When I begun to weave, I hit the weft upwards with a wooden sword (called vävsvärd – “weave sword” – in Swedish) after each weft thread. By some reason, perhaps because it took such a long time to get anywhere, I started using the sword less, and the diamonds in the diamond/broken lozenge twill became a little elongated (and the weaving became faster). Now I only use the side of my hands to push the weft upwards.
To make things better, the elongated diamonds are quite consistent with textile finds from the Viking Age. The darker, small test piece is woven by hand on a vertical loom (by another weaver, not by me), the lighter piece is my weave on the warpweighted loom, and for comparison, a find from Oseberg. As you can see, on the vertical loom, the diamonds are not as elongated, probably due to tighter packed weft threads. The win-win situation of both a quicker and a more Viking Age-like weave, fantastic! (I may have done a little happy dance when I found that out…)
The Hol History Projects 