December 2015 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Silk, Stitches, Samples and Shed Rods.

I thought I would write a post between Christmas and New Year this week so that while everyone is relaxing between all the festivities, they might have time to go online and read.

Here are some sweet handcrafted fiber decorations and ornaments that I have been seeing online…

These were made by Arlene Davis from a pattern by Heidi Bears. You can see more about this project on Arlene’s page Woollen Wonders. I was about to launch into a project using teal and was happy to have this confirmation that I was heading in the right direction by planning on combining purple with it. This really makes me want to pick up a crochet hook.

Jennifer Williams, aka Inkled Pink, came up with a way to fashion inkle bands into gorgeous Christmas decorations…

And, she shared it by writing a tutorial for these on her blog.

As a testament to how well the tutorial has been written, Annamieke Ruijper, in the Netherlands, quickly followed the directions and made her own. What a great way to use those pretty patterned bands that we tend to accumulate.

I don’t do Christmas. I was here at home on the 24th and 25th happily winding a new silk warp, stitching panels together and sampling for a new project. The weather has been kind these last days with lower temperatures than normal. It is awful working with silk when you have sweaty hands and fingers. Mango season is in full swing and the large rosy ones from the Yungas have arrived costing all of 12 cents a piece. Meanwhile the local smaller yellow ones are raked together in their hundreds to rot in huge, smelly, fly-infested heaps on the street. While people enjoy the shade that the mango trees provide, most people consider the abundance of fruit a curse.

I got out the tubes of 60/2 silk that Deanna had given me when I recently visited her. Beautiful tubes of teal and yellow…loads of it!..reminding me of the colors of mangoes and refreshing tropical seas.

You can see them there in the photo at left among other goodies I brought home. My pictures can’t quite capture the amount of green that is in that teal.

I was pretty excited about the silk. Although I have lots of colors in 60/2 silk that I had bought in the UK several years ago as well as some from Redfish Dyeworks, they were very small skeins and tubes…enough for use as supplementary-weft or for my small wrist cuff projects. I didn’t have enough to take on any kind of large project.

Speaking of silk wrist cuffs, I spent some time sewing plastic snaps to the ribbon necklace and cuff that I made to match the yurt pouch I showed last week. They are made from 60/2 silk in both warp and weft and these are the largest things I have made with this silk so far…

I was really keen to make something much larger with all the new silk I had to play with. But first….some sampling.

I had learned from past experience that not all my 60/2 silk was the same. The purple that I bought in the UK is finer than the turquoise, for example, which meant that letters that I had sampled in turquoise a long time ago had their proportions altered when I tried to weave them in purple. I gave up and just wove the ”real” piece in turquoise. I was not in the mood to re-chart my letters for the purple silk.

This is the silk bookmark I wove with the letters for my nephew, Ryan, the triathlete. The inspirational quote was his favorite at that time.

In another project, I found that the Redfish Dyeworks 60/2 silk did not behave the same way as the UK stuff when washed. I had used some of each as supplementary weft in a project and they shrank differently when wet. That was disappointing! As a result, I ended up with scalloped edges on the brown project below.

So, I wasn’t taking any chances with these tubes of yellow and teal 60/2 silk. I wanted to know exactly what I was getting…no surprises, thank you very much.

I sampled with the yellow for width and a bit of weft inlay. And, it’s a good thing I did as I had very much underestimated the width I would get from 200 ends.

And then I decided that I couldn’t even trust the information for the yellow to be the same for the teal and I sampled again in teal. Fortunately, samples for backstrap weaving do not need to consume huge amounts of yarn. The samples are a bit lumpy and bumpy because I didn’t use a coil rod.

I messed about with some supplementary-weft motifs to see how many warps the wefts could span before becoming awkwardly long and impractical. I tried silk and embroidery floss as the supplementary weft and decided I liked the silk better.

You probably know by now that I am not product-driven. Its all about the process for me and so the very last thing I decided was exactly what I wanted to make. I really just wanted to weave something large with the fine silk in plain weave and see if I could manage it on my backstrap loom. I decided on a sort of bandanna, or neckerchief. I remember some time ago planning one of those in the Guatemalan cotton that I had. It had never materialized.

I planned for about 18 inches of width based on a cotton bandanna that I have, wound the 2000 ends that were required, and then realized that none of my loom bars were long enough to comfortably hold this width.

Fortunately, I have an old Guatemalan loom that Lorraine in California gave me years ago. It had been given to her by her weaving teachers in Guatemala in the 1970s and she passed it on to me.

That loom is old and well used and full of character. The loom bars were just long enough but I still felt uncomfortable with the warp ends sitting so very near the end of the rods. The wonderful shed rod that came with the loom was longer and did the trick for the near beam. The shed rod is a thick piece of wood that is amazingly light for its size…just what you want in a shed rod. I wonder what kind of wood it is.

