December 2012 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Hands Full of Threads

The black neck wrap is done and I am already thinking about the next one.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with this fine Guatemalan cotton thread (you see how I have forgotten about all the woes in the beginning!). It was fun picking up threads with the delicate Guatemalan pick-up sticks and feeling the silk supplementary wefts slide through my fingers.

This will be the color scheme for the next one…

Maybe I will use some Guatemalan-inspired designs this time or perhaps I will invent some of my own.

I got the black piece off the loom and then I was faced with fringe twisting. Would you believe I have never done this before? I have left fringes on placemats and braided the ends of other pieces. I had read the grumblings about fringe twisting from those who regularly weave scarves in the weaving forums and seen pictures of the gadgets and gizmos that have been designed to make this task less tedious.

I even watched a video I had taken of my Montagnard weaving and twining teacher, Ju Nie (seen at left spinning cotton), twisting the ends of a piece she had recently taken off her backstrap loom. Ju had come to visit at friend Betsy’s house and, rather than sit idle while chatting in the living room, she pulled out a wad of stuff wrapped in paper and a woven piece of cloth and started working. The “stuff” turned out to be mushy, sticky over-cooked rice through which she drew the warp ends before rolling them on her leg and setting them in the twist.

Here is the video. Ju explains that doing it on her pants is “no good” and that it works much better on her bare leg. I am guessing that her bare shin makes the best rolling surface.

So, I twisted my fringe and it wasn’t as slow as I had thought…much faster than braiding, I can tell you! I added weft twining to the ends of the fabric before taking it off the loom. I think that made a nice finish. See the countered weft twining tutorial here.

And then I found that scarves are kind of hard to photograph…way too long and flat and lifeless to try and stretch out in one shot so I gathered it up and threw it down many times, fiddled about and I felt that this was the best “pose” in the end.

And another shot that shows my favorite central motif…

Although I was mad keen to get into the Guatemalan purple thread and warp up another scarf, (especially since I think that I already experienced, hopefully, all possible mishaps when weaving the black one), I decided that there was another project sitting in the closet that needed my attention…(plus I really need to ponder and plan the patterns I want to use on the purple scarf before rushing in and weaving it)…

Remember this guy? I had just started the large main motif when I decided that I would not touch this until I was sure I would have enough time to stick with it and finish it. When doing pick-up, I think it is best to do a pattern all in one go rather than leave it sitting while I travel. If I leave a piece for a long period of time, I can almost see the place where I left off and picked up again. Perhaps I sit a little differently, apply a little bit more or less tension, beat differently…I don’t know…something changes. So, now is the time to get down and finish this piece.

I welcome the opportunity to have my hands in there and full of threads again. I am not a pick-up stick kind of gal, unless a particular technique or yarn really demands it. I like to hold and pick and drop threads with my hands. Perhaps it’s because that is the way my first Peruvian teachers showed me. I have been shown and I have willingly tried other ways but I always come back to just using my hands.

Here is a weaver creating a belt patterned with supplementary warps. It is a narrow piece and so it is easy for her to simply insert her hand between the warp layers to do the pick-up.

I was finally successful in uploading the video of this weaver at work. You can see how she does her pick-up as well as see the two-stick method she uses for opening the heddle shed. She has a forked stick in the warp….one prong is her shed rod and the other prong holds a second cross. Grasping and twisting the fork, while leaning forward to relax tension, helps her to smoothly open the heddle shed.

These are the kinds of textiles she produces…

I watched a gentleman from Chahuaytire also weaving supplementary-warp patterns into a much wider piece of cloth. He uses a pick-up stick to hold all the threads in both the pattern and plain-weave sections as he works his way across the cloth…

This is his weaving…

Both weavers work equally fast, don’t you think?

