February 2013 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Conquering the Corrugation

I am taking a wee break for what will be a short post this week. I have been winding lots of warps this week and don’t want to break the rhythm too much.

As I settle down to wind warps, opportunities to experiment and learn come my way. This week I learned more about corrugation in plain weave when using cotton.

Warping is just one part of the preparation process and I have been warping a lot of narrow bands with cotton. This has given me the opportunity, with the added benefit of repetition on many many examples, to contemplate that pesky ridging problem that we often experience when using cotton and weaving plain weave.

You may have had this happen yourself. Your plain weaving looks like a piece of corrugated board…Above, you can see an extreme example on a warp I was using to show supplementary-weft patterning. See how the woven plain-weave part is ridged? The ridging is all the way across the band. I won’t call it ugly as many people have told me that it happens to them and that they really like the effect. I guess it just bugs me because I can’t control and predict it. Sometimes it happens and other times it doesn’t. But I definitely prefer my weaving without it.

Well, it seems that it is the different movement of the warps around the far loom bar as I open each of the two sheds that is the main culprit for this irregularity in the two sheds causing the warps in one shed to buckle and ridge up while the warps in the other shed don’t.

I didn’t get any ridging in my two scarf experiments which were woven in plain weave with supplementary-weft patterns and I know why.

The black scarf was woven using a warp in a single plane and the purple one was woven in a circular form and then cut apart.

My design choices for the black one changed so often and I had to unweave so much that the first part of the warp started looking rather sad and worn. So, after the third attempt to get something with which I was happy, I left a couple of inches woven with the abandoned pattern (there was a little bit of ridging) and turned the loom around and started weaving from the other end. The woven part at the far end of the loom secured the warps so that there was no warp slippage or sliding when I opened the sheds. Result: nice smooth flat even cloth…not a ridge in sight!

I did the same on the practice piece below, that is, I wove from the wrong end first before turning the warp around and weaving from the good end.

The coil rod performed the same task on the purple warp. It held all the warps in a tight grip so that they couldn’t slide any signifcant amount when the sheds were opened.

However, I am sure that if I try ikat using the coil rod, I will see that there is, in fact, slight movement. The warps forming the ikat pattern will start to become mis-aligned and the motif will blur.

In the same way, when I wove some ikat experiments last year, there was no ridging because I left the wraps on the warp and they held the warps tight and stopped them from slipping….just enough to prevent ridging but not quite enough to eliminate blurring of the motif. But that’s okay.. blurring is the charm of ikat, right? At the time I was covinced that the fact that I was using a vey fine weft had solved the ridging problem but now I think otherwise.

Why has it taken me so long to get a grip on this? I think it’s because I very rarely do just plain weave. I spend a lot of time doing pick-up with warp float structures where the ridging problem does not occur. Lately, with my renewed interest in supplementary-weft patterning I find myself doing a lot more plain weave in larger and more ambitious projects. My teachers in Guatemala weave plain weave in cotton and they always weave a little at the far end of the warp before turning the loom around and starting the real weaving. The answer was there in front of my eyes and I didn’t see it!

So, below, I can show you one of the warp samples I have been preparing. I first wove from what I call the “wrong” end of the warp….the end with the knots. I did this to lock the warps into place. Then I turned the warp around and started weaving from the “right” end. The weaving from the wrong end is ridged…nothing too extreme, but it is there. The right end is clear. The good thing is that I have woven MANY such samples to put this to a thorough test….(And, occasionally, I weave at the wrong end and it doesn’t ridge. I have yet to figure out what I am doing differently to cause that to happen).

This was not easy to capture in a picture. This is two ends of the same warp. I hope that you can see the difference…on the right, ridged…on the left, not.

So, that’s what I have been up to this week. Like I said, this is just a short post.

To end, I have the most wonderful projects to show you from online weaving friends and from one friend who wove with me last year. Seeing these puts the biggest smile on my face. I am up off the floor now and warping on a table standing up. I can even do a little dance while I am at it.

Here is a sweet pebble weave band from CindyQ . I love the color combination and it is so well woven! She is using the thick border that I describe in my book Andean Pebble Weave and the pattern is my adaptation to pebble weave of a Central Asian motif which appears in the follow-up book More Adventures with Warp-faced Pick-up Patterns. I know CindyQ from Ravelry and we will get to meet at ANWG in June.