You can see above, the shed rod that I am using as the front beam and one of the other beams that I will use as the roll-up stick. And there’s my favorite Guatemalan pick-up stick. Below you can see the complete set of sticks and a spindle that Lorraine gave me. Those swords get a lot of use. This is the first time I will be using the shed rod.

I so wish my camera would capture the green in the teal silk…Anyway, here is the warp stretched ready for heddles. I haven’t found a long stick for the back beam yet and have the threads crammed onto one of my regular loom bars for now.

Now to make 1000 string heddles. I love making heddles and used some size 60 tatting thread for them (thank you, Sharon).

Taking a break to go look for more tatting thread….

And here it is underway…

Before I could start weaving, there was the coil rod to install and the cross to flip. As usual, I spent an entire morning sliding threads around trying to get them evenly spaced before I could throw the first shot of silk weft.

I LOVE wide warps! I am having so much fun with this…using the big swords, strumming the silk threads with the blunt end of my pick-up stick, snapping the back shed through the heddles, having my legs completely disappear beneath the width…so much fun!

I am using a discontinuous supplementary-weft technique which has the weft-turns shadowing the outline of the pattern. You can barely see the turns because of the fineness of the silk. I did not want to carry the gold supplementary weft from one edge of the fabric to the other or even as far as the gold stripe as I didn’t want the fabric to be ”thickened” by the extra weft sandwiched between the layers of threads.

You can see that I chose, as I generally do, to use a fairly slim shed rod and that I have it secured to a second stick. There are so many different ways that I have seen to set up and operate what I will call the ”back shed”. This happens to be my current preferred way. Anyone who has spent some time backstrap weaving will soon realize that it is the back shed that is the trickiest to operate. Clearing the threads through the heddles and to the front of the loom can be difficult if the yarn you are using is sticky. Forget the common description ”smooth as silk”…this spun silk is surprisingly sticky. There is a lot of strumming involved while sitting back and and applying as much tension to the warp as I can. I insert my sword next to the shed rod and then tip it on its side next to the heddles while strumming in front of the heddles with my pointed stick. My llama bone tool would be a little too rough on the silk.

Many weavers prefer to use a shed rod with a very large girth. This can add a lot of weight to the warp and I have seen weavers here in Bolivia and Peru use pvc pipe to give them the girth without excessive weight…

They simply draw the shed rod down to the heddles and strum in front of the heddles to clear the shed while applying tension to the warp. If the yarn is not sticky, those threads will snap right through the heddles effortlessly. The drawback for me is that a very thick shed rod requires the weaver to use more effort to raise the heddles. There are many different ways to operate these simple looms!

Weavers in Ecuador with a load of heavy-ish sticky hand spun wool on their looms use two shed rods, as you can see above. The number of warp ends are halved and distributed over the two rods and the rods are rolled so that one set of threads is first raised and then the other.

What I will need to eventually find is another long rod for my back beam. Right now, the coil rod is keeping everything nicely spread at the far end. I can usually count on going up onto the terrace of my building and finding an abandoned broom or mop to cut down. The place at which I used to buy my dowel rods stopped carrying them over a year ago. Well, I can always just buy a broom, right?

As I started a brand new project, I decided that it was also time to finish off an old one. You may remember that just before I left on my last trip, I had woven two brown panels which I had been hoping to join using one of the kinds of decorative stitches that weavers here in Bolivia use. I had been disappointed to find that the nice straight edges that I had been hoping to butt together and connect had come out scalloped after the wet-finishing process.

You can see the two panels, at left, before they got washed.

Well, I just went ahead and tried to connect them anyway…and, it worked!…far better than I ever could have hoped. I had anticipated everything that could possibly go wrong and none of those things eventuated.

I was inspired, as I have been so many times before, by my teacher, Maxima. You can see her below joining the two panels of one of her new carrying cloths with a different stitch to the one I used. Hers look like staggered triangles.

Picture courtesy of Dorinda Dutcher and PAZA Bolivia.

And speaking of Maxima and the weavers and spinners of Cochabamba, a new product has been developed by the co-operative. Maxima has been teaching the teenagers to weave and put together yoga mat straps. Aren’t they great?

Here are some projects from my weaving friends…

Moniek Deroo has been using my Andean Pebble Weave books and weaves her bands on an inkle loom. She is even designing her own original motifs.

Julia has added another wall hanging to a beautiful series that she has been creating. This one has a pattern from my second book. It is a motif that I translated to the Andean Pebble Weave structure from a tablet woven design by Louise Ström. In the chart in the book, I left a large blank space between the repeats and challenged readers to design their own ”filler”. Julia did just that and created something that so perfectly matches the rest of the pattern. She is using Knit Picks Curio cotton which has beautiful sheen. It is a 2-ply cotton and I imagine it to be similar to the Circulo Clea that I use. I do prefer 2-ply to the more ”round” 3-ply crochet cotton thread.

