The lower tablet band was poles apart from the pervious band, it required 50 tablets to make and was no more than 6 cm wide when woven. The warp yarn was a mixture of light brown and dark brown which created a striped band pattern on the finished article. One hundred and fifty warp threads were used with 26 two holed and 24 four holed tablets. The tablets were grouped together to form a pattern in the twist as well as with the colours. The four holed tablets were threaded with black yarn and the two holed ones with brown yarn. At the top of the band two two plied brown threads were used to create the selvage, also next to this a two-holed tablet was used singly with heavy black yarn. Alternate groups of the black four holed tablets and the brown two holed tablets were used to form the twist and colour pattern. These groups were as follows: 3 black, 4 brown, 3 black, 4 brown, 3 black, 3 brown, 3 black, 3 brown, 3 black, 3 brown, 3 black, 4 brown, 3 black, 4 brown, 3 black. All the tablets were twisted two turns which made the twist on the four holed tablets twice as tight as the two holed tablets, also each group of tablets were threaded in different directions thus adding to the delicate pattern of the twists. It was not until I tried a test piece of this broad tablet that I realized how fine the dark or black wool bands needed to be in order to produce a 1 mm twist. The black yarn tablets were four holed and the black yarn was two ply. The measurement of the twist completed was 1 mm! This meant that I had to spin a thread that when plied then twisted with four others made just 1 mm. The yarn was almost as thin as cotton when spun an achievement that is entirely possible with Shetland wool. The traditional Shetland shawl that can be spun so fine that when knitted it is possible to thread it through a wedding ring this is confirmation of the fine quality of these fleeces.

The broad tablet band also had a fringe as an integral part of the weaving process. In order to make it I devised a double weighted table loom in order to make this band with the fringe. (illus 6) This was necessary because the tension had to be kept on the fringe in order to keep the fringe an even length. I calculated it took one hour to weave 11 rows so the weaving of the band took 16 plus hours to weave the 175 cm length. Henshall suggested that the warp threads were used double in this band as they had been in the narrow band but when I tried this it made the ridges formed by the twists too thick. I can however see why it looked like this when examining the garment. When the weft thread goes through the tablet shed it links two single threads at the top as described in the narrow band to form a selvedge. The thread after the next twisting of the tablets goes through the shed again but this time travels to the fringe weight bar and back again to the tablets. As the process continues when the thread returns towards the fringe weight bar it has to be pulled tight to keep the weaving the right width just 6 cm wide. Otherwise the weaving would spread, as it does not have a selvage on the fringe side to keep it in place. I contrived a solution to this problem; if I knotted two weft yarns together as the weft yarn heads towards the fringe bar it would keep the weaving in place. This knot seemed to tuck itself under the fringe edge of the warp threads and was not noticeable. However when the process of twisting the fringe took place this knot could be undone individually and the twist would take over the task of holding the weaving in place. I calculated that it took 34,000 double twists to make the broad tablet band. The fringe of the band is also unusually elaborate.

In Danish archaeology there are examples of fringes being made from weft threads on tablet woven bands such as a fabric from Thorsbjerg Mose dated from early second century to early fifth century A.D (Hald 1980, 70) ( illus 1 ). Merely twisting the weft threads together in pairs makes the fringe on this example it is basically an easy solution to finishing off this particular garment. The weft threads as can be seen in the diagram are in this instance the warp threads of a larger piece of weaving that the tablet weaving is edging. The Orkney hood fringe has separate two-ply yarns added to enhance the fullness of the fringe. This extra yarn was knotted at the tablet-weaving end of each pair of weft yarns, these yarns are then tightly hand twisted to form the fringe. Each twist end was then double knotted to give weight to the fringe when it was worn, as it would fall better with a heavier knot at its extremity ( illus 7 ). It took 60 twists to produce each strand of fringe and 25 fringes could be twisted per hour, a total 350 strands of fringing altogether. Consequently the fringe twisting took 14 plus hours to do. The fringe was 28 cm long at the front graduating to 33 cm at the back. In order to allow for the take up of the twist the length of the fringe yarn before twisting had to be 45 cm long. The broad tablet band was wrapped around the base of the narrow band almost twice leaving a gap of 20 cm at the back with only one thickness of band and fringing.