This is from Laura who wove with me last fall. Now she is studying double weave. The “dog chasing squirrel” design is her own. I love it! The birds are from Double Woven Treasures of Old Peru, Cahlander and Baizerman.

And, Julia has been doing pebble weave on her floor loom and came up with her own adaptation to pebble weave of traditional Japanese designs. In her own words…

This is my first attempt at a wider pebble weave project in finer yarn. The pattern is taken from a Sashiko (traditional Japanese stitching) pattern and is a variation on several patterns called “Well Curb”.

Early on I was making lots of mistakes. I finally divided the pattern into sections and as I completed the picking of a section I placed a chopstick within. This way I could check my work more easily as I went along. The mistakes gradually decreased.

Isn’t that spectacular? She is also showing her unique pick-up tool. I wish I had taken a picture of the length of my thumbnails when I was making my scarves. They really did help with separating the fine threads (they were horrendous-looking, to tell the truth!, but very nifty). I guess I met Julia here on the blog but we also know each other on Ravelry. I am thrilled that we will get to meet in person in June.

In my second book I have included tutorials on how to chart pebble weave designs directly from woven examples and then go on to show how to create your own patterns from your head or from other inspiring textiles as Julia has done. It is all about “connecting the dots”. (Please be aware that my second book was written as a follow-up to the first and does not stand alone as a pebble weave how-to).

So, that’s enough break…back to the warping board and loom for me and let’s see what else I can learn while I am at it!

Backstrap Weaving – Life in the Yarn Forest

I was almost going to skip this week’s post. You see, I have been all tangled up in this stuff…This is about one-tenth of it!

I am in the throes of warp preparation and, once I get the ball rolling, I don’t want to interrupt the flow in any way. The living room is a forest of colored thread. My cat is bored with it and just walks over the top as if it is all just some kind of new flooring. There is the risk, though, that she will bring down a lizard from the upstairs terrace and decide to play hide-and-seek with it in the yarn jungle.

But, as I have been making good progress, I decided that I could part the branches and vines and step out for a bit so that I could post pictures of the finished purple scarf while I am still excited about it.

You will see that I decided not to add a few inches to start and finish. That is something that I had been pondering last week as I found myself with excess warp that I didn’t want to waste. The decision was made easier by the fact that I had just about run out of yarn for weft. That and the fact that the scarf really didn’t need any additional length, had me twining a two-color edging and cutting the circular warp apart earlier than expected. I am really happy with it.

And you can tell how excited I am as here I am playing fashion lady…(so NOT me!)

I probably won’t have time to start another project before I get on the road but I have an idea developing for the next thing…a bandanna! which I will use as a kind of neckerchief.

The bandanna will be square, and wider than most things I weave, with supplementary-weft patterns scattered over it. I haven’t decided yet on the motifs…maybe something inspired by Mexican weaving or maybe something Indian for the Sanskrit origin of the word “bandanna”: बन्धन bandhana, “to tie”. I see many pictures on Facebook of the daughter of my Godmother, who still lives in India, dressed in luscious saris. Maybe something there can inspire this next project.

I have green and red left in the Guatemalan cotton with which I have been working and have chosen the red. I wish I had a really pale lilac in the silk for one of the supplementary wefts. Maybe I can pick up something on my trip.

So, I will have that idea percolating while I am traveling. If I do really well with my trip prep, maybe I will at least wind the warp so it will be good to go when I get back. Then it will be able to fight for first place among the many ideas which I usually bring home.

Along with my trip preparation, I have this project to finish….

I won’t tell you how many warp ends there are in these three wall hanging panels that need to be twisted or braided or dealt with in some way. However, I kind of enjoy doing things like this. I like to find something that doesn’t really require my full attention on tv…like a movie or show I have seen and enjoyed before…and then sit with sweet snacks on hand and braid and twist away.

I have lots of plans to add more panels to this wall hanging series. I can’t decide which project I will tackle next. I hope to have these three hung as part of an exhibit at ANWG in June.

It will be fun to see them up on a wall as there is certainly no room around here for them. The three pieces have structural and/or design influences from South American textiles I have seen. Some aspects were inspired by experiences I have had while on the road learning to weave.

Another reason I wanted to take a break and blog this week was to tell you about a weave-along in the Ravelry Backstrap Weaving group that Ghedrain is proposing starting March 1st.

Considering that the Chinese Year of the Snake has just begun, Ghedrain has suggested creating projects that are inspired by snake-skin patterns or by the shape of the snake itself and has posted a number of pictures for ideas. Here are a couple: (the image on the right comes from this site.

