January 2016 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Rhythm

This week has been about rhythmic weaving , weaving, weaving. I have never really set myself a schedule for a weaving project before. I just weave as much as I feel inclined to do each day. I’m in no hurry. But, I found myself falling into a one-motif-per-day challenge with my latest wool piece. Maybe it was because I was so concerned and nervous about not being able to get the motifs to line up on the two panels. Even when I had the first one aligned, I was not convinced that I would be able to do the same with the next…as I always say…a different day, a different rhythm. And even if the first half of a motif was behaving well, I couldn’t trust that the second half would play along.

As it turns out, it seems that my rhythm wasn’t that different from day to day. All six motifs fell beautifully into alignment and, although I constantly paused to relax tension on the warp and compare my progress with the first panel, I only had to back up once for a re-do in the very first motif. I sighed and figured that would be the rhythm for this project…weave, back-up, re-do…but it wasn’t.

I was really pleased about that as I have found maintaining consistent proportions in motifs rather challenging in the past. Maybe I have developed a good rhythm from the large amounts of plain weave that I have been doing lately. I have to admit that it is really fun to just open a shed, beat and pass the weft again and again without having to stop and hand-pick a shed. It is nice to take a break from all the pick-up work and do that from time to time. The silk piece I recently wove gave me that opportunity. There was lots of plain weave to enjoy between each of those star motifs…perfect for developing a regular rhythm and beat.

Online weaving friend, Paula, was taking her first steps in the Andean Pebble Weave structure using my book and was having some concerns. It was all about her beat. It is difficult to convey to someone how hard they should beat. Luckily she showed a picture and I could read her concerns which enabled me to help her by suggesting adjustments.

There are different weavers with different beats who will produce bands that look different and who is to say which one is better or ”correct”? But, there can be problems when beating too hard. Paula is used to weft-faced weaving and giving her work a good thumping beat. I can remember pounding away with a fork on my tapestry pieces. I loved that. Paula’s motifs, on the right, are of consistent size and shape and look really sweet. The problem with that kind of heavy beat when using cotton, is that the warp threads get forced apart and reveal the weft, which is something you may not want. The blue weft is exposed outlining the diagonals. A lighter beat produced the band on the left. I did have a student once who threw up her hands and gave me a ”look”. I had suggested lightening her beat and then had to tell her an hour or so later that she probably wasn’t beating hard enough. That’s the way it goes. It takes time to find that beat and rhythm.

Here are the two panels in my latest wool project off the loom. I folded the edges and placed them together so that I could enjoy the fact that everything lined up…phew!

Now I need to wet finish it which, quite frankly, freaks me out!

I once had a bad experience with some handspun wool from Peru.

I wove a discontinuous-warp, or ticlla, piece with it. It had four squares of four natural alpaca colors..two in each panel… and I had needle-woven to finish each of the two panels to create the selvedges. It was a small piece but it had been a lot of work!

I washed it (apart from the finishing, it really needed a wash as the wool was pretty dusty and dirty) and each color shrank in an entirely different way. The piece was badly deformed.

I did manage to sort of work it back into shape but it never looked as nice as it had before the wash. I am hoping that I don’t have any such problem with this industrially-spun wool.

This is how the two panels will sit together when I connect them with the joining stitch.

All kinds of tools took part…a Guatemalan shed rod used as the front beam, a Bolivian broom stick for the back beam, two long Guatemalan swords, a Guaraní sword (which I had to put aside as, although it is fine for cotton, it really needs some sanding to work with wool), a pick/beater from Ecuador, a polished sword from Maryland Sheep and Wool and a good ol’ Ashford shuttle.

Now to think about the next project. I have two in mind that are competing. I am thinking about making this latest wool piece the first in a series and so I would love to get into my wool stash and make another of the same size with the purple and other jewel colors that I have. I’ll use a different pick-up structure…maybe intermesh or perhaps supplementary-warp.

The other project that has been turning in my mind is another in 60/2 silk. Deanna gave me the tubes of teal that I used in my bandanna project as well as some bright yellow.