So, on I go with hands full of threads. This is the third piece in my red-white-and-black wall hanging series. This one has patterns which have been inspired by the si’ira belts woven by the Wayuu people of Colombia and Venezuela. Since starting this project, I got to go to Holland and meet Mirja Wark who spent years studying, collecting and cataloging these belts as well as writing a book describing the weaving, braiding and twining techniques used.

These are belts that Mirja herself wove while studying. You can see the “cow’s nose” pattern at the bottom of the blue, pink and green belt that I used in my wall hanging. The large motif that I will use in the center has been very much adapted to fit my piece and uses just certain elements of the Wayuu patterns as inspiration. There are a lot of threads to pick and, until I things get rolling, I am very much clinging to my pattern chart. Thank you, Terri, for introducing me to removable highlighter tape which works like a dream!

So I will be parked in front of that piece for some time while taking breaks to re-spin the Malabrigo yarn, plan supplementary-weft patterns for the discontinuous-warp piece for which the Malabrigo is destined, ball up that large skein of Guatemalan purple cotton, sketch some patterns for the purple scarf project, plan piece number four in the wall hanging series…maybe ikat??…do I dare?

And I am folding this sampler piece this way and that to see if something useful can be made of it. It’s still on the loom and there is room for more pattern experiments.

Let me show you some things that Ravelry members and students and friends have made. It is a strange coincidence that three people decided to edge pieces of clothing with woven bands. Janet decorated a pair of felted slippers that she made, Laura edged gloves (and also made a camera strap and headbands) and Julia edged a couple of tiny shadow-weave kimonos with a pebble weave band. Three gorgeous projects! (I am in love with that shadow-weave cloth, by the way…it takes four shafts…I would like to try it).

I will leave you with the happy twin recipients of the wee kimonos…Julia’s grand nieces!

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Right before I was about to publish this post, a question was posted in the Ravelry group by a weaver who is trying supplementary-weft patterning for the first time and not getting the rich satin-like finish that she would like in her patterns. Instead, there are spaces and gaps between the rows of her design. I posted a reply in the group but am copying it here as I think that it may be useful for others who feel like trying this lovely technique…

There is no formula that will suit all weavers…that is, “x” number of strands of such-and-such a supp weft material will give sufficient coverage with such-and-such warp thread. All weavers are different in the way they handle their warps.

For example, some weavers put a lot more tension on their warp than others. This means that they have fewer picks per inch than others because the warps are pulled so tight that they can’t bend over and under the wefts as easily as they do for weavers who use less tension. This means that a certain amount of supplementary weft material won’t give the same amount of coverage for those weavers as it does for others who use less tension.

Another case…some people simply don’t beat hard enough when using supplementary wefts. I beat hard and really mash the weft into place…not “wham wham” beating…more like placing the beater right at the weaving line and pushing against the weft hard with a rocking motion.

Other people pull too tightly on the supplementary weft. It has to be fairly relaxed in the shed to allow it to spread and cover the surface. As an experiment, pull your supplementary weft tight once you have changed sheds and see what happens. It will flatten and narrow and not give good coverage. You have to find the balance between thread that is relaxed enough in the shed and bumps at the sides, where the weft turns, that are not too big and loose.

These are all things that come with trial and error and experience. It might be that you need to use more supp weft material or it could be one of the other factors I have mentioned here.

I often use thread that is similar to #3 and #10 crochet cotton. It is Brazilian cotton that I get here in Bolivia. I have used two strands of embroidery floss with the “#3” and one and a half with the “#10”. This gives people an idea of where to start and what to try but, as I said, every weaver is different.

Hope this helps.

ETA My first Guatemalan teacher combed the strands of her supp wefts with the point of her pick-up stick so that they lay next to rather than on top of each other. They didn’t move with handling…the floats are not long enough to cause that to happen. I did the same with the six strands of 60/2 silk on my current project.

Backstrap Weaving – The Weft-Patterned “Neck Wrap”

I suppose that it is normal to want to look back a bit as the end of the year approaches. This time I decided to jump back to the end of my blog years in 2011, 2010 and 2009 and take a look at what was going on. It is interesting to see that supplementary-weft patterning was a part in some way of all those December posts.