Such amazing patterns!

The weave-along is open to all levels although it won’t be based on a tutorial of any kind. Any weave structure can be used…pebble weave, double weave, supplementary-weft inlay, to name a few….and we are particularly encouraging people to use plain weave with some creative colored warping to create snake-like warp-faced patterns. The inkle pattern generator is very helpful for experimenting with color arrangements.

Janet is planning to do a card-woven piece using a backstrap set-up. And it is not just limited to backstrap looms. We welcome the use of inkle looms or other looms on which warp-faced pieces can be woven.

Kateri, who wove with me in Massachusetts last year, showed the group what she has been up to lately using the pebble weave structure and patterns charted in my books…

It is nice to see Kateri venturing into wider pieces. The piece on the right became a study in how warp tension affects the elongation of the motifs…the more tension applied, the more elongated the motifs will be…something of which backstrap weavers need to be aware as they go rolling up and shortening the warp. The piece on the left has a favorite motif of mine which was taught to me by my dear teacher Maxima in Cochabamba. Kateri’s band is beautifully even and the motifs are nicely balanced the entire length of the band.

Ghedrain is set up to weave a scarf for her husband which is the project that lured her to backstrap weaving in the first place. After putting in some time to get acquainted with the loom and the warping process by weaving a few items, which I showed last week, the scarf project is now underway.

Backstrap Weaving – Time

A question I am very often asked when I show my woven work is….. “How long did it take to weave that?”

I am trying very hard to think back to a time before I started weaving to see if perhaps I would have asked this question myself to a craftsperson and what might have motivated me to do so. Would it be because I was thinking of trying to make the object myself and needed to see if the time involved was worth my effort? Or perhaps I would want to know if the asking price for the object reflected the amount of time that had gone into creating it.

In any case, I find it a very difficult question to answer. How long does it take?…As long as it takes! I honestly don’t keep track. I don’t sell my work and so I need not consider time in order to fairly price an item. I am not weaving to a deadline. There is no exhibit for which the work has to be completed. I would probably have to go back to my blog posts if I wanted to give an accurate answer in terms of the number of weeks on which I worked on a project. However, I would be at a complete loss when it came to the total number of hours.

I met a craftsperson last year and witnessed his response to the question…

“How long did it take to make that?”

His response:

A l i f e t i m e

I can only imagine that he very rightly considers that a lifetime of his accumulated knowledge, experience, skill and inspiration went into this and every piece that he has completed. I love his response.

So, I am willing to pour as much time and effort as is required into every piece I weave. What I don’t like, is making silly mistakes and wasting time. Okay, I will admit that a mistake is always a learning experience and valuable for that reason but sometimes you just turn around and do the same old thing again!

Like… breaking my coil rod on my latest piece. I did it once…I learned. I did it a second time…I cursed…but then I learned some more.

You can see the coil rod in the above picture. The stick is rather thin but it looks about the same size as coil rods that I have seen in use by weavers that I have observed. In the above picture the coil rod is a fair distance from the shed rod and cross stick. As weaving progresses and the cloth gets rolled under the loom bar, the shed rod and cross sticks just naturally work their way up the loom so that they are always at a comfortable distance from my body. The string heddles also follow along. Eventually, the shed rod and cross stick will have wriggled their way all the way up to the position of the coil rod and further progress will be blocked unless the coil rod is also moved.

Above you can see how the distance between the cross and the coil rod is closing.

The problem is that it is a heck of a job trying to move the coil rod! I moved it a couple of times sucessfully. Saying that it “inched” its way up the warp is being extremely generous.I could only move it the tiniest fraction of an inch at a time.

As far as I am concerned, the main purpose of the coil rod is to clamp the warps in place and maintain consistent warp tension between it and the weaver. This very characteristic of the coil rod is what makes it so insanely difficult to move! I wouldn’t want to be able to just smoothly and easily roll it up and down the warp. Its very purpose would be defeated if that were so.

It was the third time that I came to move the rod that I got over-confident and forced it too much. Then came a sound that you don’t want to hear when you are weaving…a sharp “snap!” The warps that were so tightly coiled and bunched on the rod leaped to freedom and went cascading into space. I didn’t stop to take pictures.

Fortunately, the stick broke about an inch from one end of the warps and, as the stick is much wider than the weaving, I was able to carefully pick up all the fallen loops and get them back on the now shorter stick. Hmmm….should I replace this with a heavier stick? No, it will be okay. I learned my lesson. I will just be more gentle from now on.

Yeah, right….A day after….”snap!” And this time right in the middle. You knew that was coming, didn’t you? The more I tried to retrieve the coils on one side, the more the coils on the other side would tumble off.

Out came the stick. I am still not quite sure where it landed when I flung it.

Ikat patterned shawl weaver of Ecudor setting up his backstrap loom. Picture courtesy of Agaath Theiken. — Ikat patterned shawl weaver of Ecuador setting up his backstrap loom. Picture courtesy of Agaath Theiken.

Actually, I did learn things as a result of the second accident. I wove on without the coil rod and found that I much preferred having one in the warps. After all, this was actually supposed to be part of the coil rod experiment. Without the coil rod in place I found that I was having to hitch up certain loose warps with every single weft pass and I didn’t think that was good use of my time.

From there I went on to learn how to insert the coil rod when the warp is already off the warping stakes. Dennis Penley reports that this is how the weavers of the ikat paños in Ecuador put the rod in place.

So, I picked up each and every one of the 772 ends, twisted them one by one (rather than in groups of ten as the weavers in Ecuador do) and placed them on the new thicker rod. How long did that take? I don’t know! Don’t ask.

Maybe this is something that we don’t consider when we ask the craftsperson how long it took to complete the project. Do we want them to include the time used to fix “oopsies”? After all, the fixing of the oopsies adds to that lifetime of experience about which my craftsman friend was speaking.

Obviously there is a technique for moving the coil rod that I have yet to learn. I turned to Maria Christou’s paper on the Sa’dan Toraja weavers of To’barana’. She describes how the coil rod is loosened so that it can be replaced with a thinner stick as weaving progresses and the space within which to open the sheds becomes increasingly smaller. I imagine that the movements she describes are the same as those that are used to move the rod along the warp.

She writes…

Christou explains earlier in the paper that the sorong gesture is the act of leaning forward to release tension on the warp and is used when the weaver wishes to open the heddle shed. I am wondering if the word sorong simply translates to “lean forward” or whether it is a word specific to backstrap weaving that describes the entire motion and how it relates to the operation of the loom.

There is still warp left to weave on my scarf project and so I will try what Christou describes the next time I need to move the rod. I am not sure I quite get it, but I will experiment.

While the amount of time needed to weave a piece is not important to me, I am always interested in learning about techniques that weavers have developed to help make the whole process more efficient.

For example, the use of backstrap weavers in San Ignacio de Loyola of multiple sets of string heddles so that patterned weaving can be carried out without having to do any pick-up. Of course the pattern threads need to be picked up once, but only once, before they can be placed within the heddles.

First Araceli has to make the twenty-four sets of heddles on this fresh warp. The pattern has alreday been picked up and saved on sticks. — Araceli is making the twenty-four sets of heddles on this fresh warp. The pattern has already been picked up and saved on sticks.

I did this myself once (with only four sets of heddles) when I was making a pebble weave guitar strap. I was on a deadline for that project as it was a birthday gift and so, speed was important.

In Manabí province in coastal Ecuador, weavers on vertical looms also use multiple sets of string heddles to program the pattern so weaving can proceed without having to do pick-up. This means that that a weaving elder who knows the pattern can set up the loom while younger, more able-bodied weavers, who haven’t thoroughly learned the pattern, can carry out the more strenuous task of weaving the cloth.

In Bajo Urubamba, Peru, backstrap weavers place multiple patterning sticks in the warp which hold the warps which will float and create the patterns.

Adding heddles while warping adds time to the warping process. However, it is almost impossible to cross warps and make mistakes while installing heddles this way. This saves the weaver from having to fix the heddle-making errors that can so easily occur when making heddles while seated at the loom.

The Montagnard way of installing the coil rod while warping seems to me to be a wonderful time-saving technique. Having had the experience of installing the coil rod both ways now….on the warping stakes and off…I can tell you which way I prefer!

Even little things like the pattern warp loops that I installed on my current weaving can make a big difference.

I can simply pull on a loop which draws forward a certain group of heddles which I can then raise to lift the warps needed for my pattern. My leaf pattern is very simple and requires only five sheds…three in the shed rod shed and two in the heddle shed. I have one loop in the heddles which raises warps from which I select the ones needed for that particular shed. It was more eye strain than time that I was trying to save in this case as the warps are so fine.