While I am not crazy about the bright yellow, I have an idea of how to tone it down if I use it in a scarf project. I can cover it with continuous supplementary-weft patterning using the supplementary weft to fill the negative space and reveal little motifs in the underlying yellow silk. That is what I did in the first and third rows of patterning below. There will be splashes of yellow here and there rather than having it be the dominant color. I found a pattern on a Mexican rebozo that has given me ideas. I am glad I took the picture of the tubes of silk as it reminds that there is less of the yellow silk than the teal so I won’t plan too big a project and run out of thread while warping.

Another online weaving friend, Hilary, sent me a picture from her recent trip to Cusco.

Cusco….of course you expect to see LOTS of weavers and textiles and backstrap looms. I wasn’t expecting this….

How cool is that? I wish I could see more of what was going on. I wonder what kind of rhythm the weaver gets going. Maybe the book cover I bought in Santa Cruz airport was made this way. I was intrigued by it because it had the typical motifs of Chinchero, Peru, was made in acrylic, and was being sold with its ”Bolivia” label as a Bolivian souvenir. The consistent repetition of three mistakes in the widest band of pattern convinced me that it was not woven on a backstrap loom with a weaver doing all the pick-up.

Lastly, here’s something I saw online and wanted to share…

They are the work of the Hmong people of Thailand and are little coin purses. You can see them and maybe buy one on the website of Little Mango Imports. I can’t quite tell how they have been constructed and how much fabric they use but they are very sweet.

Now to ponder the next project…wool or silk?

Backstrap Weaving – Which Way is Up?

What kind of crazy person weaves with wool in a heat wave? Okay, I won’t dwell on that as I know that northern hemisphere folks are just as uncomfortable in a wave of cold weather right now.

I finished the first panel of my wool piece. It has a mix of Andean Pebble Weave motifs that have influences from textiles of the lowlands and highlands of Bolivia and Peru as well as from sources well outside South America. I managed to squeeze in six of them between the narrow bands of swirly lines. I like how the white lines in the narrow pattern bands reveal the red star-like motif in what one might call the negative space.

I have to admit that creating the pick-up patterns isn’t really the focus of this project for me. There are multiple other things on which to focus…

-working with commercial wool to which I did not add extra twist.

-managing sticky sheds.

-working with this new-to-me 20/2 wool, which looks like it might want to break if not handled well, in a width that I have never tried with wool before.

-ensuring that the motifs on the second panel are of the same proportions as those on the first so that the two panels will be as close to identical as I can manage.

I didn’t have any broken warp threads to deal with in the first panel…yay.

If all goes well, I will finish with two panels that I will sew together as I did in this cotton project…

I had some decisions to make before I got to work on the second panel and looked at some pieces that weavers here in South America create and sew together to help with that. One of the typical pieces that comprises panels is the women’s carrying cloth, the lliqlla or aguayo.

Of course, the work of the indigenous weavers is on a whole other level.

For a start, their carrying-cloth panels are far longer and wider than mine and are woven with four selvedges. Weaving is started at one end of the loom for a few inches and then started and continued at the other end. Eventually, the two ends of the woven cloth will be so close to each other that the weaver will have to abandon the pick-up patterning and the use of heddles and sticks to create sheds. He or she will need to needle-weave in the remaining weft shots in plain weave. You can see the piece on which I learned this technique below. The two ends of weaving are just about to meet.

This weaver is finishing this four-selvedged plain-weave panel. She picks up every other warp end with the blunt end of a needle to create a shed before passing the weft. — This weaver is finishing a four-selvedged plain-weave panel. She picks up every other warp end with the blunt end of a needle to create a shed before passing the weft.

I have taken the easy way and my latest wool project has been simply cut off the loom leaving fringe at both ends. I was not yet ready to add the further challenge of four selvedges to this project!

Before starting the second panel, I wanted to look at examples of aguayos to see if indigenous weavers had planned on aligning the motifs on their two panels and, if so, how successful they had been. I find it quite difficult to weave the same motif along the length of a piece and have it turn out with exactly the same dimensions from start to finish. It takes a concentrated effort of measuring and adjusting tension and beat. I think it might be just as hard to produce motifs of consistent proportions on two separate pieces of cloth.

