Basketweave Belt

Basketweave Belt

December 2022

Materials: Maysville Carpet Warp (8/4 Cotton)

Tools: 26 weaving cards

Length: ~ 112 cm (44 in)

Width: 3 cm (1.2 in)

Pattern courtesy of Catherine Weaver, Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice 

 

This was my first tablet weaving project that ended up having a practical application. I got the pattern from Catherine Weaver's blog Tablet Weaving in Theory and Practice. At 26 cards, this was quite a bit wider than anything I had tried before. This made it awkward to try to tie onto the belt around my waist, so I came up with a new approach, where I instead looped the already-woven portion around my belt, attached the end to some solid object ahead of me, and pushed on it with a foot to maintain tension. This seemed to work fairly well, so it ended up being an approach I kept using for most of my future projects.

Once I was done weaving, I cut several inches off the start of the band, as it had taken some time for the tension to equalize and the pattern to start looking right. I then folded that end of the band over itself around 2 metal D-rings and sewed it down, creating a simple belt which I have since worn quite a bit. As you can see below, one consequence of this 2-ring style of belt fastener is that the end of the belt ends up being reversed when worn. Luckily, the reverse side of this pattern still looks pretty interesting, so this isn't necessarily a problem. And I was really stoked to be able to wear something I wove by hand (to be honest, I still am).

 

References

 1. Weaving pattern: www.tabletweavingintheoryandpractice.co.uk/2018/07/basketweave.html