This little system is simple enough and I got the basic idea from a visit with weaver Deb McClintock in Texas last year. Deb has spent a lot of time studying with weavers of Laos and she showed me the pattern storage system that is used by Tay Dam weavers on floor looms. The weavers create complex patterns with supplementary wefts using this system. Deb has adapted the system to a floor loom in her studio. She is writitng an article for the Complex Weavers Journal on the method and how she uses it on her loom.

Basically….Those vertical strings are really long heddles. The horizontal strings will be used to pull forward certain heddle strings which in turn will raise the warps needed for that pattern shed. The patterns are very complex as you can see by the large number of strings in place. This is a wonderful pattern storage system!

In this video, Deb shows her adaptation of the Laos system to her loom. She explains how each pattern string is stored below the warp until it is next called into use. This enables her to freely pull forward the next string in the sequence…

In future posts I hope to show you some of Deb’s work that has been influenced by her experiences learning about Lao weaving techniques.

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Here’s what some of my online weaving buddies have been up to….

CindyQ has created some pretty bands while working her way through the lessons in my first book Andean Pebble Weave and it looks like she has it down.

On the left is CindyQ’s current project in which she is using a pattern from the follow-up book More Adventures with Warp-faced Pick-up Patterns

On the right Helena has made a band using two-color simple warp floats with a motif from Iran. My intermediate-level tutorial on this technique is here which includes the chart for the “s” motif along the edges of Helena’s band.

Ghedrain has been following tutorials here and made her own backstrap and is currently exploring simple warp floats. She has picked this up really fast.

Betsy wove fabric on a floor loom using her own handpsun wool yarn which she will use to make bags. She just completed the straps for the bags on her backstrap loom.

And I am on the final stretch on my scarf project. I am just about to start weaving the last motif along the edge.

However, I am a bit disappointed because I could have made the scarf longer and made better use of the warp length. It was hard to figure out how long this would turn out as it is the first time I am using a circular warp for a full project and I didn’t know how far I would be able to weave before it got too difficult to open the sheds. I had to make a decision about when to start weaving the final design so that the overall pattern would be symmetric.

Now I see that I could easily add a couple of inches to this end as well as to the beginning and still have a nice long fringe. That, of course, would mean turning the loom around, swapping the position of the shed rod and heddle stick, planning a bit of extra pattern….sounds all very time consuming, doesn’t it. Worth it? Well, yes! I am not in any hurry and I have the TIME.

Backstrap Weaving – Tropical Themes and Tools

Santa Cruz, Bolivia has almost all the lovely things that the tropics typically have to offer…swaying palm trees, avenues lined with mango trees dripping with fruit, exotic plant and birdlife and tremendous afternoon downpours of cooling rain (sadly few and far between these days). Too bad there aren’t any beaches in this country to complete the picture of tropical paradise. For those of you in the wintery whiteness of the northern hemisphere, here is a bit of tropical Bolivian color to brighten your day.

And, on a similar colorful and cheery note, here is my newest scarf project still on the loom…

The main inspiration for the patterns has come from a particular Guatemalan plant motif woven using supplementary wefts. Carmen, pictured at left, taught me to weave this in her home of Santa Catarina Palopó on the shores of Lake Atitlan.

The small plant motif uses inlaid supplementary wefts for the leaves and various warp wrapping techniques to create the stem and plant base.

I took the leaf pattern, changed it a little to fit my working space, and used it in the side panels of the scarf. I also expanded it into an imaginary tropical flower. The tiny butterfly motif was adapted from one on a Mexican backstrap-woven textile that I saw online.

I love the way the turquoise and gold supplementary wefts look together in the flowers on this purple background….visions of tropical seas and golden mangoes! I have to admit that I have been dying to combine those two colors somehow ever since I saw the following shawl by Elisabeth Hill on her Flickr page…

How is that for inspiration?! And I got to meet Lisa and see this piece in person at Maryland Sheep and Wool last year where the shawl took Best of Show. Lisa has done some backstrap weaving with me so maybe that will somehow influence one of her projects. Take a look at her Flickr page to see more amazing creations in deflected double weave.

I like how my purple scarf doesn’t really scream “me” at all…at least I don’t think it does.