Simply applying a different amount of tension to a warp from one day to the next, or altering the beat slightly, will cause a motif to either elongate or contract. Shortening the warp, as the finished cloth is rolled up, also affects the amount of tension that I apply as a sit at the loom. It is much easier to tension a short warp than a long one and the tendency is to apply progressively more tension as the warp gets shorter. You then unroll the cloth and find that the cute chubby rabbit-like figure (viscacha) at the start of the cloth looks more like a long thin weasel at the end!

Look how different this kangaro motif is in the hands of two different weavers who are tensioning the warp and beating differently. Mine is the elongated one. My sister-in-law said it looked like a rat instead of a kangaroo. I was using new-to-me thread in Australia and had pushed the warp threads too close together.

Below, you can see a spectacular carrying cloth from Bolivia with bands of double weave amongst the plain weave. And, there’s that lovely triangular joining stitch that I used recently to join my two brown panels. I have been dipping into some of my books and found that in the Potosí region of Bolivia where I learned embedded double weave, the stitched join is known as siray and the triangle pattern is known as arku siray. The book describes and names other joining stitch patterns used in the region… zig zags, arcs, vertical lines and even butterflies.

You can see that the weaver has created the same double weave motifs on either side of the joining stitch but that those on the right are narrower and much more elongated. A different piece, a different rhythm. But, who can say if this even mattered to her? And, this is certainly not something I noticed when I first saw and photographed this textile. I was immediately overwhelmed by the fineness and beauty of this piece. I only notice the differences in the proportions of the motifs now that I happen to be focusing on that particular aspect.

I feel a joyful jumping rhythm in Maxima’s aguayo, below, and I love it. The layout of the bands and distribution of colors is identical on both panels but she has not tried to match the figures themselves.

And then the question came to me: ‘’Which way is up? Maxima’s little horse figure is standing right way up but the feline figure to the left is on its head. She could have woven it right way up if she had wanted but it seems that she chose not to. An animal figure in the upper half is aligned in yet another way. I suppose that this cloth could lie or be worn any which way and chances are you would get to see a figure positioned the right way up no matter where you were standing. These are just my thoughts and ramblings. I don’t know how the weavers themselves think about this. I am usually quietly observing or doing when I am visiting with weavers. The questions come later….quite often too late.

The weaver of this cloth from the Cusco area of Peru has aligned her motifs on either side of the join. Phew! I hope I can do as good a job. Our eyes have something to look at from all angles. The horse figures are the right way up on the right hand side of the join and upside down on the other. The bird figures that switch positions on either side of the horses give you something to look at from other angles and sides.

What is consistent in all the pieces I looked at is that fact that both panels appear to have been warped in exactly the same way. If one panel has a wide pick up pattern on the left hand side and a narrow pattern on the right, the second panel is also warped in this way…one being a sort of carbon copy of the other Therefore, one finished panel needs to be rotated before being joined to the other.

I did it in a different way and wound the colors for my second panel as a mirror image of the first rather than as a copy. I don’t know why, but it just seemed to be the right thing to do at the time!

I am wondering if the indigenous weavers work the way they do so that the terminal areas that end up toward the far end of the woven piece (and which are kind of an unattractive but virtually unavoidable interruption to the beautifully worked pattern) lie at opposite ends of the cloth once the two panels are joined rather than at the same end.

As my pieces do not have four selvedges and, therefore, no terminal area, it doesn’t matter which way I set them up.

So, after looking at many examples before starting the second panel, I had to decide if I would…

-try to align my motifs so that they start and end at the same time, but not weave the same ones side by side.

-try to align my motifs and weave the same ones side by side as a mirror image of the first panel.

-weave the same motifs but mix it all up by weaving long ones next to short ones and not worry about aligning them at all, or

-weave six completely different motifs and not try to match anything.

I went with trying to make the second panel a true mirror image of the first. I need the symmetry but may live to regret this decision!