This time last year I was in a downsizing phase and rummaging through my closet to see what could be tossed. That was when I came across this wildly colorful supplementary-weft sampler that I made after having studied some of the patterning techniques in a few different communities in Guatemala. I included it in my blog post…(no, I didn’t toss it!)

You can see that all the patterning elements that I am using in my current supplementary-weft project are present in this piece and this is barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the different ways to create patterns with supplementary wefts that are used by Guatemalan weavers.

In December 2010, I was posting about the practice piece I made after studying with the Montagnard (Vietnamese hilltribe) weavers in North Carolina. While the piece is mostly about the warp float patterning technique that they use, it also includes twined ends and a couple of their traditional motifs woven with supplementary wefts.

And finally, back in December 2009, when I had been blogging only a few weeks, I wrote a post on weaving wider projects which included this…

I included a tiny bit of supplementary-weft patterning in the center of this placemat and mug rug set. I gave the pattern a thin striped look instead of a richer satin-like finish so that it would mimic the stripes in the two outer bands. The simplicity of the outer bands were inspired by a Guaraní textile.

So, this wonderfully fun patterning technique, which allows quite a lot of spontaneity, (the patterns on both the Montagnard and placemat projects were not planned and could have been just as easily cut out and removed if I had decided that I didn’t like them) has been in my weaving skills kit for quite some time.

I remember the first time I saw a Bolivian highland weaver sitting in the street of Santa Cruz making a hatband only days after I had arrived here in 1998. The base weave was off-white sewing thread-weight cotton and she was creating patterns with bright acrylic threads. I crouched and chatted with her, watched what she was doing, and noted the name of the street so that I could return the next day and watch some more. I never found her again nor have I ever seen another weaver making a hatband since! I have seen plenty of beautiful hatbands but never one being woven again.

The hatbands above adorn the hat of a weaver from Potolo in the Bolivian highlands….bright colors on a black ground, much the same as the color scheme I have chosen for my scarf project. I have decided to call it a “neck wrap” as it is not going to be all drapey and flowing as one would normally expect a scarf to be. As long as I don’t have to actually bend and fold it around my neck, I will be happy!

Here it is, a little bit further along from the little I showed you last week, after all the messing around and lesson-learning. I am trying to think if I learned any more lessons from this wicked warp this week….I think I probably just convinced myself even more that I love putting in a second cross stick behind the shed rod and using those two sticks to help open the heddle shed. (Of course, this is just one of many ways that backtrap weavers operate their looms).

Above you can see the second cross stick and shed rod in place. The third shorter stick sitting between them is the pattern stick.

If you watched the video of the Tacabamaba weaver in last week’s post, you will have seen how she places her sword on top of the warp and rolls that together with her shed rod to help open the heddle shed. Below, you can see Montagnard backstrap weaver, Ju Nie, doing the same using a bamboo slat instead of her sword.

I have a video on my page about sticky sheds showing this system in action.

I prefer to have the second stick permanently in the warp. One of the weavers that I met at the recent conference in Cusco used this system, with the second stick permanently in the warp, to open her heddle shed.

Her set-up is so cool. I wish I had a forked stick like that…must go out and look for one. The prong of the fork nearer the weaver holds the stick shed open while the other prong sits within a second cross.

She would simply grip the place on the fork where both prongs join and twist the fork away from her while relaxing tension and pulling up on the heddles.

In the picture above, she is about to slide her sword under the warps raised by the shed rod. She will then turn the sword and clear those threads through the heddles and down to the weaving line. I have wonderful video of this weaver operating her loom and doing very fast supplementary-warp pick-up and I had every intention of showing it to you. Too bad my internet would not behave and allow me to upload it.

So, my warp has been behaving like a dream…sticky threads have been defeated and no more have broken. The odd loose ones here and there have been dealt with smoothly and calmly.

