As part of their Medieval Week, The Collection Museum offered several arts and crafts workshops to engage children with medieval history.
Despite being more than a decade older than their intended audience, myself and two other MA Medieval Studies students went along to a tablet weaving workshop at The Collection and had a great time!
According to our workshop instructor, tablet weaving (or hand weaving) has a long history in the textile world and was particularly prominent in the middle ages. The finished braids were used to decorate the edges of clothing and to denote social rank.
The tablets or cards were made of wood, bone or antler; they were square or slightly rectangular in shape and had four holes in each corner. The yarn would be threaded through these holes, and the weaver would pass a shuttle through the yarn to start weaving.
It is a very therapeutic process!