I guess if they grow at different rates and end up hopelessly misaligned I can always change the way I join the panels together. Right now I am planning this…

Those funny triangles down the center are supposed to be the joining stitch, the arku siray.

If the motifs end up out of sync, as they are in the image above, I’ll probably do this…

I’ll put some distance between the motifs which might trick my eyes into not making comparisons. In fact, this arrangement is already growing on me. It’s always good to have a back-up plan, right?

While looking about for examples of joined woven panels, I read of the existence of two main types of carrying cloths in the northern part of Potosí in Bolivia: the siraynin, which comprises two equal parts joined with visible decorative stitching and the qhewallo, which comprises two panels of different widths. A band of pick-up pattern sits in the center of this second type rather than the stitching and the stitching itself is done in the least visible way possible. (Lliqllas Chayantakas López, Flores, Letournaux PAC- Potosí) This was the very thing I had been wondering about when I showed in a recent blog post one of the entries in the first regional backstrap weaving competition run by the CTTC in Cusco last year. Quite possibly, weavers in Cusco have entirely different names for these styles.

For now, all I want to do is put my two small panels together and make a nice table covering. I am sure I will learn a lot. As far as my goals of going longer, finer and wider go, it’s another ”two out of three” for this project. I didn’t go longer as I wouldn’t have had enough yarn for the width I wanted. But, I am pleased with the width and the fineness of the wool.

Before I leave you, let me show you Sophie’s bold and beautiful double-weave band with her own pattern. Don’t you just love the crisp patterns this technique allows you to create? If you are tempted to try it, you can see my intermediate-level tutorial here.

Backstrap Weaving – Taking Notes

I was rustling around in my pattern chart folders looking for ideas for my latest wool project.

It was a fun bit of nostalgia looking at designs I had charted many years ago. I haven’t woven every single one of them. Some half-charted motifs, which I guess I had abandoned because they were somehow not quite right, suddenly looked pretty good.

Some of the charts are huge, like the one I did for the Wayuu inspired wall hanging and the Shipibo song lines hanging. They are folded this way and that, a bit smudged and crumpled, with notes scribbled on the sides. I like charting on paper even though my charts often end up in this state.

In one of the folders, I found pages from one of my old project journals and I was astounded.

Wow, when did I suddenly lose the discipline to write up my notes so meticulously?! Each page has photos, miniature pattern charts and layout in colored pencils labeled with neat hand written figures.

These were made in the times when I had not yet discovered online weaving groups and did not own a digital camera. I am thinking that the time that I now spend online was once spent making pretty project pages.

All the projects described on these pages have gone to live in other homes.

I still make good notes. They just aren’t pretty. The pattern charts do not stay together with the project page, there are no pictures or colored pencil layouts and my hand writing is an impatient scrawl. Here’s the project page for the two brown panels that I wove late last year and recently joined into one piece.

It’s not quite as attractive as those earlier project pages! but I guess that all the information I need is there.

I have been watching a tapestry artist friend show online her process for her latest work. She finds her subject…quite often it is something from nature… a plant, flowers, sticks, pebbles. She then photographs it, paints it in water colors and then creates a black and white outline cartoon from the painting which sits up behind the vertical warp. She then proceeds to weave it. Each stage is a work of art in itself. A book of the paintings alone would be wonderful.

As for me, I took the trouble of making a rough image of what I had in mind for my latest wool project in my drawing program. No colored pencils this time. I wanted the colors to be as close as possible to my yarn colors and figured I could do that better with software tools. The result is hardly a work of art but it did help.

But, first I had to choose the colors. There’s something about wool that says ”earth tones” to me even though I have some pretty blues, ruby red, greens and purple in the yarn that I bought in my last trip away. I guess I haven’t used wool enough to have gotten over the fixation with earth tones yet.

Apart from the bright Bolivian cloth that covers my backstrap weaving cushion seat you can see that my environment is otherwise pretty earthy. I chose, dark brown, brick red, tan and off-white yarn.

I got out a pile of books and those pattern chart folders and yes, even my own book is there. I stood over it all and looked and looked. It makes my head hurt trying to visualize how the colors will look together and how they should be placed and that is why I made the drawing. I just threw some large X patterns on there until I could figure out what design I wanted to weave.

