May 2012 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – New Looms, New People, New England!

I have a Facebook friend who posts up to ten of those motivational/inspirational quotes a day…all in a row on my newsfeed. I must admit that I don’t read them but for some reason this one caught my eye…

If A equals success, then the formula is A=X + Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut. -Einstein

Now, I don’t find anything particularly remarkable about this and I don’t know why I paused to read it. Perhaps it was the name “Einstein” that attracted me and the fact that we tend to think that everything and anything a famous or much admired person says, no matter in which field they excel or excelled, must be deeply profound and noteworthy.

This could have been said by Joe Eintstein of Blogsville Pennsylvania who is just having some fun with his famous last name for all we know.

I don’t claim to know what the meaning of success is but the short saying had me thinking a little about the proportions of “X and “Y” in my life and I was happy to find that at least at this stage of my life both elements seem to have pleasantly blended. As for keeping my mouth shut, I am a pretty quiet person, but I was given a fun t-shirt by some of the Ravelry gals who live over in the northwest which serves as a reminder!

Can you make out the t-shirt slogan? Could this be the formula for success? Something to keep one focused! And I needed focus with this particular project as it had to be done in a hurry. I needed a long wool warp-faced band to which we could attach tubular bands as Pam was having groups of friends coming to weave in her barn. She helped get me set up on this new-to-me equipment with Harrisville Shetland wool from her stash and away I went.

A little strumming was required to get the sheds to open cleanly but I am well used to that from weaving on my backstrap loom.

I think that I could have gotten in more picks per inch if I had woven it on my backstrap loom. The higher tension on this Macomber loom did not allow me to beat the weft in as well but I love the feel of the resulting band…long and flowing. Tony the cat loved it too.

So, this is what we used for sewing tubular bands. Yes, the band got cut into pieces. I know, I didn’t want to do it either but that was its destiny right from the start.

This is the plain-weave tubular band that Chris was weaving and sewing to the edge of the fabric. One of the keys to achieving a nicely woven and sewn tubular band, in my opinion, is knowing exactly where to insert the needle in the fabric.

And above you can see Chris’s ñawi awapa tubular band in progress. Tubular bands can be woven as independent bands or attached to fabric, in which case, they are woven and sewn simultaneously to the edge of the textile.

I attached one to the edge a mug rug at left.

We also used bands that I had commissioned from PAZA in Cochabamba Bolivia which were woven on leaning vertical looms with hand spun wool dyed with natural substances.

One of the young ladies in the club de chicas who is learning to weave produced this band and I was pleased to be able to buy and put one of her learning pieces to good use. I know you might be horrified by all this cutting up of these lovely bands but the weavers in PAZA themselves also do this to make cell phone pouches to sell.

The handspun yarn is overtwisted and the beat when weaving is firm to say the least. Of course this band had an entirely different feel to the one I wove on the floor loom and behaved in an entirely different way when I cut it into pieces.

I just folded the pieces in half and pinned them together. Having them sit like that for a couple of days settled them quite a bit and they served their purpose. The two bands were very different but suited our needs equally well.

Here are the ladies weaving away. In my experience so far, weaving and sewing a tubular band is usually accompanied by a lot of mumbling and whispers. One has to resist the urge to talk one’s way through the moves in a loud voice so as not to disturb the rest of the group. These groups, however, were particularly silent and seemed to be relying on the wee voices in their heads to help them work through the process.

I will be heading home tomorrow (Tuesday) and thankfully have all day today to pack and organize my stuff.

I have been staying a week here with Pam and her barn is weaving paradise! The Buddha in her field will soon be hidden as the grass grows to form a maze. I have never been here at the right time of year to enjoy that.

One day was spent at Ravelry member Jeen’s home nearby where we wove pebble weave together.

It was wonderful to meet Jeen after having “known” her for so long online.

It was nice to see in person some of Jeen’s warp-faced bands.

On Tuesday I met more of Pam’s weaving friends who come to work in the studio under her guidance on a variety of looms and learn different techniques from Navajo and card weaving to overshot and boundweave. This was the second last week before summer break and so I got to see quite a few pieces being cut off their looms.

