Apprentice belt

A really good friend of mine commissioned me an apprentice belt! I do not know the recipient but I hope they like it!
38 tablets.
Silk.
Structural weave, vacant hole based on a 12th century technique.

How does structural weave work?
It’s much simpler than it looks.
It has several points in common with the floatwork band I made earlier.

This design is a mix of floaters and what appears under floaters.

First, the floaters.
We already know that floaters are created by going 1/4 forward and 1/4 backwards in order to keep the warp on the surface. These are much shorter floaters than the Chelles band.

Here are our floating threads! They float between 3 to 6 picks except the 4 3 dot clusters and the 4 dots in the center, those are 4X4 floaters.

Now this part! Remember what it looked under the floaters on the Chelles band? Same thing. Remember this band has only 3 threads per tablets so the floaters would be in the empty holes.

Et voilà!

That’s the mechanics of just 1 of the 8 designs used on this band.

Like with most structural weave it’s super tricky to photograph. You got to have the right light. I usually use natural light but since Canada is on fire the sun is hidden.


32 + 6 tablets
20/2 silk
159cm / 5’3″ (175cm / 5’9″ with the fringes)
21 hours including warping

Right and wrong sides showing

Wrong side

Right side