There will be two panels like this that I will connect with a decorative joining stitch. The left edge of the drawing will be the joined edged and I hope to edge the entire piece with a decorative technique that I haven’t used before.

I finally chose the patterns. The large ones are a nice combination of Andean outlines with my own ”fillers”, tweaks and embellishments. There’s also one that I adapted from raffia Kuba cloth. The narrow ones in red and white are pretty much my own thing but there are definitely Andean influences at work.

It was time to crunch numbers based on the wool sample I wove last week and this is where the not-so-disciplined note-taking became a problem.

When I was winding the warp for the sample, I decided that the number of ends that I had written in my notebook wouldn’t be enough to give a good reading and so I added a bunch more. Did I adjust my notes? No! The added ends were so obvious, I couldn’t possibly miss them, right?

So, I measured my sample and used the numbers in my notebook (the wrong numbers) to make my calculations and happily wound the two panels of my new project. I was very pleased. The warping had gone wonderfully and I liked the way the colors looked together. If the warping goes well, I just know that the project will be a success. I even put all the heddles on one of the pieces and it was only then, as I started moving the threads around and settling them, that I realized that the panel was way, way too narrow. Then, I figured out what had gone wrong. Back to the warping board to double the amount of ends in all the solid color sections. I wound the extra ends and added them.

So much for the glitch-free success-guaranteed warping session. It wasn’t too bad fixing the mistake. If I had discovered this error the following day, I would have unwound the whole thing and started again…a different day, a different rhythm.

The heddles had to all come out. I quickly destroyed the evidence and pretended it had never happened.

Now, that’s what I like to see…a fresh warp with the right number of ends, all evenly tensioned, stretched out before me.

You can see the hairy little fingers of the wool yarn just waiting to cause mischief. Yes, it is pretty sticky stuff but as long as the threads don’t break, I can patiently deal with it. Well, even if they do break, I can deal with it but perhaps not so patiently.

I was 10 ends short of brown yarn when I fixed the second panel. That’s 10 short out of 1 980 between the two warps. So, I just took 10 ends off the first one to even things up and it’s just as well I did as I need brown yarn to fix breaks should they occur….so far so good. I have to use black for weft instead of the brown I had intended to use which is not a problem with warp-faced weaving. And yes, I adjusted my notes for these changes! My notebook will sit right by the warping stakes from now on.

Here’s the second of the large Andean Pebble Weave motifs underway. You can see that I am using the extra long beam that I used for the silk project. It is not necessary for this one but I have grown to really like the feel of that beam.

The second motif is finished and the next will be the one inspired by Kuba cloth. I will probably just stick with those three unless something else leaps out at me in the meantime. I am really pleased with it. Of course, the challenge will be to weave an identical second panel. I think the secret for me will be to just keep weaving and not take too much time off…get a good rhythm going. I am glad I have already warped (and adjusted) the second panel.

The wool is fine and the fabric feels light and lovely, if not exactly soft. I’m getting used to the springiness of it as I beat.

And now for some projects from online friends…

Julia has been weaving with the KnitPicks Curio cotton and has been wanting to do something asymmetrical with all the gorgeous colors she got. She has an Andean Pebble Weave pattern lying within and amongst stripes of varying widths. My head would have broken putting this together as asymmetry kind of freaks me out. Julia has a great eye for design and layout and this piece is stunning!

Pamela in New Zealand (whom I am happy to say I met when she came over to weave with me in Australia) has been working on some Andean Pebble Weave projects and adding eyelets. I take my belts down to the market where I just mark the spots where I want the eyelets to be placed and the ladies use a big punch-like machine to take care of it. Pamela gave me some notes on the process, with which she is just getting comfortable, for anyone who would like to try…

I was advised to use an awl and then a chopstick to open up the hole, which of course would work well. Much closer to hand was my knitting needle collection and I found that it supplied a well graduated series of hole openers which worked well too. Then you ease the eyelet into the hole carefully. You may need a needle to flick any catching threads onto it.
The backs of my eyelets aren’t great; my hammer work needs improving but they are perfectly functional.

