Find Out What Colorful Craft Inspired My Book Loveweaver

Discovering tablet weaving was the genesis of my historical romance, Loveweaver. The more I read about this ancient craft, the more interested I became. The idea for my heroine, Llyrica, a Dane tablet weaver in the 9th century, was conceived and my book began to take shape.

There is some debate on where tablet weaving began, but a partial loom was found at a burial site in Norway on the Viking ship, the Oseberg. It dates to around 850 AD.

Here's a great 5-minute video that gives you a great idea of tablet weaving.  Gosh, he's good!

At the time of my initial research (15 years ago) internet research was not what it is today, much less You Tube tutorials, so I learned to tablet weave via this book, Card Weaving. It taught me all I needed to know about building my little loom, how to make my "tablets",  how to read a pattern, and even how to create my own designs.

The design you see on the images of my loom is the design that Llyrica wove for Slayde, the hero of Loveweaver. It is a design that goes quickly since the tablets turn forward 4 times and backward 4 times to form one motif. There are designs where tablets are turned in groups in opposing directions and you really need to pay attention or things can go wrong before you know it.

Loveweaver - LLyrica Has Woven a Lovespell into the Braid of Slayde's Tunic

“Hand it up,” Slayde said, suddenly towering over Llyrica. “You look to be through with the tunica. Now we will find you passage on through to East Anglia. Immediately upon landing, with any luck. Prepare to gather your things.”

Across Llyrica’s lap lay Slayde’s new garment, sewn on the four-hour journey along the inner coast of Sheppey. Found in her bundles, the piece of black was woven of imported Mediterranean yarn, spun finely from long wool fibers. This, combined with Soso’s talents, had rendered a cloth possessed of a dark sheen, smooth surface and soft hand. Llyrica added her knowledge of fit, small stitches and the braid, fresh from her tablet loom, to fashion a garment both elegant and enviable. No one would see, though, the song she wove within, a lovespell that would bind her to the StoneHeart. It had worked for Mother when she wove Father’s cloak of violet, indigo and harvest gold. Now Llyrica held her breath, wondering if her talents as Songweaver gave the power to direct her fate.

Loveweaver by Tracy Ann Miller - A Passionate Kiss Between Llyrica and Slayde

Buy Loveweaver

“Goddamn it.” Slayde’s mouth slanted across hers possessively, his devouring kiss a remedy for unspoken words. He kept his heart aloof, let his body take the brunt of unexpressed emotion with blinding desire. No weak sentiment here, just hard lust and ownership. Llyrica had given herself freely to him, bound them together by her love spell. This soft form was his for the taking, every lush curve and ripe mound yielding against his body. If not for this cursed bad timing and unfit location, she would already be under him, receiving the searing brand of his claim on her.

He came up for air, and dove again into her mouth, roving, seeking a satisfaction that lay just beyond his reach. A harder press, a deeper plunge of his tongue availed him a fiercer need, one a kiss would not meet.

Loveweaver by Tracy Ann Miller - Llyrica Awakens New Emotions in Slayde

Buy Loveweaver

He had never known before, the power of a woman’s loving caress. Llyrica’s caress. 

An exorcism of a thousand hurts, her touch burned him, threatened to reduce him to a crying child. The healing effects of her affections, unsought and undeserved were given in abundance, confirmed his need for them. But his starvation for them was daunting. Slayde felt like a man who had fasted for decades, whose body, accustomed to lack, could withstand only the barest sustenance. He was filled with her, gorged, and could endure no more of her doting lest he lose the last of his male dignity.

 

Slayde Continues to Deny His Attraction to Llyrica

       “I have learned that a woman will use her soft curves, tender touches and sweet voice to drive a man to do her bidding. Just as you think to do now.” Slayde flung her linen shroud aside, and caught her up in his arms to pull her against him. A black lock of his hair fell unto his brow. “And these silks you wear. Know it will not work on me, vixen.”

She drew a deep breath when he indicated no knowledge of her crimes. But her awareness that the sleepwalker dwelt beneath StoneHeart’s clothes and weapons quickened her pulse in the most tantalizing places. “A mishap brought me here for sure. But I have no notion to what you now refer. I merely sit here, in my everyday garments, in your house and weave. If I have insulted you again by teaching Elfric something other than what you and your father deem proper for a man to know, I pray your pardon.”

“I may grant it if the other boys do not bloody his nose when they find he has been at a female craft.” He crushed her closer until impulse dictated she slip her arms around his waist. The thick muscles of his back tightened under her splayed fingers.

“That is an odd fear of yours, I think, that you will appear as less than a man. But it is an unfounded fear given the size of your  ... when I see evidence of your  ...” Her face heated. “Your height and large hands and shadowed jaw and chin.”

His mouth twitched almost imperceptibly in one corner. “I was taught to be a man and so should Elfric. Our father is gone, so I am in his stead. Every boy needs a father to raise him thus, or a man to take the father’s place.”

On her brother’s behalf, Llyrica felt keenly this lack of father. If Haesten had been a different man, she would not be cast alone on foreign turf in search of him, or under an obligation to avenge her mother’s beatings at his hand. A rare tear glazed each eye.

“You will neither change our arrangement, nor try and be rid of me. I have Father Byrnstan’s vow and the asylum of his church.” In a short time, she would also have a braid imbued with a lovesong.

“You give a fine example of how a woman works. You say one thing, but by the soft molding of your body, the pout on your lips and tears in your eyes, you plead for another.”

“I sat at the loom with no intention of pleading anything from you. Until you came, hauled me against you, and said you would throw me out. You then reminded me that my brother and I have been without a father. If this is an example of how a man works, then I may not praise the job that Ceolmund did in raising you.”

He straightened with new intensity, his arms muscles flexed around her, his chest, abdomen and thighs turned to stone. His manpart pressed so hard against her that Llyrica felt it throb. “This is how a man works, vixen. This is how I work.”