Bethan sent me a picture of the first of two panels that she will sew into a poncho. She is using her own hand spun wool. She mentioned some struggles with the back shed and that is to be expected, especially when using wool. I have seen Bolivian and Peruvian weavers strum away patiently for quite some time trying to coax those sticky wool threads to break their grip on each other and behave.

Finally, I will show you one of Lily’s Christmas presents from her mom, Lori. You may remember Lily weaving pick-up patterns in my ”Wee Fingers” post not so long ago. Lori wove a small backstrap for her. It’s adorable!

Back to my silk bandanna project and the hunt for a long back beam for my loom….

Backstrap Weaving – Flip and Turn…New Pattern!

I have spent an entire week dressing up the little yurt pouch I showed you last week. The pouch was made using a plied reeled silk which is about the same girth as a #3 crochet thread.

Although the bands and accessories I added this week are small, I was now working with 60/2 silk and progress is never fast for me doing pick-up with those tiny threads.

I used the same pattern on everything and now I am now thoroughly bored with that particular motif and shall not weave it again for a while! Well…at least, not until I come up with a new color combination for it that excites me. Using a variety of colors can make weaving the same pattern over and over instantly more interesting, as I discovered some years ago when I wove about 40 key fobs in one pattern. Here are a few of them…

Sometimes, just the inclusion of a third color can make all the difference. You will see that all the key fob examples, except the brown and tan one in the upper right hand corner, use at least three colors in the pebble section. I like to tell weaving friends not to be in too much of a hurry to move onto bigger, more complex patterns. There are simple variations that can be applied to even the most basic patterns that can make them more interesting…as simple as dividing the pattern to add an extra band of color, for example. Use your energy and concentration to work on some other new challenge such as using finer thread or going wider while sticking with a pick-up pattern with which you are already familiar.

It was fun meeting Brian when I was at Vavstuga recently. He showed me that he still has one of those key fobs that you see above. He had bought it from me back in 2010 attached to the card with information about my newly-released e-book. That was back in the days when the book was available on the WeaveZine site.

Here he is among the looms in the Vavstuga studio, where he showed me the fob, taking a break from weaving to play his dulcimer accompanied by owner, Becky Ashenden, on fiddle. What a treat!

I wove the pattern for the yurt pouch and accessories using the Andean Pebble Weave structure that I teach in my book Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms. The pattern also appears s one of the many charted samples in my Complementary-warp Pick-up book. This book shows the method for weaving these kinds of pattern using any kind of loom that is able to produce a warp-faced band. Because the 60/2 silk threads were so fine and were difficult to lift and separate with sweaty hands and fingers, I added an extra set of heddles for the light threads and created a temporary picking cross for each pick. This meant that I could scoop up groups of light threads using a pointed stick and not have to use my fingers to pick and drop each one. It also meant that I had to do away with my beloved Saver Cord but, as my pattern only had 16 threads, it was not a big deal. People who have been weaving using my earlier and more recent books will know what I am talking about when I mention Saver Cords and picking crosses.

Above, you can see the ”naked”version and now dressed-up version of the yurt-shaped pouch with some accessories, all bearing the same ”hooky” pattern. I intend cutting about a third off the tassels.I am letting them just sit for a while until I am completely convinced of the need to do that. Once they are cut, there’s no going back. I had intended weaving a matching ribbon to sew to a black top. I did weave the ribbon, which you can see on the right, but didn’t like the way it looked against the top and abandoned that idea. So, now it is a necklace. I made a wrist cuff as well.

I had examples of other cuffs and necklaces (the ones you see below) that I had woven in the same 60/2 silk to use as width guides. That way, I knew how many ends to wind and was able to get the width correct right from the start. That is always a big help. I love how I can start my weaving on my backstrap loom with a selvedge and, therefore, not have to bother with hemming that edge later. The lower edge of the cuff you see above is the selvedge. The upper edge is folded and hemmed. Two hems would create extra bulk at the place where the two ends of the cuff overlap to join. I’ll be able to use the nice clear plastic snaps that Susan sent me to connect the cuff as well as the necklace.

I was able to use the left over warp ends from the cuff project to make the tassels. It is nice when nothing gets wasted! Some left over pieces of the ribbon were used to make tabs through which the braided strap was threaded.

Last of all, I wove and sewed a plain-weave tubular band to cover the seam at the base. I dithered a bit with this part as I wasn’t sure how it would look. Would it be too big and bulky? I used 16 ends of a #10 crochet cotton and I think it was perfect match size-wise if not exactly color-wise. I love tubular bands. They make such nice finishes and I have to stop myself from adding them to everything. My book The Eye-pattern Tubular Band and other Decorative Finishing Techniques shows you how to weave and use as an edging of the prettiest and most common [patterned tubular bands woven in the Bolivian and Peruvian highlands.

