Tablet Weaving (often card weaving in the United States) is a weaving technique where tablets or cards are used to create the shed through which the weft is passed. The technique is limited to narrow work such as belts, straps, or garment trim.
The origins of this technique go back at least to the early Iron age. Examples have been found at Hochdorf, Germany, and Apremont, France. Tablet-woven bands are commonly found in Iron age graves and are presumed to be standard trim for garments among various peoples, including the Vikings.
As the materials and tools are relatively cheap and easy to obtain, tablet weaving is popular with hobbyist weavers.
Famous quotes containing the words tablet and/or weaving:
“The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels
the tablet of the world
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)