I once had someone on Weavolution say that she could immediately spot a project of mine before clicking on the image to see who the weaver was. It’s nice in a way to know that you have developed a sort of weaving “character and style” that can be recognised.On the other hand, it’s nice to branch out and do something completely different and I have realised that, in order for me to do so, it is helpful to have access to yarn that I have never used before. So, I think that along with my “wider, longer, finer” weaving goal for this year, I will add “new fiber”. I intend to quieten the little voice that tells me to “keep it simple and just make do with what you can get locally” and take advantage of my trips to the US to gather up new-to-me fiber and a greater range of colors.

Above you can see alpaca, wool, hemp and bamboo (?…this was a gift and I am not sure what it is) yarn from a recent US trip….much of it gifts from weaver friends.
coil rod and other tools Now, back to the current project. What about that coil rod…what has it been doing for me? I roll it along the warp as my weaving progresses and the fabric gets rolled around the loom bars. It is definitely a handy width guide. Beyond the coil rod the warp tends to spread and fan out as it stretches away toward the far loom bar.

The rod also ensures that there is always beautifully consistent tension between it and the weaving line. It locks the warps into place and gives me even tension with which to work no matter how many stretched and loosened warps may be gathering beyond it and on the lower layer of warp beyond the far loom bar. In short…I like it! It is a great little tool.

You can see the coil rod in place in the above picture. Other “tools” that I am using on this project are several ties of colored yarn along the shed rod and in the heddles. Because my patterns are not wide enough to warrant the insertion of pattern sticks to raise the warps under which the supplementary wefts pass, I am using little ties to raise the appropriate warps instead. There are some that go around the warps themselves in the shed-rod shed and others which are tied around certain heddle strings. I simply pull on these to raise the pattern warps in the heddle shed. They save time and prevent eyesight strain!

As far as tools go, sometimes the simplest are the best…

It always delights me to see that the use of simple sticks to carry the weft is common to many backstrap weavers around the globe….no fancy tool required! You have seen in my pictures that I use a specially shaped shuttle. Three of these were made for me when I lived in Chile and they have a kind of sentimental value. I enjoy using them and they double as beaters and swords sometimes so they are pretty nifty.

The Montagnard backstrap loom above has two bands in progress and you can see the two simple shuttles. The looms are so large that it quite cumbersome to balance them when only weaving one narrow band. They are designed for weaving large panels of cloth which are used for skirts, shirts and blankets.

I must admit that I have been often pulled towrad buying teeny tiny shuttles at fiber fairs purely for their cuteness factor. I have on occasion used them but had to turn my closet upside down just now to find them to photograph as they have been idle for a long time…

The long thin shuttle on the right is one that one of my Guatemalan weaving teachers used. All my other teachers have used simple sticks about which the yarn is wound or, for narrow pieces, simple “mummy”-like butterfly bundles. Below you can see two such weft bundles. The yarn feeds off the outside rather than from the center and a hitch is put in place to stop the bundle from unravelling when it hangs freely. These two examples are of handspun wool and alpaca fiber from the Cusco area.

For narrow work my Guaraní teacher uses short lengths of scrap yarn for weft. This way she never wastes a thing! The weft lengths are so short that she does not even need to wind a butterfly. For wide pieces a simple stick shuttle is used as seen below.

Permission to use this image was kindly given by Aude Rossignol.

Here is a video showing my Montagnard weaving teacher, Ju Nie, loading yarn onto her shuttle. You can see that her shin is a very useful piece of equipment as, in a previous post, I showed you how she also uses it to help twist the fringes of her woven projects. The video has two segments with a short pause between. Wait for the second part which shows a weaver from the Cusco area loading her large shuttle.

One of the most charming ways of passing the weft is one in which the weaver has her weft rolled into a ball. She places the ball within the shed and then tilts her body to angle the loom so that the ball rolls through to the other side!

And finally, here is my teacher Trini in coastal Ecuador loading one of the three shuttles for the mini hammock she is preparing to teach me to weave. It was a balanced weave using three weft colors.

In the Ravelry Backstrap Weaving Group, Marge and Julia showed what they have been working on lately. Marge has been trying out Tahki Cotton Classic Light. I have not tried the Light version but I did see it at WEBS when I visited and the color range is wonderful. Marge used an online inkle pattern generator to help her design the color arrangement. The result is gorgeous!

Julia used two different color ways for the same pebble weave motif (charted in my second book) on two different looms…a four-harness and a Seidel Band Loom.

I will be visiting the Mannings this summer. If you want to come and weave, maybe we can spend a little time outside hitched to some shady trees down by the creek….on the ground or on chairs..that will be up to you. How cool would that be?!