I decided to make the long motif the center of the scarf and work from there on repeating the designs from the first half of the project. However, I am not repeating the motifs in the side bands as there are still plenty of those that I want to try! I have no discipline sometimes!…I should just keep it simple and symmetrical…

Here starts the other half….

I managed to almost squeeze in one more green motif before it was time to stop and write this blog post. It’s addictive and I don’t want to stop! The motifs are new and I am anxious to see how they turn out. Plus, I can’t weave it at night so, I really try to make the most of daylight hours. All that black thread is just too much at night and I am on an economy drive so, no super high powered lamps allowed!

In the evenings, I have been spinning away tightening up the twist on the Malabrigo wool singles I bought while in the US. I am hoping to then ply them and weave a discontinuous-warp piece. As I am not confident about trying any warp float patterns on one of those yet, I will decorate the panels with some wool supplementary-weft designs.

What has been happening in the Ravelry group? ”It’s dead in here!” exclaimed Bobbie recently but she livened things up a little by posting her recently finished guitar strap made for her granddaughter…

This was made using the instructions for the two-heddle intermesh technique from my second book. Bobbie used Annie’s guitar strap kit to convert her beautifully woven band to a guitar strap.

Rob has been using my first book to weave some lovely bands with Andean patterns but we may have lost him to a four-shaft loom which recently appeared in his life. Now he is also turning out beautiful towels on that. Here are some of his latest backstrap, inkle and four-shaft loom projects….

There have also been some mutterings in the group about using the 24 sets of string heddles to weave one of the fabulous fajas saras after I showed a picture of some of the belts of San Ignacio de Loyola Peru…

That could be a fun weave-along but I don’t think I will join them on that one. While I do love making string heddles, I enjoy doing pick-up even more!

On another topic, a couple of interesting ikat resources came my way recently in my internet ramblings…

Quite by chance I discovered an e-book byMarguerite Gritli Pfyffer entilted “Ikat Textiles of the Andes”.

The book is the result of the author’s two years spent traveling in the Andes researching ikat patterned textiles. There is one section devoted to the pañones of Tacabamba that we saw last week.

From the other side of the world in China, Chris Buckley sent me the link to his recently finished paper entitled Investigating Cultural Evolution Using Phylogenetic Analysis: The Origins and Descent of the Southeast Asian Tradition of Warp Ikat Weaving.

The paper can be viewed online here.

Chris has always been very generous with his resources and, on several occasions, has allowed me to use images of textiles in his collections in these blog posts and for my charting.

Christmas will be done by the time I come to write my next blog post. I don’t do Christmas but I wish all of you the very best for whatever you get up to in the coming week. Now, back to that “neck wrap” thingy….

Backstrap Weaving – One Warp, Many Lessons

I have been playing with my black scarf warp for a week now and feel that, at last, I am slowly getting to know the “beast”. There have been some adventures along the way.

I am not so nervous now about the fineness of the threads. While broken warp threads are a major nuisance, they really aren’t that hard to fix once you have a system. Having said that, I haven’t broken many. As it turns out this Guatemalan cotton is surprisingly resilient. I like it.

I have learned to slowly and softly strum the warps with the blunt end of my pretty Guatemalan pick-up sticks (pictured at left) as I open the sheds. I insert the sword and shuttle carefully. Hitting a thread along the way will either loosen or break it. I think that loose threads are possibly even more annoying and more difficult to remedy than broken ones.

In the meantime I enjoy sitting back now and then to look at the smooth silky curtain of unwoven thread in front of me. It is impossible to see each individual thread. They all merge into a black glossy sheet of loveliness which I have tried without success to capture in a photograph. Is this warp a black beast or a black beauty?

You may be surprised to find that I have not really advanced at all since I showed you the piece last week. While I haven’t advanced in terms of inches happily woven, I have advanced in lessons learned. There were, in fact, many inches woven….and then sadly un-woven, woven and un-woven yet again….before I could feel happy with what I was producing. And that showed me more than anything how much abuse this cotton thread could stand.

