I first learnt to weave with tablets about 12 years ago during a course held by Otfried Staudigel, a GREAT teacher and the author of two beautiful books about doubleface tablet weaving.
I immediately liked this incredibly versatile weaving technique and all the possibilities to create interesting motifs by simply turning the cards…

After a long weaving pause I’ve been recently given the opportunity to start to weave with tablets again… A couple of months ago I bought my first acoustic guitar and I “absolutely” needed a beautiful guitar strap to go with it.
And it HAD to be a tablet woven one, of course! :-)

When I first saw a picture of Yrmegard’s “Belt with leaves” I knew immediately, that I had found the perfect motif for my guitar strap!

So I bought the “hardware” parts (made of leather, plastic and metal) on etsy (“Guitar Strap Kit” by ASpinnerWeaver) and started to work out how long and wide the final band should be.
The strap should be sturdy and about 5 cm wide - that was about 40 tablets using cotton 20/5.

Looking at Yrmegard’s pictures, I drew a pattern for a similar motif using 32 pattern tablets and 8 border tablets (4 on each side).
I’ve learnt a lot drawing the pattern looking at a ready tablet woven band, weaving and …unweaving the errors!

This project sums up 3 things I’m really fond of:

1. textiles (it’s tablet woven!)
2. learning to play my guitar (it’s a guitar strap!)
3. nature (tree-leaf motif!)

Thanks a lot to Julia (Yrmegard) for the great inspiration and also for her kind permission to let me show my guitar strap here, because the pattern design is HER IDEA, not mine! In my opinion her wonderful “Belt with leaves” is one of the most beautiful designs in “egyptian-diagonals” technique I’ve ever seen!