Now I want to place a circle of felt at the base on the inside of the bag to cover the cut edge of the silk fabric circle. The fabric has been stabilized with Fray Check but does not look very attractive. If I had more sewing skills, I would have lined the pouch…maybe one day I will reach that skill level.

One of the weavers in the Ravelry group commented on the pattern I used to decorate all these pieces. It appears in my first book, Andean Pebble Weave, as a simple double hook pattern (at left) but you are excused if you don’t recognize that straight away. It appears in in its various flipped and mirrored forms in other books mentioned above.

There are many things that can be done with the basic double hook shape. A weaver could simply repeat it along the length of a band leaving a small space between each motif.

To make things more interesting, perhaps the motif could be flipped back and forth along the length of the band so that one motif looks somewhat like a letter S and the next its mirror image.

Jill, with whom I wove recently, played around with this same motif. Rather than flip the hook motifs or leave blank spaces between them, she connected them with a completely different little figure. I love her original idea.

You could connect the hooks directly one to the other while flipping them back and forth. Compare the individual hooks in the picture below to the connected ones…

Quite a different look and fun to weave.

A long time ago I had wound a warp to weave a series of ‘S’ motifs in the simple warp-float structure that I had found on a Central Asian yurt band. I made a mistake in the warping and ended up with twice the required number of warp ends. So, I simply wove the ‘S’ pattern as a mirror image of itself in two columns. I loved the way it came out and it has become one of my favorite items… a belt that I always wear when I am traveling. Many online acquaintances have recognized that belt around my waist before they have looked up and recognized me! This pattern is charted in my Complementary-warp Pick-up book.So, that is basically what I did with the double hook motif in the Andean Pebble Weave structure that I used on the yurt-shaped pouch.

I wove two columns of the motif flipping it back and forth as I went. It really is very easy and creates a complex-looking pattern from elements that are ever so simple. You tend to look at the pattern as a whole and fail to recognize its individual components.

Above, you can see the green band, which has the double hook motif flipped this way and that, lined up alongside its mirror image. Take away the green borders between, and you have the motif that I used on the yurt pouch.

Weaving an even more simple motif, which is symmetric both horizontally and vertically (like the one below left), in several columns can often create beautiful patterns. If you want to work with more warp ends and create larger patterns, simply take a motif that you already know well and multiply it. Who knows where it will take you! Multiply it, flip it, connect it with other shapes, add additional bands of color…have fun with it. Use symmetry and repetition to your advantage.

Here are some examples of a classic Andean pattern that has been multiplied and aligned in different ways on wider warps…

Focus on the white hook shapes on the bands with the light blue border and then see how those same shapes have been aligned on the center band to create a completely different look.

Compare the white hook shapes in outer bands with the yellow ones in the center and see how different the end result is. Al these patterns are charted in my Complementary-warp Pick-up book.Here’s a pattern that I created purely by mistake.

When I arrived back in Chile after my first experience learning to weave in Peru in 1996, I warped up to weave the classic ”meandering river” or ”linquito” pattern, as my teacher Maxima calls it..

Without realizing it, I had set up my pebble sheds the wrong way round. I continued to follow the instructions for the pick-up that I had scribbled down while working with my teachers.

I had no understanding whatsoever of the structure at this early stage and was just following steps. Imagine my surprise and confusion when I ended up creating something completely different, yet really very pretty!

That’s the pattern that you can see in the picture above…the one on the right. I haven’t come up with any kind of interesting name for it and just call it the ”mistake pattern”. Both this and the pattern I was actually trying to create are in my first book. You can see examples on the left where I have woven it as a mirror image of itself in two columns leaving space between to fill with other small motifs. Filling in spaces like that can be the first fun steps to creating your own unique patterns.

One of my weaving friends in California made the same kind of mistake. She was having trouble with a piece and showed me the motif that she swore she was following in my first book. My book…really? I didn’t recognize the pattern at all!

But, by bending my eyes and brain a bit, I realized that, while she had been doing the pick-up perfectly, she had her pebble sheds out of order. She had created her own pattern in the process. Sometimes I think that I should weave all the patterns in my books that way and see what happens!

Speaking of flipping….flip the krokbragd patterns, pictured above, 90 degrees. They are weft-faced but if you flip them, you could well believe that you are looking at warp-faced patterns woven in the warp-substitution technique.

These are wall hangings in the bedrooms at Vavstuga woven by Becky. I think I will weave some of these. I wove some similar shapes in the warp-substitution technique when I was studying Bedouin patterns. Some of these krokbragd pieces have the ”horse tooth” motif that appears on many Bedouin textiles. If you can tolerate the long warp floats on the back, the warp substitution technique allows you to use more than two colors along any part of the pattern. We did, however, find by looking at some Omani textiles, a cool and simple way to tie down those floats. I blogged about that some time ago. I’ll refresh you on that when I get down to weaving these designs.