Joanne and Sheilah are obviously very happy with their pieces. Joanne’s is bound weave which she will sew into a bag and decorate with finger looped braids and Sheilah, with her quilter’s eye for color and pattern, made a rag rug with beautiful color progression.

Bev is trying her hand at double weave pick-up and Joan, who introduced me to a local Burmese backstrap weaver on my visit last year, is threading a rigid heddle to do tapestry on the Leclerc Penelope tapestry loom. And that’s not all…Pam has more weavers working away on all kinds of things there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the studio is open for whenever one wants to drop by and continue working on their project.

Pam’s studio is as always a treasure trove of ethnic textiles from around the world. Joan has been working with a basket weaver from Burundi, Patricia Kayobera, and Pam has a display of her pieces. When Patricia was unable to find the materials with which she was used to working at home, she used cut up plastic rice bags. The baskets she made in Burundi were white and the plastic bags were an acceptable substitute.

Now she is starting to work with raffia.

The flyer and baskets are posed on a piece of indigo dyed cloth that Pam recently bought from an exhibit of textiles of Ghana.

She has colorful strips of Kente cloth woven by the Ashanti and Ewe people of Ghana. (Also see Tien Chu’s fascinating blog post on her visit to Ghana and contact with the Ewe people). The vast difference in use of color between the two groups is interesting. I can’t decide which I like better.

The dyeing technique in the other piece, I am told, is called plangi and involves sewing thread into the woven cloth which is then pulled to pleat and ruffle the fabric before dyeing. The dye is able to penetrate some areas more easily than others and that is what creates the patterns.

A piece of Palestinian cross-stitch embroidered fabric and a sweet example of soumak on a tiny piece from Azerbaijan. While I doubt that I will ever get into cross stitch embroidery, as beautiful as it is, (there simply isn’t time for everything) I definitely see soumak in my future!

As for my weaving, another on-the-road project went on the loom and one came off.

A week in Pennsylvania gave me another chance to hitch to a tree and weave the camera bag project.

At Pam’s place I warped the small red band because this time I wanted to make a more complete replica of the bird design on the textile fragment that Tom Knisely had showed me at The Mannings.

I liked the way that the bird motif changed from white to red and I learned a lot by weaving this piece.

The camera bag project was finished at Pam’s indoors because the weather was quite gnarly when I arrived (now we have been enjoying days of the most gorgeous spring weather).

It came off the loom to be sewn. I want to cut and shape the flap and sew a tubular band to it and I need to find a nice button closure.

Here is the “bird” band about to come off the loom. I just wanted to weave the two color versions of the bird and I will most likely make this into a keyfob.

The purple and black piece will make a bag for the camera just in time for me to put it back on the shelf. It has served me very well since my bigger Olympus camera died in Oregon but now I have the camera that you see at left!…

A friend of my brother’s in Australia gave me his Olympus…the exact same model as the one I have been using and loving these past three years.

Apparently he bought it for a trip to India in 2007 and then decided that he would rather have something that he could slip into his pocket.

The Olympus has sat untouched since then…just waiting for me!

So I am back in business with a camera with which I am already very familiar. Now to weave a strap for it and find a suitable woven gift for Surrey who gave me the camera.

You can see the double weave strap I wove for the other camera at left.

Now, if I had been smart, I would have made a strap with the “bird” band. Well, there’s nothing stopping me from weaving another, right?

Oh, and the book on which the cameras are posed…that is a beauty, and has enabled me to read more about some of the Colombian textiles that Laritza brought to show me when we wove together.

And the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival report still does not appear. I miss blog posts and get overwhelmed with stuff! I will however show you what I bought at Sheep and Wool…

These are examples of the rug wool colors that I bought for my Moroccan weft substitution project.

You may remember that while I was visiting in California, Yonat showed me a piece woven in Morocco. We suspected that it was a rug. I was excited to see first hand an example of the weft substitution technique about which I had heard and immediately started dreaming about trying it.

Part of Yonat’s “rug” can be seen above. Wool simply does not exist in the lowland area of Bolivia in which I live and so I knew that I would have to find something while here in the US. The main colors are cream and black with tiny bits of red and mustard yellow bordering each pattern section and I think I found just the thing at Sheep and Wool.

