A Note on Twist and Tilt

A Note on Twist and Tilt

Before we get into the motions of tablet weaving, let’s take a look at what’s happening with the tablets and the relationship between the tablets, the threads, and how they work together to create a band. Tilt versus twist is one of the hardest ideas to wrap your head around in tablet weaving. Unfortunately, it’s also critical for successful tablet weaving. That being said, you don’t have to fully comprehend the concept right now: as long as you can understand the concept enough to follow a pattern you’ll be just fine; weaving a few bands may help things click into place. I find it helpful to keep a cheat sheet like the figure below nearby while I’m warping and threading so that I don’t second guess myself.

Twist and tilt visual summary. S twist on the resulting cords is shown in purple and Z twist is shown in green. Tablets are shown in brown and threads are represented in orange as they are seen passing through the tablets.

Let’s start with the easy part, the part everyone agrees on: if you twist threads together you will see a diagonal that looks like the diagonal on either an S or a Z. In tablet weaving, S and Z are opposite. In other words, looking at the top of the leftmost column of the figure above, you can see a Z twisted cord that results from turning the cards forward. At the bottom of the same column, you can see that turning that same card backward will give you an S twisted cord. In the next column, you can see the opposite is true, too: if you start with an S twisted from turning forward and then start turning backward you’ll get a Z twisted cord. This can be helpful to keep in mind with card weaving, because it means that when you have twist building up behind a card you can flip the card so it faces the other way to neutralize or cancel out that twist and make weaving easier.

For the hard part, think about when you’re setting up your band. What is the most useful piece of information? The crux of the problem is that there are two ways to look at it: either you need to know what the threads will look like when they pass through the tablets (the twist of the threads), or you need to know what the tablets will look like as you thread them (the tablet slant or tilt). While both pieces of information are important, they also give you conflicting information, which is why the middle section of the figure above is different for each side. In the left two columns of the figure you can see the twist of the threads model in which the tablets are all parallel, as they appear while you’re weaving and the threads slant on the same diagonal as either an S or a Z twist as they pass through the tablet. In the right two columns you can see the tablet slant model in which the threads are parallel as they are when you’re threading the tablets and the tablets slant on the same diagonal as either an S or a Z.

So, how do you know which to do? Most purchased patterns will tell you, and in most books they’ll tell you which to expect in the preface or introduction. For online pattern editors there’s usually a mention of which style is used in the documentation. Otherwise, I guess and check. I typically start with AD on top and A closest to the weaver (cards facing left) and assume the pattern is written with tablet orientation in mind. Then find a spot where there are four consecutive rows of forward turns in the pattern and match it up with the warping guide. If the colors in the warping guide A-D are in the same order on rows 1-4 for the corresponding tablet and the edges of the design are smooth, then the assumption was correct and the pattern is written for tablet orientation. By the same token, if the colors in the warping guide A-D are in reverse order on rows 1-4 for the corresponding section of the woven band and the edges of the design look jagged, the pattern is written for S and Z twist and the easiest path forward is to rethread the cards. Keep in mind that the sequence might have a different starting point (for example, if it starts on the color through hole C you would be looking at CDAB) If the colors are not in order, double check the threading guide as there may be an error.

How do you fix it if you mix up twist and tilt? It would seem like you should just be able to flip the band over or weave it upside down, but that may not give you the results you’re looking for. The safest way to fix it is to unweave and rethread.