This is a beta-version of a tablet-weaving generator I have been working on. I started making it because I wanted to understand how the complicated patterns in Finnish tablet-weaving are generated with a few simple rules. I can’t be sure that there aren’t any mistakes in the patterns at this stage but you are free to experiment with this tool. If you notice clear mistakes, please send me email. at contactme(at)withmyhandsdream.com. I have only tested this in Chrome browser and used my Mac, so there may be issues with other browsers/operating systems. Unfortunately, this tool, at least so far, is not mobile-friendly as you need to be able to use a mouse. Have fun!

How does it work?

The size of your design

First, select the number of tablets and the number of rows you want to use for your design. Don’t worry! You can increase or decrease these values later if you need to adjust the size of your design. However, you can’t yet change the number of corners on your tablets. The number of corners is set at 4, which is the most common type of a tablet.

Your color palette

Your color palette has six colors and you can choose the active color for drawing by clicking the radio buttons. You can change the colors to whatever you want by clicking the color.

Threading the tablets

Every corner now needs to be threaded with the yarn color of your choosing. The default is white. You can also choose the tablet slant by clicking “/” and “\” which tell the direction of the yarns traveling through the holes. This will affect the direction of the stitches. Try it out and see how the slant changes the stitch directions!

Designing your own tablet weaving

Initially all the tablets are always turned forward. The stitch direction only depends on the tablet slant. Now, in real weaving the tablets can be turned forward or backward. In Finnish tablet weaving tradition, one can also make so-called “half-turns” where the tablet is turned two steps. These stitches are drawn with a double outline:

There are several different ways you can turn the tablets. You can choose the turning direction with these radiobuttons and start clicking the stitches one by one:

Or you can right-click a stitch and choose what you want to do with it:

In case you want to turn several stitches in one go, you can select stitches with a mouse. Ctrl+click (or Cmd+click for mac-users) works also for selecting stitches and you can also remove stitches from the selection by ctrl-clicking them again.

The selected stitches are outlined in red:

You can turn the whole group of selected stitches by right-clicking them.

The best way to use this is perhaps first copy a free pattern (you can find plenty on Pinterest) and see how it is added in. Then you can try to create your own design! Or just play around and see what happens! Have fun!

Katja