 24 rows.
Link to TDD file
Link to text version
As with all of the free drafts/patterns on this site, you are welcome to weave them, sell bands woven using them, and use them to teach other weavers, just as long as you state where you found them.