Sometimes things don’t go as planned… You have a pattern, you’ve chosen your colors, and you’ve threaded your 60 tablets. In your pattern section, there’s a light color, and you’ve designed a beautiful contrasting dark border. So your weft thread in the dark color is on your shuttle. You’re all set and ready to begin. You just know this is going to be your most stunning band ever!
And then it happens: the dark weft thread is incredibly distracting. It shimmers through your light pattern sections, leaving annoying dark specks behind. To get the stunning pattern section you actually need a light weft thread, but after threading those 60 tablets, you’ve had enough of warping. So, you just want THAT border.
What you’re reading here is my struggle with my latest 4-color pebble. The top and bottom had a different border, but both colors created an ugly effect in the pattern section. A light weft thread didn’t have that problem; it made my pattern exactly the way I wanted it. But using two shuttles, I couldn’t manage to get the border neat, no matter what I did: paying attention to the weft sequence, making sure not to accidentally twist the shuttles—nothing helped. Until I had a bright idea: sharpies!! I could easily color in the light weft thread with a sharpie! I gave it a try on a small piece, and it worked!
My sharpie trick paid off a few days later. Marion learned a new technique, and she proudly admired her first little pattern. But she spotted a mistake, several rows back. Silently, I handed her a sharpie, and after giving me a surprised look, she understood what I meant. Problem solved, and no one noticed. Marion thought it was such a brilliant idea that she posted it on Instagram less than an hour later.
But not everyone was as enthusiastic. I complained to Karoline:
Me: “It does look prettier this way, but Gooi calls it cheating.”
Karoline: “What do you call it then? Rewriting history?”
Me: “I call it smart.”
And I still do. Sometimes, a share is a weaver’s best friend!
The end result. Modified pattern from Werkschrift 8, Bandweefsels uit Zuid-Amerika by Marijke van Epen.