Betty in Oregon gave me some fine wool warp from her stash and I am hoping that with all this I will be good to go. I can use one of my Navajo forks to beat and I guess I will set it up on my backstrap loom. I will need to play around with the sett to find what is ideal. I am NOT planning on making a rug! Perhaps it will be center piece for a table. It is a long long time since I did anything weft-faced. I will need to sample for sure.

After looking around online I found a site called The View from Fez – Beginners’ Guide to Moroccan Rugs which shows these kinds of Moroccan pieces. These images are from there…

The article tells us that these pieces are cloaks rather than rugs but that they are often sold in stores as rugs. They are called hendiras. It explains that the cloak is worn with the loose loops of wool outermost in the snowy weather as the snow tends to fall off the wool loops rather than accumulate and soak the fabric. There is more on the site mentioned above. Do take a look. The latest issue of Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot also has an article on a cooperative that is preserving the Berber weaving tradition of Morocco in which the beautiful hendiras also appear.

Well, I think I am done with this week’s blog post. This is my last day in the beautiful Massachusetts spring weather and it is calling me out to play. I will be heading home to a Bolivian lowland late fall which will most likely be every bit as hot and humid as any other time of year!

I will leave you with Pam’s husband Jim Engberg’s photo of an iris taken in their garden…spring in New England.

Eating lashings of pistachio icecream on the porch at the end of a perfect spring day looking down towards Pam’s barn weaving studio….a lovely way to end this trip. Tomorrow…back on the long road home!

Backstrap Weaving – From Baby Steps Come Big Things

The close of this fun and very long trip is approaching.

I can’t believe that two weeks from now I will be home.

Yet, I still have lots of people with whom to weave so somehow it really doesn’t feel like things are about to end. A very peaceful week spent in the home of Ron, Carol and Helen has really enabled me to do some outdoor weaving, not to mention the chance I have had to go through everything in the Mannings store, meet Tom Knisely’s beginner weaving students, hang out with the twining group that meets here once a month and see Tom’s collection of old textile fragments and tools. And then there’s Sara and all the staff at The Mannings who cater to my every need…what a nice way to spend time towards the end of this trip.

Yesterday was one of those heavenly warm and sunny days…too warm to be out at noon but just perfect in the early evening. I set up my backstrap loom on the grass across from the stream that runs at the bottom of the Mannings property. This really isn’t something I would do at home…I would soon be carried off by the insects!

Local kids were fishing and Stipples, one of The Mannings cats, soon got chummy with them…..not one, not two but three free meals for her kittens. It was hard to catch a good picture of her as she trotted on by. I was, after all, attached to my loom and this was a cat on a mission.

I was weaving there on the grass tied up to the perfect tree with the perfect amount of shade.

The pick-up design is from a pattern I found in one of David Barker’s books on textile designs of Bhutan.

Check out my RESOURCES page to see where you can download these books for free.

The finished piece will be made into a bag for the wee camera that has served me well since my big camera died shortly after arriving in the US for this trip. It will certainly be better than the somewhat battered bag that I am using now.

The whole camera story has a very happy ending and I will tell you about that when I get to Massachusetts next week. The sword in the picture is one I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool.

I have also done some other just-for-fun weaving this week. Tom Knisely brought in some textile fragments of old Peru which were given to him…three beautifully mounted and displayed sets in glass cases. I decided to copy one of the sea bird motifs and make a keyfob for Tom.

The old fragment has the sea birds changing from white to red and back again along its length and I would like to weave a longer piece now to reproduce those color changes.

Just one set of sea birds was enough to make the keyfob. A metal ring and some braids completed it.

Tom brought in not only the fabulous fragments but also these amazing tools which were given to him!

Look at that distaff and gorgeous carved sword! They are posed in this picture on a cheerful handwoven bag made in Guatemala. The bag is sold at The Mannings as the tote for the Cricket loom that is commissioned from Mayan Hands by Schacht. It is just perfect for the loom.

The sword is actually a little on the wonky side and it seems strange that someone would go to the trouble of carving a piece of wood that was not in better shape. That makes me think that maybe this sword was not created to be used. A lot of the swords that I have picked up in my travels show that they have been well used by the indentations along their edges where the warp threads have “bitten” into the wood. However, the edges on this sword are clean. I am thinking that perhaps it is a weaving tool that had been made to be buried alongside a weaver and so was never intended to be used.