Before I wander off even more in this post…we have been to Central Asia, the Andes, Scandinavia and the lands of the Bedouin so far…. I will leave you here with those warm krokbragd pieces that Becky at Vavstuga wove along with the peaceful view of the river and fall colors from her studio…

Backstrap Weaving – The Yurt and other Tales

It is strange as I go back and edit the pictures from my recent trip to look at crackling fire places, fall colors and warm and cozy living spaces while I sit here sweating in the ever green tropics. It is hard to imagine that I was going around in a down vest just over a week ago and that Melinda had given me one of her own handknit hats to keep me warm while visiting friends in the east for Thanksgiving. And, a yurt in California, with sheep skins, plush pillows, a down comforter, soft lighting and heating was my exotic bedroom for two nights.

My first time in a yurt was back in 2010. I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and the temperature was unexpectedly high….well into the 90s. After a hectic morning visiting the vendors and waiting in line for cold drinks, I wilted and took refuge in a yurt that had been erected.

In more ways than one, it really was the coolest place to be. I attached my backstrap loom to the wooden lattice walls and sat on top of the sheep skins to weave. A refreshing stream of air was drawn within from the opening in the roof. I wished I could have stretched out and napped but people kept entering thinking that I was the ”keeper of the yurt” and asking me questions about it. I imagined spending a night under that roof opening and gazing at the stars above the plains of Mongolia..

I visited a weaving friend, Sara Lamb, on one of my trips and marveled at her exotic yurt fiber studio nestled in the woods….

And this was my yurt bedroom at Susie and Rex’s place for a couple of nights on my latest trip. What fun!

In his living room, Rex had erected a pole for his backstrap weaving so he could sit among the collection of exotic rugs and textiles and create some of his own. The pole is seated in a plank which is weighed down by piles of books and furniture and allows him to experiment with having his warp extended at different angles.

Perhaps one day he will create a band to encircle the mini yurt he built in the backyard in which I got to spend those luxurious nights.

Yurt band woven structures became a part of my weaving experiments back in 2009 when my friend Lisa showed me a band that she had purchased.

Even earlier than that, in 2007, I had made my first visit to the Textile Museum in D.C where I was inspired by its exhibit of tent bands of Central Asia.

Using ideas drawn from that exhibit and Lisa’s 48-foot band, I went on to weave quite a few small pieces using the terme structure starting with this one, below, that I gave to Lisa for her cell phone…

I spent some time weaving with both Susie and Rex. Rex showed me a small experimental bench he had built to make sitting at a backstrap loom more comfortable. I tried it out and I have to say that it was quite amazing.

Here’s Gwen showing us how it works….

It was really comfortable sitting in this position…a position which I simply would not be able to tolerate for long without the support of this little bench. This position, sitting on the back of the calves, is how my Guatemalan weaving teachers sit with their backstrap warps angled rather steeply upward. Put a little cushioning on the seat of the bench and it would be perfect! What a clever simple device. Rex wanted to give it to me to take back to Bolivia. If only I had had room!

All this yurt talk takes me now to what I have been weaving this week.

In the last blog post, I showed you the silk warp that Sara had given me. There it is above…the gorgeous reds, orange, fuchsia, copper and purple. It is reeled silk that she dyed and warped and passed on to me to enjoy. I am hoping that along the way, some of Sara’s color sense rubs off on me.

Here it is on the loom with a pattern in the Andean Pebble Weave structure that I chose… a serious of ‘S-hook’ shapes woven this way and that…

And now, off the loom and washed and pressed undergoing that wonderful transformation that I have told you about before. It’s quite likely that you won’t be able to see the difference but, believe me, you can feel it….

Now….what to make with this lovely piece of cloth? I really didn’t feel like folding it over to make a square pouch with a flap…been there, done that. Even though I love cutting and shaping bag flaps and edging them with tubular bands, I wanted to do something different this time. So, I came up with this, a tribute to my recent yurt encounters…

I made a little yurt-ish shaped pouch. We can even imagine, if we like, that the strip of pebble weave is the band encircling the yurt. I had enough fabric to be able to cut a circle which forms the base of the bag and then sew the remaining cloth to it…a rather big challenge to my hand-sewing skills. It isn’t finished. I hope to add some exotic tassels somehow with the copper-color silk that Sara gave me and possibly edge the seam where the body connects to the base with a tubular band. And, of course, a strap is needed too.