Firstly I had to give in to the fact that it was useless trying to weave a 7-inch piece of fabric on a warp that clearly wanted to be wider.

Lesson 1: Sometimes a “wee” sample just isn’t going to do the trick! The teeny tiny band that I hastily wove to test this new-to-me yarn simply did not have enough ends to give me a true reading of the width I could expect. So, after un-weaving and starting to weave the black beast once again, I let it settle into the width it was yearning to be.

Lesson 2: Don’t get so caught up in happily playing with the supplementary-weft patterns, that you neglect to keep a close eye on what is happening to the ground weave. Yes, I was having a lovely time playing with the soumak technique and didn’t notice how much the ground weave, or the “canvas” on which I was placing the patterns, was becoming distorted. This was a sign that I was stuffing too much supplementary-weft into the sheds. The material that I was using for the supplementary weft, 8/2 tencel, was not appropriate.

Lesson 3: Several strands of fine yarn work better as a supplementary weft than just two strands of a thicker yarn. I already knew this!! but, I was in really new territory with this fine yarn and again, my sample had “lied” to me! So, it was out with the 8/2 tencel and, yippee, I got to use my new 60/2 silk.

So, instead of two 8/2 tencel sausage-like strands, I used six to eight strands of the 60/2 silk which emerged from the ground weave to lie side by side like a glossy satin sheet on the surface of the fabric.

Lesson 4: Not everything that is labeled as 60/2 silk in the bargain basket at the yarn store is, in fact, 60/2. Imagine the frustration…. I kept doing my sampling with six strands the off-white silk pictured above as I have more of that than the colors. Then I would weave the “real thing” with the colors. But things just weren’t working out. Why? The off-white 60/2 is at least twice as thick as the colored 60/2’s!…go figure.

Lesson 5: Slow down! A little extra planning goes a long way. It was beautiful to see a video of Bhutanese weaver Leki Wangmo at work on an incredibly richly patterned piece of fabric. It was as if she had cast her arm across the warp and scattered seeds. Then we got to watch as the the seeds sprouted and flourished into patterns. It all seemed so random but, without a doubt, it was all carefully thought through and planned from the moment the first warp thread wound its way about the warping stakes. The strategic placement of the stripes and the placement of the particular patterns within them was all part of the overall plan.

It was hard for me, having so many photos and books with images of designs to use on my scarf, to carefully select and plan the layout of my piece. I wanted to weave and try everything at once! Result…mess! Un-weave and start again!

So, here it is. It may look much the same to you as what I showed you last week but it is, in fact, a little wider, the colors are slightly different and I am using silk weft instead of tencel. Funny how some of the small skeins of white thread dyed in the one black dye bath came out more intensely black than others…another “go figure”. I need to even up the length of the exit points of the supplementary wefts so they look neater and more consistent.

Now I am taking it all more slowly…enjoying rather than fearing the fineness of the cotton warp threads, appreciating the smoothness of the silk weft. I no longer think “Aargh!…sticky warp”. I gently strum and the sheds open cleanly. Now to sit down and map out a design.

While I sit and feel pleased with my seven-and-a-bit-inch piece of cloth as it takes shape on the loom, I remember the backstrap weavers from Tacabamba, Peru that I met in Cusco with their equally fine cotton ikat-patterned shawls measuring up to a meter in width Humbling!! Oh so very humbling!!

The simple backstrap loom of Tacabamba, Peru on which the indigo ikat-patterned "panones" are woven. They are up to one-meter wide, covered with tiny motifs and have patterns knotted into their fringes. — The simple backstrap loom of Tacabamba, Peru on which the indigo ikat-patterned “panones” are woven. They are up to one-meter wide, covered with tiny motifs and have patterns knotted into their fringes.