It does, however, have ends that have been blunted possibly as a result of having fallen to the floor many times. I recognize this feature as that is what the swords that I lend friends end up looking like.

As new weavers struggle to find that “sweet spot” with the right amount of tension on the warp where the sword will sit up nicely and stay in the open shed, they have to put up with having the sword pop out frequently and clatter to the floor…result: blunt tips.

Maybe the person in the US who first acquired this tool was a novice backstrap weaver and was using it in their loom and having to deal with it taking frequent nose dives. These are of course all “maybes, perhapses and I wonders” – all pure guess-work!

Who knows what the story is behind this beautiful tool and its maker and owner and the many hands through which it has passed before ending up here. It is fun to try and imagine what happened.

In any case it is gorgeous. The carved figures look like pumas, llamas and a condor.

Let’s look at the distaff…

Tom doesn’t know the origin of these pieces and I am not even going to speculate. Maybe someone out there can tell us.

It wasn’t easy just hanging out in a yarn store for a week! I can tell you when every trip to get water or tea meant walking by shelves and shelves of yarn and tools! And then there were weavers and twiners all around to chat with. Talk about happy distractions.

Fortunately I am not really a “yarny” person. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t make my purchases…I took the chance to restock yarn and supplies for my future weaving projects and was happy to find good substitutes for yarn that I have been happily using only to find now discontinued. Carol was great helping me with that. She can take a look at yarn and immediately come up with something in the store that very closely resembles it.

Last weekend I wove with some ladies including two mother-and-daughter pairs who seem to have decided that backstrap weaving together would be a cool way to celebrate Mothers Day…I agree!

We were able to dress up some of our plain-weave samples with patterns using supplementary wefts. Bolivian hatbands were our inspiration.

Here are the two mom-and-daughter pairs concentrating hard as they coordinate their newly acquired skills. That’s Kathy with daughter Amanda and Rae with Kara. Rae is the mom above right who also wove with me here last spring.

Here are the other weavers helping and supporting each other in their first attempt at four-stake warping…Sharon, Bonnie, Lynn and Marge. I met Bonnie on my blog. We finally got to meet in person here at The Mannings.

I mention in the title of this week’s post that “from baby steps come big things”. Well, that is what I am always hoping after people weave with me. I know that people want to try this kind fo weaving for many reasons. Some just want a little treat or vacation from their typical weekend and want to get away from the computer and work and all the ”stuff” that is going on at home. Trying out something new can be just the thing to set them free from all that for a while.

Others are intrigued by the backstrap loom and its simplicity and would be happy to sit quietly and do plain weave all day enjoying being part of the loom and moving with it while they weave their cloth.

Some want to try the pick-up techniques so that they can apply them to not only backstrap but other looms. Not many go straight home, put a loom together and continue weaving. Some get together with me again to weave six months later. I love seeing them again whether they have been weaving or not!

Of course, I am always pleased when someone out of the blue sends me a picture of things that they have gone on to create after having woven with me.

Yonat adapts all the pick-up techniques we weave together to her inkle loom and recently showed off her collection on Facebook in one picture. There are samples there from the three times that we have woven together. There are also bands that she has gone on to create herself….fabulous!!

Yonat inkle bands

Yes, from baby steps come big things. It tickles me to see the simple diamond motif that we weave as we learn to create patterns with simple warp floats show up in large stunning pieces from around the world.

That little warp-float diamond could grow up to be this…!

This is the “dragon cloth” that Deb McClintock showed me in Texas from her collection of textiles from South East Asia. Can you see the dragons…aren’t they spectacular? Perhaps the little diamond is a puff of smoke coming from the dragon’s nostrils.

This simple warp float technique is often dismissed when people are studying my tutorials here. A lot of people find the horizontal bars on which the floats sit distracting. Marsha Knox aka Pandula Arts is one person who learned the technique from my blog and really explored it making bags, backstraps and pouches with the patterned fabric she created.

Eladio Torres in Mexico has also woven large and beautiful pieces with it…

Speaking of baby steps, I can only hope that my baby steps in ikat….

…will some day, with much practice and perseverance and tenacity, remotely resemble something like this…

Ha! Well, I can dream, can’t I?