Here’s another view… taken without flash so the colors are little duller…

So, now I have plans….I have my 60/2 silk and I want to weave a ribbon to edge the neckline of a black tunic top that I recently bought. I have all the colors of the warp that Sara gave me, except the fuchsia. I want to edge the neckline of the tunic with a band of those colors and use the little yurty pouch when I wear it. Urgh…I can hardly believe what I am saying…fashion plans! There will be much sampling and I just hope that I don’t destroy the tunic top in the process. My main concern is whether I have the ability to neatly sew on the ribbon.

So, there are the tubes of 60/2 silk that I plan to use with a line-up of possible replacements for the fuchsia that I am lacking.

And, that’s the backstrap I wove with the Good Earth cotton/linen yarn. It is not as plush as the Plymouth cotton backstraps that I have made before but I really like the way this yarn feels. It is certainly a good sturdy backstrap.

The fuchsia yarn labeled Luxor that you can see was a gift from my friend Wendy in Australia. You may remember Wendy Garrity from previous blog posts about the time we spent together here in Santa Cruz and later in Santa Fe and the weaving she learned to do in Bhutan. She sent me a care package that showed up two days ago with all sorts of Aussie biscuits and sweets as well as this yarn. I wasn’t expecting it at all! She had been using the yarn in the Key Fob Weave-along that we ran earlier this year and I was interested in trying it and writing about it for backstrap weavers in Australia. The Luxor 100% cotton, is made by Fibra Natura, the same brand as the blue cotton/linen.

So, there’s plenty to keep me busy and I have the linen warp that I wound from Lori’s stash to try as well. Speaking of Lori and the weaving friends with whom I spent time while away, let me show you some of the textiles that I encountered on this trip…

Two bags that form part of Lori's collection of Huichol textiles. They have been woven using a balanced double weave structure and have interesting edgings. I took lots of pictures of those edgings to study. — These are two bags that form part of Lori’s collection of Huichol textiles. They have been woven using a balanced double-weave structure and have interesting edgings. I took lots of pictures of those edgings to study more closely now that I am at home. It is so exciting to discover decorative edgings on these pieces from Mexico.

If anyone knows the origin of this scarf, Christine and I would love to know. Christine found this in a Goodwill store and I love it. I was trying to figure out how the patterns at the ends of the scarf were created. The little figures are identical on both faces. It seems that some of the warp ends themselves were used to wrap others and create the patterns. — If anyone knows the origin of this scarf, Christine and I would love to know. Christine found this in a Goodwill store and I love it. The main pattern is beautifully fine and simple and the whole thing is set-off by the fascinating more complex patterns at the ends. The little figures at the ends are identical on both faces. It seems that some of the warp ends themselves were used to wrap others and create the motifs. I would like to figure out the technique and this is something else that will have me peering at my photos.

Nicole made me so happy when she showed me the tapestry puece she had woven as a cover for her ipad. Dhe edged it with aplain weave tubular band that she had learned using the tutorial on my blog. It is funny thath other weaving friends, Sara and Diane, had just been suggesting the possibility of using use the tubular bands as not only edging s for warp-faced weaves, but also for weft-faced pieces and even knotted pile. — Nicole made me so happy when she showed me the tapestry piece she had woven as a cover for her iPad. She edged it with a plain-weave tubular band that she had learned using **the tutorial** on my blog. It is funny that other weaving friends, Sara and Diane, had just been suggesting the possibility of using the tubular bands as edgings for not only warp-faced weaves, but also for weft-faced pieces and even knotted pile. And then, along comes Nicole to show how well it works.

Here’s Leslie’s backstrap showing us how nice the variegated Plymouth yarn can look. She had just started braiding the ends. The pale solid stripe that she added in the center really sets off the variegated stripes.

I got to see pieces, now off the loom, that Jean and Jane had been working on last time I met up with them. Jean’s black piece with its pattern in supplementary weft is her new backstrap. She adapted a warp pattern from my second book to the supplementary-weft structure…so clever. I am pretty sure that Jane intends sewing her fabulous complementary-warp pick-up piece into a bag which she will edge and decorate.

Liz and Caroline showed me what they have been working on since we last met and wove together. Caroline made her own backstrap and is currently weaving the band with the bird figures. I love Liz’s band in the middle with the variegated thread. I keep saying I want to try out some of those variegated yarns and have not managed to do so yet.

Here’s a nice selection of Andean Pebble Weave bands from the weavers in Arizona…

And, Deanna made me smile a lot when she went on to design her own Andean Pebble Weave figure after my stay with her. These are experiments for a hatband for her Mustang-driving husband. She was inspired by some tablet-woven horses that she had seen. As she discovered, designing for Andean Pebble Weave is just like a connect-the-dots exercise.

And here is what Julia wove, after we parted, using Andean pebble Weave patterns from my second book….we all love that red and black! Julia’s work is gorgeous and always so beautifully finished. She is great inspiration for everyone in the Ravelry group. I was tickled to see a pattern I had charted for the second book but never woven myself…the one on the right.