Of course, the warp lying idle on the ground attracted many admirers all anxious to see it spring to life. — Of course, the warp lying idle on the ground attracted many admirers, all anxious to see it spring to life.

Nila sits while she prepares the loom for weaving. Weaving is done standing up. — Nila sits while she prepares the loom for weaving. The weaving itself is done standing up.

A few final adjustments are made before weaving can begin. Then Nila asked the crowd to give her more room and we all understood why when she raised the very long sword and shuttle to be placed within the sheds. — A few final adjustments were made before weaving could begin. Then Nila asked the crowd to stand back and give her more room and we all understood why when she raised the very long sword and shuttle to be placed within the sheds.

Now you can watch Nila at work!…The video starts with laughter as Nila nearly clobbers an onlooker, who got too close, with her sword! I love the way she gently pats the warp to separate the threads. That is her way of dealing with any stickiness. I love her balance…one arm outstretched to help her stay centered while the other reaches to pass the shuttle. It’s like a dance.

Here’s Tacabamba weaver Laura wearing one of the shawls…something to aspire to??? So, I head back to my wee 7-inch piece hoping that I will end up with something that has at least some of the lovely drape that those warp-faced shawls have!

Backstrap Weaving – Encuentro de Tejedores de las Americas – Part Three…and more….

Before I get into Part 3 of my report on the Encuentro de Tejedores de las Americas (see Part 1 and Part 2 here and here), let me show you how I have been getting on with my latest experiment with supplementary-weft patterns.

You may remember from last week’s post that I was inspired by seeing textiles from Bhutan with their gorgeous motifs created by using supplementary wefts.

I was happy to see that I could decorate my own woven cloth with similar patterns using techniques that I had learned in Guatemala.

At left is the sampler I made to practice the techniques and experiment with the spacing of the pattern warps. I had some fine cotton from Guatemala that my friend Betty had bought about 30 years ago. How nice that this cotton could finally find its purpose.

The black cotton disintegrated as soon as I pulled it out of the closet. I guess that there is something in the black dye that causes the yarn to rot quickly. The other colors…red, green and purple….were just fine and, fortunately, there was plenty of white to dye black. I had my heart set on a black scarf.

There were a lot of ends to wind to make 7 inches…672!!

The cotton is kind of sticky and I can see why Guatemalan weavers very often choose to size their yarn with a kind of corn starch wash.

I am using it as is and need to be very gentle. I broke one warp before even getting started and my heart sank but it turns out that it was due to my clumsy handling of the pick-up stick…phew! No more breaks so far but there is still a looooong way to go.

Of course I made a wee sample before diving in to see how many ends I would need to make an inch. I also needed to test the ideal number of strands of tencel to use for the weft patterns.

In the picture you can see my tiny warp with its string heddles and shed loop . The two sticks are the pattern sticks that I talked about in my last post. Of course, the yarn was already showing signs of stickiness even on this tiny project but I decided to go ahead undaunted 🙂

Sample done…width calculations made. Now, how long should a scarf be? Seems like a silly question, but I have never made a scarf before. Fortunately, I do own just ONE. After all those years spent skiing and then living in Patagonia you would think that I would be more scarf-wise.

There is the warp and I am ready to make the 336 string heddles. I like making heddles…time to put on a cd and sing! and I didn’t cross or double up any warps…phew!

I have lots of pictures that I have taken of Bhutanese textiles in friends’ collections for inspiration and David K Barker’s books are wonderful too. (See my RESOURCES page for information on how to download his books for free.) However, I decided to play it safe to start with and weave one of the patterns that I had already tested on my sampler.

So, I sat down to weave and that is when it hit me…wow, this yarn is really FINE….and….it’s black! All the clues that I usually use to make the pick-up easier for supplementary-weft patterning are dependent on actually being able to see the threads!!

Boy, had I made things hard for myself but, believe it or not, I got used to it and came up with other ways to eyeball the placement of the patterns without having to become a slave to pattern charts and endless counting. It became a very cool learning experience and, as with all things new and experimental, much un-weaving was done and all with my heart in my mouth as I don’t think that this yarn will take much “backing and forthing”!