And then if I had another couple of lifetimes…maybe these???

These pieces are from Timor and I photographed them at one of the stands at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival a couple of weeks ago. I could go on and on and show you some images of incredible Sulawesi ikat pieces and their creators that collector Chris Buckley recently sent me but I will save those for next week along with my report on Sheep and Wool…all way, way too much for one blog post.

As for the baby steps and the big things to come, I will remind myself that the little girls in Peru who make these…

…very often grow up under the constant watchful eyes of their wise and skilled weaving elders to weave things like this…

Hmmm….I wonder where my baby steps in discontinuous warp technique will lead me? Arrgh…so much to learn and so little time!

I have lots more to show and tell….Maryland Sheep and Wool for one which I attended with Claudia and Janet, at left, and all the wonderful textiles I saw there and people I got to hang out with, fun at Claudia’s place spinning and backstrap weaving and learning to thread her floor loom with its four-shaft project and a day of weaving with Laritza and Terri.

Laritza is from Colombia and brought textiles and accessories from the Guambiano Indians to show me as well as a mochila made by the Arahuaca people.

I have some really cool things from Ravelry weavers to show too. I am saving all of it for next week.

The stream, that tree and that grassy piece of shade is calling me to come weave!!

I have been told that the weather in Massachusetts right now is a wee bit on the chilly side and so I must make the most of this sun and warmth while I can.

Hard to imagine a more peaceful setting!

Backstrap Weaving – Postcards from the Road

I got a wee window of spring in Oregon and Washington…beautiful! There was one glorious weekend when everyone seemed determined to come out and play in the sunshine. Betty and I, with a couple of weaving friends, Carol and Sheryl, headed to the Hood River Fiber Festival and what a spectacular drive it was along the Columbia River and around the surrounding countryside with views of Mt Hood, Mt Adams and Mt St Helens.

The fishermen were out in full force. Betty remarked that years ago, when she lived elsewhere, she had had to drive this freeway every day. I think that if you have to commute on a freeway, then this is definitely the one to be on….spectacular views all the way!

Mt Hood appeared on the horizon with a variety of pretty foregrounds. It looked particularly lovely with the blossoming fruit trees in Hood River.

I could flood this post with mountain scenes!… and to think that I climbed Mt Hood in the summer of 1992 with some Sierra Club buddies.

Mt Adams and Mt St Helens looked amazing in their heavy winter coats.

And then there was this!…

Multnomah Falls, right there on the side of the road…oh my gosh!

And in amongst all this beauty was the fiber festival. Fortunately, I am not a yarn shopper. I know pretty much what I need for my backstrap weaving projects and I can get it all in Bolivia. This means that I can attend these festivals without doing any damage to the credit card. I was, however, on the lookout for some wool to use in a supplementary weft experiment. Betty gave me some excellent yarn for warp but I needed weft. No luck with that in Hood River but there is still Sheep and Wool in Maryland….

And so I was able to cruise about and just enjoy looking at some of the beautiful displays and hand work….

The spindles are by Ed Jenkins of Scotts Mill, Oregon. Betty ran into a fan from Foothils Yarn & Fiber who immediately had her sign the copy of her Hands On Rigid Heddle book which was on his stand for sale. And then it was put away to be treasured and not sold.

After lunch we went out to Foothill Farm to see the sixty or so alpacas grazing and dozing in the sun, meet Connie Betts and see the natural yarn and fiber in her store.

And then we headed home. It is amazing how exhausting it can be being out in all that sun and spring freshness!…perfect weather. We stopped off at a local winery for some tasting…and arrived home with head spinning with wine and fresh air.

After weaving with various people here, there was a little time left to just kick back and enjoy Betty’s beautiful forested home and this city girl even got a lesson or two in blueberry farming. Too bad I had to leave long before the crop could come in.

And how nice it was to be present at one of the Portland Guild study group meet-ups…sitting about in Sue’s home doing show-and-tell, pouring over books and magazines, feeling yarn and samples and just talking and talking about weaving.

Being online and in contact with weavers around the world from my home in Bolivia is one thing but I was very envious of this group and the fun they have getting together, planning projects, helping each other and talking weaving and with none other than Betty Davenport in their midst!

