Weaving Upside Down: When the Pattern Ends Up on the Wrong Side

I’ve never had any doubts about which side of the band the pattern should appear on during tablet weaving: naturally, it should be on the top – or, in the case of a vertical loom, on the side facing the weaver. But apparently, this isn’t obvious to everyone. There are people out there teaching tablet weaving while insisting that the pattern should appear on the underside of the band. 😯

One of the great advantages of tablet weaving, in my view, is that each weaver can choose the set of working methods that suits them best. With that in mind, I tried to consider whether there might be a good reason to prefer the pattern facing downward. I couldn’t think of one. As far as I can tell, this setup only works for the simplest of patterns – those that involve turning all the tablets in one direction or following a very basic repetitive row-by-row instruction. On top of that, you’d constantly have to flip the band over to check for mistakes. More advanced techniques become cumbersome – or outright impossible.

It seems someone threaded their tablets incorrectly a few times, ended up with the pattern on the reverse, and decided that was the rule. And now they’re spreading the word. Fancy!