October 2013 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Vermont!!

Dare I say that Vermont is now my favorite of the US states that I have visted so far? No, it would be impossible to choose a favorite. I was so in love with Utah and its canyons in my hiking days in the 1990s. It isn’t fair to compare the two….so different and so incredibly beautiful in their own way.

This is just one of the lovely sunsets we had last week from Mt Philo overlooking Lake Champlain. Lausanne took me up there 15 minutes before the park closed. We were told it would take 7 minues to get to the top….I figured 7 minutes up, 5 down and 3 left over to enjoy the view. About thirty minutes later we still couldn’t peel ourselves away from the spectacle and the park guard finally had to come and coax us to leave so he could end his day.

I don’t know if the fall foliage colors have yet to reach their peak and that there are even better things to come. It is hard to imagine it getting better than this!

Walking in the woods with the dogs on a bed of fallen leaves of all colors…..

And this has been my home for the last ten days or so…

Here, in the home of Lausanne and Brian, I wove with two groups of backstrap weavers…friends and neighbors of Lausanne’s as well as a lady I know from one of the Ravelry groups.

Apart from one crazily wild rain storm which knocked out the power one evening, we had day after day of warmth and sunshine in which to explore the area. And who can begrudge a power outage when you get to enjoy Brian and Lausanne’s home in the glow of the wood stove and candlelight….

The sun filled Lausanne’s living room with light and warmth as we settled down to play with backstrap looms. The wood stove provided a little early morning warmth while the afternoons had us opening windows and doors to enjoy the freshness of the beautiful day.

This plant rack by the window turned out to be a handy place for anchoring some of the backstrap looms. A sturdy table was the anchor for others.

And the back of the sofa provided one more ideal spot for weavers to attach their warps.

The pets helped in their own way, adding their weight to the sofa snoozing among my weaving samples so that the sofa woudn’t be dragged away with the weavers’ vigorous beating or over-zealous tensioning of the warps.

Candace and Nancy pause for a smile while taking their first steps in backstrap weaving. Candace is flanked by Lisa and Julia.

Annie starts to get the hang of coordinating the moves which allow her to open the heddle shed smoothly.

The cats stretched out between us on Lausanne’s many very large, and richly colored homemade braided rugs that adorn the wooden floors.

The bench of the grand old barn loom in the corner served as one of our warping stations.

Lunch breaks provided strolling and recharging time through this kind of thing!….

And, climbing up the ladder to Lausanne’s cupula in the evening gave views to distant hills and eerie red sky sunsets.

And then, in amongst all this natural Vermont beauty, came this…

and this….

The chuspa, (coca leaf bag) from the Cusco area of Peru, came to me as a gift from the collection of Libby van Buskirk. I had met Libby on Facebook via an introduction from Lausanne and Lausanne took me to visit her and her husband, Dave, in her Vermont home one evening. There was so much to see and talk about in so little time! I was shocked when she offered me the gorgeous chuspa. As much as I like the fine, high quality weavings made with naturally dyed handspun yarn that the Cusco Center for Traditional Textiles has been ecouraging weavers in the Cusco communitues to produce, nothing can beat these slightly older and more rustic pieces, in my eye.

I love the twin pockets for the lejia (catalyst in powder or solid form) that you can see in the first picture. Those little pockets are woven along with the main bag. Narrow extensions are created for the pockets as the pieces are being warped. This construction is something I studied with my teachers in Potosi, Bolivia and you can see our warp for a single pocket chuspa underway below, the narrow extension being what will form the pocket.

What I really enjoyed seeing was the tubular band that edged the bag and the two pockets…

It looks to be the same kind as that is used by weavers in Chahuaytire to edge their woven pieces (Libby does not recall the community in which the chuspa originated).It has quite a different appearance when woven with the heavier more rustic wool and acrylic. Look at band that lines the recently woven alpaca piece from Chahuaytire below.

Above you see the three “L”s….Libby, Lausanne and Laverne looking over some of the Peruvian bands in the van Buskirk collection. I have my chuspa happily clapsed in my lap. It was exciting to listen to Libby talk about her book which Thrums, llc is publishing and which will come out in December…..US$19.95

The book includes three folk tales as well as six of Libby’s own original stories of Inca life. Lausanne and I got a preview and the book is simply gorgeous, designed by Ann Douden, and beautifully illustrated with paintings by Angel Callañaupa (you will recognize that last name I am sure). Those of you who have Nilda’s first book will know Angel Callañaupa’s work. That first book includes his painting of a young girl dreamng her weaving memories.