Moniek Deroo in Belgium wove two meters of gorgeous band on her inkle loom. She used combinations of Andean motifs with her own embellishments to make a unique pattern. The gold and white look fabulous together.

And, to finish, and just for fun, Diana Maria allowed me to use her picture of the baggage carousel in La Paz airport. There you can see one of those brightly colored cloths that are used here to carry babies and all manner of things, being given yet another good use as a piece of checked luggage. When I think of my monstrous wheely bags covered with TSA locks I think how nice it would be to travel so simply!

Backstrap Weaving – Two out of Three Ain’t Bad

Here’s enough inspiration for this year. In fact, it might be enough for the rest of my life! I fell in love with this picture that recently showed up on Facebook…

From Afrostyle magazine and designer Tarun Tahilian — From AfroStyle Magazine and designer Tarun Tahilian.

This was shared from the page of AfroStyle Magazine.

Just when I am into weaving and wearing wrist cuffs, along comes this image of forearms covered with them. And, I have always thought that a turban would be the perfect solution to that awkward transition period from dark brown to grey hair. Not just your conventional turban, but multiple layered silks!

And imagine multiple silk ribbon necklaces around the model’s neck. Gorgeous!

Do a Google Image search for designer Tarun Tahilian and be prepared to melt. I can’t believe my clothes-challenged self is so taken with this.

I chose just one of this designer’s pieces to show as I have been working on a 60/2 silk piece that is in a similar teal-y tone.

Here it is on the loom and in a place in my bedroom that doesn’t really favor photography. It looks away too blue.I simply could not get the camera to capture the green tones of the thread…

Once the weaving had advanced so far that it was uncomfortable to reach forward and operate the sheds, I needed to roll up the fabric around the front beam. That was when I really had to do something about the lack of long enough sticks for this project. I was already lacking a suitable back beam and now, a roll-up stick. I looked up on the terrace where people who move out of their apartments frequently dump unwanted brooms and mops. I have cut down many of them for loom pieces. The search didn’t turn up anything and so I headed to the market. It’s all of a block and a half from my place to one of the biggest and most chaotic street markets in this city with its interesting sights, sounds and aromas.

I am showing this picture of the broom stall that I visited on New Year’s Eve with a table of underwear in the background so I can tell you about a New Year tradition.

It is traditional to sell red and yellow underwear at this time of year as wearing red underwear to bring in the new year will attract love to your life. Wearing yellow will bring you money. The markets are full of this in the days leading up to January 1st.

There’s wood under the spotted plastic coating on the broom stick. Unfortunately, the melted plastic seam was very rough and would have shredded my silk and so I had to spend quite a lot of time picking it off and then sanding the gnarly wood underneath. Of course, a couple of days later when I was out and about, I ran into a stall selling bare wooden broom sticks that were wonderfully smooth. I bought two of these perfect ones…two out of three ain’t bad. They cost 80 cents each!

Someone on Ravelry posed a question to the weaving group about changes in our loom inventories at the end of 2015. With my new extra long sticks, I guess you could say that I added a new loom to mine. A front beam, back beam and roll-up stick for under $4.

My collection of sticks and swords and shuttles has out-grown my bedroom and now lives in the living room. It may not be obvious, but there is some kind of order there.

And so, I was able to spread out the threads at the far end along the nice new long beam and roll up the cloth as I progressed. Once off the loom, I was able to pose the fabric in places with better lighting and I think this picture shows more accurately the true colors…

I am really pleased with it!

I am pleased and relieved that my small sample of 200 ends gave me reliable information for the 2000 ends that I eventually used. I was able to set the width and maintain it rather effortlessly for the entire project. I spent an entire morning trying to ensure that the threads were all evenly spaced before throwing the first shot of weft.

It is supposed to be a bandanna/neckerchief sort of thing but you may see me wrapping it about my head turban-style one of these days, if it is big enough.

You can see the cloth being worn and looking very blue again. The larger picture, above, shows it fresh off the loom before wet finishing.