I just read on Facebook that Unicorn Books closed last week. Sad. In 1995, my new weaving friend in Colorado, Gladys, gave me their catalog to take back to Chile with me. The catalog was like a newspaper and oh, how I would love looking over the pages and pages of fiber arts books. I ordered Double Woven Treasures of old Peru from that catalog and waited impatiently for it to be shipped to the southernmost tip of Chile where I was living. It was that book that had me throwing on the backpack and heading to Peru to learn to weave in 1996.
And, just to show that my recent trip wasn’t all about crackling fires and chilly nights…southern California put on some spectacular weather and Deanna, Gay and I spent a gorgeous afternoon having lunch at the ocean.

You can see the exotic woven band…a balanced double weave pick-up… on the Panama hat that Gay lent me for the strong sun.

It is one of many textiles that Gay and her husband collected in their travels. You may remember when last I visited her I was so excited to buy a Huichol belt from her that had designs I had once chosen to weave in a piece of my own, also in balanced double-weave pick-up.

I took lots of pictures of it and then gave it a nice home in my friend Janet’s place.

I will leave you for now with the setting sun on that perfect day down by the sea and get back to decorating my little yurt bag….

Backstrap Weaving – Wee Fingers

Hello! I am back.

Last year I met up and wove with 5-year old Lily’s mom when I was in California. Lori went home to show her weaving to her daughter. I didn’t get to meet Lily but she made and sent me a paper bracelet with the words…Mitakuye Oyasin which, according to Wikipedia,

is a phrase from the Lakota language. It reflects the world view of interconnectedness held by the Lakota people of North America. It is a prayer of oneness and harmony with all forms of life: other people, animals, birds, insects, trees and plants, and even rocks, rivers, mountains and valleys.

Little did I know that the tiny hands that had fashioned that paper bracelet and written those lovely words would soon be weaving!

Lily would sit by Lori’s side and watch as her mom did, what they came to call in their household, ”some Laverne weaving”. Of course, after some time, Lily wanted to try. Lori set her up with some warp threaded through a small rigid heddle. It wasn’t long before Lily really wanted to try using string heddles, just like her mom. Lori shared a video with me of Lily deftly opening the shed on her tiny backstrap warp using all the coordinated hand and body movements to weave her wee band. Her joyous exclamation part-way through the moves of ”Oh dorgy, this is easy!” makes me smile every time. There’s a screen shot from the video at left.

This year I got to meet Miss Lily herself, now 6 years old, and watch her weave. She is left-handed, as is her mom, and uses the two-finger method to create a picking cross that I was shown here by one of my Bolivian weaving teachers. It was such a kick to see her at work. As her focus shifts from basic loom operation to pick-up, she has stopped using some of the moves that we use to smoothly raise the heddles but, never mind, her yarn is friendly and she can get clear sheds. One thing at a time. It will all come together soon.

Here’s a video of Lily doing some two-finger pick-up…

And here she is doing a little Andean Pebble Weave pick-up using the two pencils in place of her fingers as a permanent picking cross….

Meanwhile, Lily’s mom’s continues to explore backstrap weaving and pick-up patterns. This is what she completed after my visit…

Her balanced-weave piece, something she has been studying on her own, is gorgeous! She is achieving a nice balance without the aid of a reed.

Lori’s friend, Eden, came over to weave with her. She brought along her daughter, Isabella, who is almost 11. Isabella went home wanting to weave too and her 8-year old brother, Oliver, got into it as well. More wee fingers at the loom….

And then, while hanging out in Florida with my weaving friend, Gwen, I got to see what she has been teaching her young friend Mariana to do. Mariana is 11 and can weave up a plain-weave band in minutes! She hasn’t started doing pick-up yet, but she can wind a good warp and make her own string heddles, While Gwen and I chatted and watched, Mariana wove a band which turned out to be just the right size for a pouch for her weaving sword. She then wound a new evenly-tensioned warp, made string heddles and proceeded to weave away again.

It is so delightful to see these wee fingers at work and see my weaving friends passing on these skills to young ones on opposite sides of the USA… in California and Florida.

Gwen and I wove some double weave together. Here is Gwen’s sample with her own pattern…

My travels took me through such a variety of landscapes and temperatures…

From Florida, with its glorious old oaks hung with Spanish moss….lakes abounding in elegant strutting birds…and expanses of lily pads suspended on glassy surfaces…

…to expanses of fallen fall foliage and all those classic colorful New England hillside scenes…

…Pacific Ocean sunsets and Spanish Missions…

Southwestern deserts…

And, of course, there was lots and lots of backstrap weaving along the way with friends old and new….wee fingers and not-so-wee ones in among the warp threads.

I will show you all the weavers and textiles in my next report. That one will place me back in my regular Thursday night/Friday morning posts.