Here are some paintings by Angel that Libby has been sharing along with her descriptions on her Facebook page. She has kindly allowed me to post them here…

The flying vicuña, fox and frog all seeking the moon.

Inca children working together to wind a warp to make a narrow loom.

This one is from Libby’s personal collection.

Libby talked of her connection over many many years with Nilda Callañaupa, founder of the Center of Traditonal Textiles in Cusco, Peru.. She is godmother to one of Nilda’s children and she and Dave helped found the Club de Jakimas where young girls are encouraged to learn to weave and continue the weaving traditions of their communities in the Cusco region.

The other textile that I showed above is an exquisitely fine old finger woven sash from the L’Assomption tradition.

Lausanne, Brian and I took a road trip up to Quebec to the town of L’Assomption and met with two ladies who are carrying on the tradition of creating finger woven sashes. What a treat!

It was exciting being in a place where French was spoken after many many years of not experiencing that (and realizing that all the French that I had strived to learn in the 1980s was well and truly gone!). Meeting with France and Jocelyne was wonderful.

Between the two ladies who welcomed us into their homes, we learned about the history of the sashes, saw their work and pieces from exhibits, watched a demonstration the weaving, listened to explanations of the natural dyeing process and saw the substances and learned about the yarn preparation process they use, It was a lot of information in one afternoon!

A suitcase of respun naturally dyed yarn ready for finger weaving by Jocelyne.

Lausanneand Jocelyne with examples of Jocelyne's work — Lausanne and Jocelyne with examples of Jocelyne’s work.

I took along examples of my backstrap weaving and Jocelyne in particular was very keen to learn. Who knows…one day….

Both ladies were so generous with their time and information. I think back to the early 90s when I first arrived in Chile. I had that small manual on finger weaving/ Indian braiding by Alta R Turner and had a lot of fun working my way through the book. Then came Navajo weaving, a bit of card weaving and then backstrap and all that got left behind.

France demonstrates finger weaving as Lausanne looks on.

Two of Jocelyne's pieces in progress. — Two of Jocelyne’s pieces in progress.

France exchanged threads below with those above as she worked her way across the warp saying “below,, above, below, above” etc as she went, in French of course, which is ‘”au-dessous, au-dessus, au-dessous, au-dessus”. I think I might go crazy trying to follow those directions as, to my non-French ear, those two words sound so much alike!

I imagine myself as her student constantly reaching for the thread below when she was telling me to take the one above and vice versa.

I guess it’s like the difference in pronunciation in the English words “ship” and “sheep” which Spanish speakers find very hard to hear.

I have a very funny story about the embarrassing result of one of my Bolivian male teaching colleagues confusing the words “kiss” and “keys” because he had difficulty hearing the difference in pronunciation.

The beaded sashes were particularly striking. This one was made by a gentleman in the study group that was formed in L’Assomption in the 1980s and to ensure the continuation of the art.

Then it was back to the USA and back to Vermont and some Andean pebble weave. Most of the folks from the first group came for this second gathering.

Lausanne tried her hand at the ñawi awapa band, we roamed about seeing local towns, lakes and vistas of fall foliage and I even got to go to one of the dances at which she called. And, with all that activity, time has simply flown by!

My bedroom during my stay has been Lausanne’s sweet and cosy weaving studio which is in a separate cottage. The studio lies above her husband’s black smith workshop…such a talented pair these two! Lausanne is currently a musician, teacher and dance-caller (and has an abundance of other skills) and Brian creates practical and decorative pieces at his forge and in his workshop and has a list of commissioned pieces on which he is working.

Below you can see just one of what is surely hundreds of pieces created by Brian Anderson which adorn the cottage in the woods. This is the handle of the door which opens to the stairway up to “my” room. The designs are those of the indigenous peoples of the pacific northwest. And when Lausanne needed a hook from which to suspend her backstrap warp, Brian created one for her….and not just any old hook…a work of art in itself.

Here is a set of of some of the tomahawks that Brian has made. The four on the right are replicas of mid 18th century pieces and double, as they did back then, as smoking pipes. The one on the left is a replica of a 19th century piece. I loved the small piece up in the upper right corner…the “smokers’s companion”…pincers with which to hold a coal for lighting the pipe and other parts for tamping down the tobacco and cleaning the pipe. The other small figures are for striking against flint.