And I got to see Bobbie from the Ravelry group one more time when she came over to help with some of Betty’s de-stashing.

Bobbie carried off all of the cotton yarn that Betty had bought in Guatemala about thirty years ago (well, I helped make a wee hole in that pile too!). And, of course, she has already shared some of that with Jennifer.

Bobbie brought over her finished placemat which she made with natural dyed cotton that Education and More bring from Guatemala to sell in their online Fair Trade store.

You can see that Bobbie’s latest score of yarn is not naturally dyed and comprises all the bright and happy colors of Guatemala.

This is Bobbie’s finished Guatemalan warp float piece. Isn’t it superb…so proud of this lady! She also brought over her tubular band to show me that she has been practicing and definitely has it down.

There was my usual last minute scramble to photograph textiles in Betty’s collection as well as take advantage of the wonderful library of textile books she has.

The contrast of natural and synthetic colors in some of the Andean pieces in Betty’s collection. I love them both!

From Portland I moved on to n Texas…not without a few airport adventures…but I got there in plenty of time to rest up and accompany Eileen to the guild meeting, have some visits with Ravelry and Weavolution weaving friends and be part of two get-togethers with weavers.

There simply wasn’t enough time, as it turned out, for everything and everyone and I had to turn down and miss some invitations but, hopefully, this will not be my last visit to Texas.

No, I don’t have any pictures of rodeos, cowboy boots, rattlesnakes or tumbleweeds but Eileen’s yard had lots of squirrel visitors and I get goofy over those. We don’t have them in Bolivia or Australia and they are still quite a novelty for me.

Gosh, I am so lucky with the places I get to stay on these trips. You would think that no one lives in big cities in the US. All my weaving friends seem to live in the most beautiful, secluded, semi-rural areas and Eileen and Guy’s home was no exception with the pretty creek at the bottom of the yard and even a natural limestone grotto across the creek for meditation with its own Buddha….look out for those scorpions and Recluse spiders, though, which are both indoors and out.

Mexican hat flowers and Buddha spotted on an early morning dog-walking outing. Can you spot Buddha?

Weavers’ homes are, of course, always full of lovely fibery things and Eileen and Guy have traveled a lot. In fact, Eileen, being a Manchester native, will be going to the Braids 2012 conference and we will have a chance to meet up again as we have registered for the same class. Take a look at this spindle from Tibet with its little dung spinning bowl that she collected on one of her trips…

And they have been to South America where they bought a lovely supplementary warp piece from Cusco…that green color is so amazing!! and a tapestry of animals from the Galapagos Islands made by the clever Otavalans in Ecuador who are just so clued into what people want.

I could take a small amount of encouragement from looking at the Peruvian piece and know that even the very best weavers can sometimes have things go off. The piece had ended up being wider than the weaver’s original estimate when she put in the header cords at each end of the loom and so there was pleating, rippling and ridging at both ends of the fabric which settled into perfect smoothness after a couple of inches.

This next piece which Eileen bought in the US, still on its little backstrap loom, is decorated with supplementary wefts. We don’t know its origin. Can anyone help?

And then a chance to play in the great outdoors…a pre-breakfast paddle by kayak around one of the many lakes in the area. Thank you so much Eileen for taking me out there! As we paddled about in the green cool of the morning watching turtles and herons I adjusted my mental picture of Texas in much the same way that I hope my photos broaden people’s mental image of South American weavers and textiles.

I got to visit with two online buddies from way back in the early days of Weavolution. Marie had me over for a morning of chat. She also wove with me, so we got to see each other a fair bit.

One of the interesting things that she does with her textiles is light them up. Marie calls this a monk’s belt weave with embedded electronics and she runs workshops on how to create cloth with lights. She has Swedish roots and showed me the Scandinavian-style backstrap set-up with its linen backstrap and clamping system.

Then it was off to Deb’s place. Deb is another Weavolution original and we had met previously during a hectic get-together at MD Sheep and Wool in 2010. Now there was this golden opportunity to spend an entire leisurely day with her!

Mickey and Eileen took me out to Deb’s place…another home in a very non-urban environment, surrounded by flowering prickly pear cactus plants and apparently in rattle snake country (no pictures of those!). All eyes were down as we strolled around her garden looking at her lichen sources, flower and dye plant beds. Sadly there was much evidence of Deb’s losing battle with deer and crickets for some of the plants. There were also signs of the long hot and dry summer ahead with its accompanying fire hazard.

She has a dye studio full of jars of liquids in various stages of readiness and it is exciting to hold them up to the light and catch a hint of the color that may be obtained.

Deb has studied with weavers from Laos and gives presentations on the looms, techniques and fine cloth they create. At MD Sheep and Wool she had attempted to explain to me the ingenious pattern shed storage system that the weavers use on their floor looms which allows them to quickly and easily raise the warps under which they pass their fine supplementary wefts. Sticks or threads hold the chosen warps and are stored on a vertical frame. I have to admit that I didn’t quite get it but this visit was my chance to see the system in action and that demonstration by Deb was priceless! Okay I get it now! It’s brilliant!

She has just come back from a textile tour of Vietnam with a group of weavers and collectors so there were pictures and videos to see of all the looms and techniques in which I am interested as well as lots of fun footage of typical market and street scenes. What a treat all that was, not to mention the piles of textiles she also brought back. Really there wasn’t enough time to see and absorb everything.

Deb is another Weavolution original member so I guess we have been online acquaintances for almost three years and she was always a strong supporter of the backstrap group sharing tips with us from her experience with the Laos weavers and their equipment.

Dye plants in Deb’s garden and a clever weaving tool from Vietnam which is used to pick up threads as well as to hook the supplementary wefts through the sheds.

One of the exquisite pieces that Deb brought back from Vietnam and a display of silk that she has dyed with natural substances.

And then came weaving day!….

Here are Sandi, Susan and Penny…all Ravelry folks but not yet active on the Backstrap Group. I hope we see them soon. Penny has since dropped by the group to show some of the things we wove together.

I met Sandi online some time ago and she sent me a shawl that she had bought in Mexico when I expressed an interest in gauze weaves on this blog. Penny brought along a fantastic backstrap loom that she was given by someone who had bought it in The Philippines. I have never seen a loom from there before and it was gorgeous. The sword is spectacular as are the shaped loom bars…green with envy!!

Some more members of the weaving group…Marylou in her laid back position and Susan. Everyone finds their very own favorite position eventually! Susan owns Yarnorama in Paige and extended an invitation to visit. Unfortunately that was one of the arrangements that got ruined by my late arrival in Texas. In any case, she brought me a lovely goody bag of yarn in lots of yummy colors to try.

Here we all are still smiling at the very end…smiling but exhausted…well, at least I know that I was.

Eileen is on my right with Marie and Ruth on my other side and you have already met the others.

Many thanks to Sue, Mickey, Meg and Marie who, behind the scenes, helped make this visit happen. Eileen knows that I can’t thank her enough. She is British and we found that we shared the same tea drinking preferences as well as the evil secret of liking Nescafe!

I also met Lydia from the Ravelry group as well as Gina, a very new member who has just started backstrap weaving. Lydia was one of my testers for the four-shaft instructions in my book. (Lydia, why didn’t we take a picture?!) I didn’t realize there were so many online friends in that part of Texas.

All the bits and pieces went back into their bags, the balls of yarn got rolled up and the whole kit was stuffed back into the big wheely bag so I could hit the road once again and now here I am at Claudia’s place in Maryland with friends Janet and David…my home away from home… and the good weather is following me, it seems. Let’s hope we have a good weekend for Sheep and Wool. Deb is coming from Texas too.

Time to give Claudia a refresher in backstrap weaving. She knows that she can get a refresher whenever I am in town and I don’t think that she practices between visits!

Here she is practicing her heddle shed opening technique and doing a great job on a warp that will make enough fabric for two cell phone pouches.

We were in Rockville yesterday and visited the “Ten Thousand Villages” fair trade store. This is going on my to-do list for my ikat experiments somewhere down the track…

The Ravelry members have been doing some very cool things while I have been on the road but I think I will save those for you to see in another post…unless of course you join group, be part of the fun and inspiration and take a look for yourself.

See you at Maryland Sheep and Wool! There’s a Weavolution meet-up open to all at 12.30 in the Rabbit Barn on both days. Come by and say hello.