Here is the first pattern under way. I placed several thin pieces of cardboard in alternate sheds in the warp beyond the cross sticks. This gave me a place to make quick adjustments to loose warps within arm’s reach and with the warp under tension rather than having to get out of my backstrap and crawl up to the end of the loom.

Sometimes you don’t get to choose when to weave. I would come back in from a break to find Her Highness reclining in what was, apparently, the most comfortable spot in the house. Would you dare disturb someone with a look like that on their face? You can see the next set of patterns in progress here.

And this is where it stands for now. I am just getting past the first warp break and have my fingers crossed that there won’t be more. I watched a gentleman from Chahuaytire weaving on his backstrap loom when I was in Cusco. A warp broke and I loved the calm and cool way he went about fixing it like he had done it hundreds of times before (well, of course, he probably had). He didn’t need to have anyone tensioning the warp while he leaned forward to fix the break. That is the part I find hardest.

Be prepared to see a lot more of this project in the weeks to come. Unless, of course, those warps start a- snapping, and then you will most likely see it finished really soon as a zippered pouch or journal cover!

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ENCUENTRO DE TEJEDORES DE LAS AMERICAS – PART THREE – SPINNERS AND WEAVERS IN ACTION

The Encuentro…it was over two months ago now and I am finding it hard to sum up here but I will try!

It was about yarn being created with the simplest tools…

Handspun cotton by the Matsigenka weavers of the Amazonian region of Bajo Urubamba, Peru — Fine and incredibly even handspun cotton by the Matsigenka weavers of the Amazonian region of Bajo Urubamba, Peru

The "malacate", spindle used in Mexico to spin silk with its horn whorl. — The spindle known as “malacate” used in Oaxaca, Mexico to spin silk. Its whorl is made of horn.

The traditional "sig sig" spindle of Salasaca, Ecuador made from pampas grass. — The traditional “sig sig” spindle of Salasaca, Ecuador made from pampas grass stems. A small piece of thin solid stem is inserted into the soft interior of the large stem section to suspend the wool yarn as it is spun.

A spinner from Chiclayo, Peru showed me how she spins the natural brown cotton that is cultivated in the region. She told me that a heavy stone is usually placed on top of the cotton as she draws out the fiber to be spun. Not having one handy, she used the bottle of water that you see in the video. The spindle whorl is a piece of avocado seed.

It was about sticks…lots of sticks!

Sticks used by the weavers of Bajo Urubamba to create their warp-float patterns.

Twenty-four heddle sticks are used to weave the traditional pattern on the "faja sara" of San Ignacio de Loyola. — Multiple heddle sticks are used to weave the traditional pattern on the “faja sara” of San Ignacio de Loyola.

It was about threads being strung together in a stunning display of color and texture…

An ikat warp ready to be woven into the traditional shawl of Tacabamba, Peru. The ties on the sections of threads were the only means I could see to keep the threads aligned for the ikat patterns.

Threads are stretched on the typical leaning vertical loom of Tarabuco, Bolivia. Multi-colored figures depicting ceremonies and scenes of daily life in the community will sit on a white mesh-like background. The colored threads are generally thicker than the white ones which gives the figures relief.

The backstrap loom with its cotton warp from Chiclayo, Peru. A single-faced cloth decorated with warp-float patterns is created.

Bunches of string heddles control the colored layers of warps on the horizontal loom of Taquile Island, Peru — Small bunches of string heddles control the colored layers of warps on the horizontal loom of Taquile Island, Peru.

A floor loom holds the warp on which a weaver from Ayacucho, Peru will create a beautiful tapestry. — A floor loom holds the warp on which a weaver from Ayacucho, Peru is creating a beautiful tapestry.

And it was about the wonderful hands and spirits of the talented craftspeople and artists who use sticks and fiber to create beautiful cloth….such an amazing variety of people from across the Americas!

Weaver Natividad Machaca Quispe of Taquile Island, Peru creates a sash with bands of warp-faced double weave motifs and complementary-warp patterns. — Weaver, Natividad, of Taquile Island, Peru creates a sash with bands of warp-faced double weave motifs and complementary-warp patterns. This piece had six bands of pick-up patterns.

A weaver of panones of Tacabamba, Peru, puts the finshing touch on hher woven ikat shawl by knotting an intricate pattern into the the fringe. — A weaver of Tacabamba, Peru, puts the finshing touch on her woven ikat shawl by knotting an intricate pattern into the fringe.

Here is a short video of Nila at work knotting the fringe of her woven ikat pañon…

And what about that belt loom with its twenty-four sets of string heddles? Araceli shows us how it is done…

A Matsigenka weaver from tropical lowland Peru creates warp-float patterns in cotton on her backstrap loom.

A woven tubular band in progress...putting the finishing touch on a woven piece from Pitumarca, Peru. — A woven tubular band in progress…putting the finishing touch on a woven piece from Pitumarca, Peru. The tubular band had been set up with three sets of string heddles and a shed loop and, therefore, did not require any pick-up.

And cloth comes off the loom and comes to life when draped around shoulders…

and wrapped around waists and heads…

Diana from Guatemala, pictured above, wore this spectacular fine, ikat-patterned corte, or skirt…

There was time to watch and chat and share….

Time to look and learn from Navajo weavers and spinners and an alpaca fiber weaver from Tanta, Peru…

Time to sit or stand and ponder…

Time to listen to weavers talk about their communities and textile traditions and meet new leaders in the field of textile research…

Bolivian Elvira Espejo shows the two most recent books she has written with British/ Bolivian Denise Arnold on weaving in the Andes. Representatives of the textile community on Taquile Island, Peru spoke about weaving and knitting traditions and the 547 families that are part of their textile co-operative which had begun in 1971 with only 7 families. Taquile Island has become an enormously popular tourist spot over the years. One point which created a bit of fun was their comment that "Taquile fashion" was being worn and loved around the world despite the fact that it was not appreciated in their own country of Peru. "Taquile fashion" then became one of the catch phrases of the conference and made us all smile. — Bolivian Elvira Espejo shows the two most recent books she has written with British/ Bolivian Denise Arnold on weaving in the Andes. Representatives of the textile community on Taquile Island, Peru spoke about weaving and knitting traditions and the 547 families that are part of their textile co-operative which had begun in 1971 with only 7 families. Taquile Island has become an enormously popular tourist spot over the years. One point which created a bit of fun was their response to a question about how they felt when a hat that was created to be worn by a high-ranking official was bought and worn by a tourist completely out of context. They said laughingly that they were proud that “Taquile fashion” was being worn and loved around the world despite the fact that it was not appreciated in their own country of Peru. “Taquile fashion” then became one of the catch phrases of the conference and made us all smile.

And time to just stand in complete awe…time and time again!

A weaving of the Jalq'a people of Potolo, Bolivia. — A weaving of the Jalq’a people of Potolo, Bolivia depicting *Ukhu Pacha*, the underworld, with its *khuru* figures.

Well, I hope that this gives you just a taste of what the week of ETAM was like. Thank you Maria Elena del Solar, Paula Trevisan and Luis Masa for organizing this event. And thank you Mara Elena for pushing me to go when I was dithering over the cost of getting there. It was the best birthday gift to myself ever!

Thank you Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco for the fabulous exhibit of textiles from your nine member communities that you organized in the Convention Center to coincide with this event and for providing outstanding teachers for the workshops.

As for Elvira Espejo and Denise Arnold’s books about which I know you will be curious, I have to find out if they are available in English and from where…stay tuned.

Of course, you do know that the CTTC is having its second Tinkuy this coming year, don’t you?! 🙂 Are you coming?