There are so many little treasures around and about in Lausanne and Brian’s home. i could spend days and days examining them all and each piece has a story. When I brought in my little spindle whorls from Ecuador to show, Brian brought out this beauty that he got from Mexico many years ago….

I have loved my stay here. I hope that I can come back to Vermont again. Lausanne is organizing a study group and I hope the weavers that I met these two weekends will get together to weave and support each other. I am looking forward to seeing what they create.

Nancy, who wasn’t able to weave with us the second time, went out and got some Plymouth yarn in a closing down sale and had a backstrap woven within days.Meanwhile, on the other side of the US, Janet has been weaving with her handspun and teaching various people who stop by at her farm and mill.

Here’s one of her most recent students, Eric, about to start weaving on a fresh warp…

Janet promised a picture showing both sides of her guitar strap she wove in the intermesh structure (I teach it in my second book!). The guitar strap is SO amazing!….woven with Janet’s handspun naturally dyed wool.

Amd here’s what is on her loom right now…a pebble weave piece…

I love how she uses her tiny woven bands in her loom…. there’s a tanka choro saver cord and she is using a pebble weave band and a ñawi awapa as ties. What a gorgeous combination of colors.

The ever-creative Julia has used her pebble weave band that I showed on the blog recently on a pair of slippers that she made herself…

She used Plymouth Yarn Fantasy Naturale for the band. It is a heavy-weight mercerized cotton which is great for making backstraps and which was the perfect weight for this project too. What a cool project. If only I lived some place where I could wear slippers.

Larisa, who corresponds with me via my Andean Pebble Weave Facebook page, sent me pictures of her own creation in warp-faced double weave. She followed this tutorial on my blog to learn the technique. She calls this design “Tribal Mask”.

So…..I am heading south to Connecticut and then up to Massachusetts to weave and weave. I think that I will get even more doses of lovely fall colors as I head south. Today in Vermont it is wet and a little dreary (a good day to stay in and write my blog post) and we are noticing that trees that had their colors when I arrived are now bare.

Backstrap Weaving – Getting in Sync

I have never been so happy to get something off the loom. I am talking about THIS:

This is what I was weaving to be the black center panel of my red, black and white wall hanging. It was to sit sandwiched between the two red panels I wove some time ago.

While I suppose that the black panel looks nice enough on its own, as do the red ones, the three simply weren’t working together for me as a whole. They just weren’t ‘in sync”. Apart from that, I was learning lots of “what not to do” while weaving the black panel and I wanted to start anew using all the lessons I had learned.

And so,I wove on and on so that I could squeeze in as many lessons and discoveries as possible on that one piece of cloth before abandoning the project. But my heart wasn’t in it and I just wanted to get it OFF the loom!

So, finally it is off and folded and taking shape on its way to being ”something”. I have to admit that now I like it on its own despite some of the wobbly lessons learned along the way. As long as it is nowhere near the two red panels I can be pleased with it.

In the meantime I dyed a skein of green Guatemalan cotton black in preparation for the second attempt at the black panel. Then I took a break and wove a backstrap for Terri. I really needed to warp and weave something that I was pleased with and get my head together before diving into the black panel thing again.

For those who don’t know, Terri is Magical Moons. She makes beautiful swords for backstrap weaving as well as other cool wooden tools and implements. I asked her to make wooden hangers for my three wall hangings so that they could be shown in an Exhibit at ANWG last June.

After exchanging several emails with measurements and ideas, Terri knew exactly what I had in mind and her finished work far exceeded my expectations.

Then Terri suggested I make her a backstrap in exchange for the hangers which I thought was a cool idea…two craftspeople exchanging our handwork. All I knew was that she liked “earthy colors”. So, out came the terracotta dye.

I like a backstrap to be wide and thick…wide enough to spread the job it does comfortably across the back and hips, and thick enough so that it does not fold in on itself on the sides.

This is a backstrap that I would like to have….sturdy and butt-cradling….

A nice sturdy hide backstrap from Otavalo, Ecuador. The hairs tend to tickle while you are weaving. — A really sturdy hide backstrap from Otavalo, Ecuador. I own this one but don’t use it very much as the hairs tend to tickle while I am weaving.

But, we can’t all have backstraps like those.

I used Aunt Lydia crochet cotton size #3 for Terri’s backstrap. I wouldn’t consider #3 heavy enough for a good backstrap in just warp-faced plain weave. I wove a center strip of pick-up pattern which was thick and made the plain borders match that thickness by weaving them in the intermesh structure (this “thick border” structure is taught in my first book).