I don’t think any picture will show you the exciting change after washing and pressing. You would have to feel it, but here’s a picture of it after washing anyway…

Now I need to hem it.

One of my weaving goals for perhaps the last couple of years has been to go longer, wider and finer. I achieved two out of three with this project and it has been a great way to start the new year.

Maybe I will get a three out of three with the next project. Length has never been an issue. I have woven long warps stretched all the way across my room. I have rolled up unwoven warp onto the back beam when there hasn’t been room to stretch out the warp and I have also wound circular warps that have allowed me to halve the amount of space required in which to work.

I hope to go a bit longer than my standard lengths in the next project but the biggest challenge will be the sticky fine wool. I want to weave two panels that I will later join into one. I have no product in mind for this piece. The project will be about learning how this wool handles in warp-faced weaving on a backstrap loom. If it works well, I will have something nice to put on a table and perhaps all the information I need to go on and make a poncho.

I spent some time watching dvds and listening to music while I rolled the yarn into balls. I had bought lots of it! Then I was ready to wind a sample warp. Hopefully this will give me an idea of the width I will achieve with a certain number of ends in both plain weave and Andean Pebble Weave.

I chose a pattern with which I am very familiar as I really wanted to focus my efforts on handling the wool and not on the pick-up. I do have concerns about this yarn breaking over the course of a long piece. It wasn’t taking too well to being constantly rubbed against itself. But, what the heck…I think I will just dive in and try the larger project that I have in mind. You might have to remind me of this ”what the heck” attitude in the next few weeks when I start whining about all the broken warp threads that I have had to fix!

Below, you can see the two faces of the band. The width wandered about a bit before settling. Now to figure out colors.

Let me now show you what some online friends have been weaving and sewing…

Marieke Kranenburg set herself a sewing goal for the holidays and put together various inkle bands and fabric to create this fabulous pillow.

Julia T made a backstrap using the intermesh structure and her own pattern. She is pretty pleased to have this lovely cushy s trap now and to be able to leave aside the improvised pillow case backstrap she has been using. I teach the intermesh structure in my second book.

Lori has started making her own backstrap too using the Andean Pebble Weave structure. I wonder if Lily has been weaving at her side.

Annamieke's inkle loom with Andean Pebble Weave. — Annamieke’s inkle loom with an Andean Pebble Weave in progress.

And, Annamieke Ruijper has been using her inkle loom as a frame for tensioning her Andean Pebble Weave warp. She has woven a series of four-revolution patterns from my book and also included a couple of her own designs. I love that she already has the confidence to do that.

I do not give specific instructions in my book for setting up Andean Pebble Weave on an inkle loom using the loom’s own heddle system. My book shows how to wind a warp and dress it and then you are free to tension it any way you wish…using the frames of inkle, rigid heddle or tapestry looms, for example, or your own body at one end – backstrap-style.

There are many possible ways to set this up on an inkle loom and this is just one suggestion. I have done it at least three ways, sometimes using the inkle loom’s heddle system, and sometimes not.

Sophie Regny wove this Andean Pebble Weave piece using a pattern in my second book. When I was putting that book together, I started seeing potential Andean pebble Weave patterns everywhere. I created this design from the pattern on the inside cover of a journal that I had been given. It’s lovely to see someone using the pattern and Sophie’s work is crisp and neat.

Marianne Planting tensions her Andean Pebble Weave bands using a backstrap set-up and a band locking device. Below, you can see her work in progress where she is using one of the patterns I adapted from the tablet weaving of Louise Ström in my second book.

Here’s a gorgeous colorful band with a classic pattern of Chichero also made by Marianne…

Facebook reminded me today that five years ago I was working on the strap for my backstrap loom bag. I had decided to create the word ”weave” in various languages and fonts. I used a weft twining technique to do so. The strap didn’t need to be that long and so I only managed to fit five or six words on it of the many that Facebook and blog friends had given me. Today, when I shared the Facebook Memory, I received some more. I think I need to come up with another project in which I can use all the words I have been given from weaving friends around the world.

Here are the ones I was given five years ago. Maybe you have a word to add for me. And, with that, I will leave you until next week…