Here are some gifts and purchases that I brought home with me…

The gold and blue tubes of 60/2 silk were a gift. I am excited about that and can finally make something large-ish in silk. The colors are gorgeous! The tubes of 60/2 silk that I have here at home hold very small quantities…just enough to make some cuffs and to be used as supplementary weft.

The large tube of Navajo warp was also a gift from a friend who does a lot of Navajo-style weaving. I have been looking for light-weight Navajo warp to dye and use for a discontinuous-warp project. I happened to mention that fact and…..bingo! I just didn’t get my act together enough to buy wool dye to bring home. There isn’t any to be found here. Oh well, I have plenty to weave in the meantime.

The plastic snaps were a gift from a Canadian weaving friend. My metal ones are already rusting. These plastic ones will save my cuffs from getting rust stains.

You can see 5 buttons there. After spending a long time at WEBS touching absolutely everything, that is all I bought. It seems that I will be planning weaving projects to go with the buttons rather than the other way round.

I got some more charcoal pencils and a ”disappearing ink” pen for marking my ikat projects.

And, I bought a lot of DMC #12 cotton for another double weave wall hanging. I have decided to make a series based on the Shipibo-inspired one that comprises solid lines and squiggles. A weaving friend on this trip showed me pictures she took in India of wooden lattice-work window shutters and from there comes my inspiration for the next double weave project….more solid lines and squiggles. I will be back down on the floor with charting paper and pencil for that.

I was given lots of naturally-dyed cotton from Mayan Hands in Guatemala. It was part of several towel kits that a weaving friend had bought. Those are just a few of the lovely colors that you can see in the photo.

And then, I went a little mad at Vavstuga and bought lots of fine wool which I hope will work for backstrap weaving. I will make it work! I bought LOTS! I have been inspired by the pictures that the CTTC has been posting of the annual backstrap weaving competition among individual weavers from the various Cusco communities….gorgeous wool pieces in natural dye colors. This one in particular caught my eye…

Usually, two pieces are sewn together to make these very large cloths. The join is covered with embroidery which makes a very attractive central line. You may remember that I wove two identical pieces recently with the intention of joining them in such a way. However, this piece has a band of pick-up weaving in the center and the join is not to be seen. I am guessing that the weaver wove one panel wider than the other to include the central band of pick-up patterning and then joined her two pieces so cleverly that the seam is not noticeable at all. I would love to take a closer look at this piece. Unfortunately, the photos on the CTTC site are not labeled and I do not know from which community this weaver comes. The style of pick-up patterning on the shoulder cloth that she is wearing is so very different to that on the piece she is holding.

Anyway, I am toying with the idea of making a poncho with the wool I bought at Vavstuga. I bought lots but maybe not enough for a poncho. That’s okay, I can always get more. Hopefully, I won’t be cursed with what has so often happened in the past….I find a yarn that I like only to find that it gets discontinued shortly after my great discovery.

And here are some ready-to-go projects that I brought back. Above right, you can see a warp of reeled silk that Sara Lamb dyed and wound and gave to me. You may remember that she gave me one the last time I visited with her and I had so much fun with that…feeling the cloth I wove transform from a sort of crunchiness to liquid smoothness after washing and pressing and then sewing and dressing up the cloth as the cell phone pouch pictured at left. I can’t wait to weave this!

On the left is a cotton/linen blend yarn that my friend Liz thought would work well for backstraps. So, I bought a skein. You can get a backstrap out of one $11 skein. It is not as cushy as the Plymouth Yarn that I usually recommend for backstrap projects but it makes a nice sturdy backstrap and is super easy to weave with. There is a hint of intended unevenness to the coloring that gives it a very natural look. I love this stuff!! I wove that blue warp up last night and will finish the braids for the backstrap today. You will see it finished on Thursday when I post more details about the yarn. This is the first time that I have woven with any kind of linen and there is more to come. The center warp in the picture is 100% linen. Lori let me wind a warp with linen in her stash and I am looking forward to trying it out.

I am leaving all the textile fun for the next post. I met with all sorts of cool people. Friends have found textile gems in Goodwill stores, bought textiles directly from indigenous weavers and created their own marvels on their backstrap looms. I also saw some cool homemade weaving gadgets. I have plenty to show you next time. This post was about the wee fingers. The next one will show what the grown-up fingers have been up to.

I will leave you with a picture of a former weaving buddy who used to get down on the floor with me to chart…

I had to part with her almost three years ago. It simply wasn’t fair leaving her all alone when I traveled. I hadn’t seen her since. Now she has just moved a block away from me and there has been a happy reunion. It was first thing I did after dragging myself home from the Miami-Santa Cruz red-eye and changing into clothes better suited to the tropical heat.

She remembered me!

Thanks to all who opened their home to me on this trip and to those who wrote to me concerned about the lack of blog posts. I am back 🙂