This made for a nice thick and sturdy strap.

I hope she likes it!

I have bunches of backstraps! My “favorite” regularly changes. Right now, I am using a simple piece of fairly thin leather with shoelace ties that a friend in the US found and gave me. It does the trick. It is actually pretty rare to find a backstrap weaver here in Bolivia who has gone to any particular trouble over her backstrap.

Here’s one from Peru where someone has taken the trouble to make their backstrap decorative (or maybe it was just some left over piece of band being re-purposed).

But then again, just how badly do you want to weave? Sometimes you will put up with anything to get your hands into a warp!…like just a piece of string around the back as you can see below.

Okay, so I wove Terri’s backstrap, got my thoughts and ideas in line, and then felt ready to get back into the black panel project. I just love winding that black warp and sitting in my loom looking at all those threads stretched before me.

This time around I am making a conscious effort to ensure that the black panel sits happily between its red partners. I had made the mistake before of thinking that the design on the red panels was quiet enough not to interfere with what was happening on the black one…not so.

Here, I have just finished the first half of the center motif. I am hoping to use this motif, or something similar, in the weft twining which I will use to join the three panels across the top.

Finally,I am feeling much happier about it and darn, now I have to leave it to travel! In sync and then out again…oh well.

What to take as an on-the-road weaving project? I have to take clothes for two seasons….the cool to cold US fall and then the warm to hot beginnings of the Australian summer. I will need to think carefully about a small project to squeeze into the bulging bags.

Here are some projects from Icha in Chile who has both my books and is getting along just beautifully with the Andean Pebble Weave structure.

She has two projects going at once on her frame. Carolyn, an aspiring bee keeper, contributed her original bee pattern on the left to my second book. The hummingbird motif on the right is from my first book and comes from Taquile Island in Peru.

Now, here’s something just for fun….

A friendly gentleman from Cochabamba that I met the other day noted that I am more or less bi-lingual. (I say “more or less” because, despite being here for so many years, I find myself always apologizing for what I perceive as my imperfect Spanish. I think that being a language teacher makes me very hard on myself.) He then went on to tell me that he, too is bi-lingual. He of course, speaks both Spanish and Quechua. I then had the idea that it would be fun to record some phrases in Quechua so that you can hear how it sounds.

I have recorded the phrases along with a slide of the phrase in English that would perform the same function.

Delfin’s Quechua is that of Cochabamba and I gather that it varies from region to region. When I was at the Tinkuy in 2010 in Cusco, Peru with a group of weavers from Cochabamba, they talked about how the Quechua spoken in Cusco differed from the Quechua they know from Cochabamba. They said that the Cusco variety was more pure than theirs as speakers in Cochabamba have adopted many Spanish words which they mix with Quechua. There were quite a few Quechua words being used in Cusco that they simply didn’t know.

I have not written the phrases in Quechua to go with the recordings. When I was traveling and learning to weave, I would have someone repeat a phrase several times and invent my own way of noting the sounds on paper in order to memorize them. Sometimes one of my weaving teachers would ask me to teach her a greeting or a question in English for fun. It is interesting to hear how beautifully someone repeats exactly what you say without seeing it written down and then how distorted it gets once they have seen the written words and then start to reproduce their interpretation of them rather than just the sounds.

The word that Delfin uses for “beautiful” is the same one I learned in Potosi. I didn’t hear it being used in Cusco.

The word for ”delicious” is always useful as, when I have visited people in the highlands, I have always been offered food. Even if you can’t say anything else, that one word and a smile will go a long way to show your appreciation.

I once spent an entire day on a mini bus in Peru getting to Ayacucho. Everyone on the bus was highly entertained when the gentleman sitting next to me decided to teach me numbers in Quechua. No matter how convinced I was that I was pronouncing the Quechua word for “one” correctly, everyone on the bus would crack up when I said it….and the numbers get progressively more difficult from there! The only one I could manage without sending everyone into fits of laughter was chunka…the number ten. It was a long road from one to ten! That was a fun trip.

Of course, nothing was written down. It was always a very good exercise for me, as a language teacher back then, to be put in the learner’s position. I realised how quickly I arrived at the point where my head was about to explode trying to memorize and reproduce all the strange sounds. I would go back to the classroom as a teacher with a different approach after that little reminder.

Here’s a Youtube video with the numbers: