April 2016 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Meanwhile….

I haven’t been at my loom at my large projects for some time but I have been doing some weaving here and there on narrow bands with friends.

Meanwhile, my online weaving friends around the world have been sending me news of progress on their various projects. Not all of them are woven on backstrap looms but they are warp-faced projects using patterning techniques that they have learned via tutorials on my blog.

Adem in Turkey, for example, has been using a vertical loom to weave a poncho for his 1-year old niece. Can you imagine how adorable this will be when finished? It’s a birthday gift for his niece which needs to be ready by July 1st.

Here is one stage of the warping process. He`has already inserted the pattern sticks that he will use to weave a motif….

And here is the complete warp with the various motifs underway including a large butterfly in the center…

A few weeks ago, I posted a video that Adem made showing how he uses pattern sticks to create motifs comprising warp floats on one face of the fabric. I’ll post it again here for you to see….

Another way to go about this would be to enclose the threads held on the pattern sticks within string heddles and this looks like the method Adem has chosen for this poncho.

Further progress…
Now Adem has switched to a pattern that I have seen on Central Asian yurt bands and which I teach in this tutorial.If you are thinking that the pattern looks like multiple columns of the Andean tanka ch’oro pattern, you are not mistaken. It is not exactly the same, as the structure used to weave the tanka ch’oro is double faced., that is, there are warp floats on both faces of the fabric. When it is woven, as Adem has done, using the method practiced in Central Asia, the floats are only created on one face.

Four versions of the yurt band border design with pattern only on one face.

Tanka ch'oro and Andean hook patterns. — Tanka ch’oro and Andean hook patterns which are double faced.

A lighter fabric is created when the floats sit on only one of the two faces.

Meanwhile…..in Nigeria, Roli has started piecing together some of the finished panels for the traditional cloak that she has been commissioned to weave…

She has been weaving panels to create hats, bags and cloaks which form the traditional clothing of people from her husband’s ethnic group in Nigeria. I showed you pictures of her finished cloaks, hats and bags in a previous post. Roli uses a frame with adjustable tension as her loom. It sits in her lap and leans against a table. She used the instructions in my lettering tutorial to weave the letter O , which I believe represents the name of the person for whom this textile is being woven.

A weaving friend with whom I am currently staying, has an extensive collection of textile books which includes this one…

I hope to learn some more about the textiles in Roli’s Nigeria.

Meanwhile… in the Netherlands, Gerbelien Cocx-Wilschut has been doodling in plain weave on her inkle loom and creating beautiful original patterns using my warp-faced double weave tutorial.

When she sent me the picture, she wrote…

I read all the stuff you wrote down and learned from it. A week ago this was Chinese for me, but thanks to you I understand how to do it and I wrote my own pattern. this is my second band. I like to let you see the whole pattern. Now I am going to repeat it.

Some weeks ago, I wrote a post on Doodling which included a small tutorial on creating and charting patterns for the double weave structure. Gerbelien’s website shows more of what she has been doing.

Meanwhile….in Taiwan,

Hungyingyu blew me away with this large piece that she wove on backstrap loom and which she patterned with the simple warp-float structure…beautiful!

And while all this has been going on, I have been poring over textile collections, visiting museums and hiking and weaving with friends. After spending a few days weaving with me and other friends, Mary sent me a picture of her finished Andean Pebble Weave band which cleverly includes her initials.

The conversation bounced from South-east Asia to the Middle East and on to South America when long-time online weaving friend Tracy got together with Marilyn- another textile kindred spirit- and me. What lovely evenings we had on the floor examining pieces that Tracy had collected while living in Qatar and India…

You can see a couple of amazing Bedouin pieces with motifs woven in the warp substitution structure. I have written a couple of tutorials on the warp substitution structure and the al’ouerjan pattern in particular. The warp substitution structure creates patterns on one face of the cloth with long warp floats on the back. Some of the floats are amazingly long!…

If you read through my tutorial, you will see a way to pin down those floats in a tidier way. We saw that weavers in Syria were using this method to possibly make the textiles more appealing to a non-Bedouin clientele. In order to eliminate the floats all together and create a double faced textile, you can add a couple more steps and make the piece a double weave.

Marilyn pulled out pieces that she had collected in her travels through Laos and, as Tracy had spent time there on an internship, there was much to share and discuss and I learned a lot about the intricately patterned Laotian textiles with their incredible combination of supplementary-warp, supplementary-weft and ikat techniques all in the one piece of cloth.

Tracy brought a backstrap weaving she has been working on that is still on the loom. She is using complementary-warp pick-up to create the motifs and the warp s her own handspun wool. She is using wool from Serbia that has a lighter twist as weft. I had seen this piece in the online forums and it was wonderful to be able to touch it.

Marilyn’s birthday was celebrated at the top of this…

and a wave of 80+ degree weather was celebrated with a hike in the woods on a neighboring mountain with Marilyn and her husband, Rainer ….

We rewarded all that exercise with a German dish, Kaiserschmarrn, for dinner, prepared by Rainer. My sweet tooth appreciated this…super light pancakes with rum-soaked raisins and a dusting of icing sugar!

Unfortunately, the wave of heat also brought a definite end to the tulip season. Marilyn’s outdoor meal setting looked pretty surrounded by colorful tulips but they were just a little bit past their prime after the hot days…

We wove ñawi awapa tubular bands. Here’s Tracy’s first one…

That’s Marilyn with her colorful Turkish socks, pretty huipil and Laotian bangle with a patterned tubular band underway on her simple body-tensioned loom.

This is Tracy’s ñawi awapa woven and sewn to the edge of a piece of Bolivian handwoven cloth and here she is weaving and sewing it…

Stacy folded her cloth into a pouch and decorated it with the tubular band and some cross knit looped stitching….

Marilyn had a meeting the next day. Meanwhile, I squeezed in a visit to the Asian Art Museum with its Mood Indigo exhibit…

I was treated to rooms full of indigo-dyed kimonos…

I especially liked the pieces with Sashiko stitching as my weaving friend, Julia, has lately been adapting traditional Sashiko patterns to weaving using the Andean Pebble Weave structure….

Other rooms held indigo-dyed textiles from around the world. The following pieces are from New Mexico, USA, Guatemala and Nigeria…

I liked this fun quote that was displayed on one of the walls:

In another group of weaving friends we wove some complementary-warp pick-up bands using one of the classic Andean hook patterns…

Ravelry buddy, Cindy, was there. We last wove together in 2013 and she brought along a project that she started back then and which she has, of course, since finished….

She took a piece if handwoven cloth that I had brought with me from Bolivia and made a small zippered pouch. It’s adorable! She has edged it with a ñawi awapa and added tassels along the bottom. The pouch is lined and beautifully finished. The fabric is made from wool yarn that was handspun and naturally dyed by ladies in the Bolivian co-op that my teacher Maxima runs.

Cindy also brought a large pouch that she had found in the USA in some kind of thrift store. What a great find. It has tiny Andean Pebble Weave motifs, tassels and a ñawi awapa edging.

She also showed us some nice mercerized cotton knitting yarn…Scheepjes Catona she had found that I think would work well in warp-faced weaving. Websites label it as sportweight. It may have a tendency to fluff in inexperienced hands but I think that the softer twist will make bands that have quite a different look to those made with crochet cotton.. It comes in 69 colors in 125m and 62.5m balls.

I may not have time to blog regularly as I visit with my friends here in the USA but I have included lots of links to my tutorials in this post. So, meanwhile, as I make my way here and there…..you can try some of the woven structures I have posted about here and maybe even send me some pictures of what you have been doing.

Backstrap Weaving – Gallery

I have had little loom time this week. But, I did spend some time at the warping board and wound the warp for the second purple wool panel. I finished the first a few weeks ago and took a break from such large projects spending time weaving lanyards. That was a lot of fun.

All I need to do is make the string heddles and this project will be ready to go. The patterns are in a supplemental-warp structure which requires two sheds and a lot of pick-up. I feel that the process is easier ”mechanically” than complementary-warp pick-up as there is greater distance between each pattern warp. Because of this, there is less risk of crossing pattern warps when selecting them and I don’t, therefore, need to set up a picking cross for each row. Not having to open two sheds for every pick to form the picking cross means less abrasion and a much smoother process overall which is particularly helpful when working with wool.

Here’s the first panel in its early days…

Those hook patterns start swimming before your eyes.

I wove until it was as long as the brown panels I recently finished. I want these wool panels to form a set.

And here’s the new warp set up for heddle-making…well, not quite there yet. I realized that the center gold stripe was only half as wide as it should be. You can see it in the picture. I discovered this mistake by looking at this photo rather than at the warp itself. If I hadn’t wanted to take this picture for the blog, I would never had made the comparison. So, back I went to the warping stakes. As far as warping errors go, this was not a bad one.

The rest of my time was spent behind the scenes on my blog, or should I say blogS. Over two years ago, I started another blog which I intended using as a Gallery rather than as a blog to which I would regularly post updates. I haven’t been very good about building it and it has sat unattended for quite some time.

I added a few projects to it this week. They are mostly very recent things, many of which I wove this summer. It has quite a different format to this blog and allows me to post quite large pictures. I hope you will take a moment to go over and look at it. You will find it here.

In the meantime, I have put together a mini gallery of thumbnail images of many of the things I have woven in recent years. I sort of needed to look over my projects and decide what I would like to have on my Gallery page. I am going to try to add things more often.

It is sweet, joyous and sometimes even sad looking back and remembering the people, places and events that influenced and inspired some of the projects and the people I was interacting with online and in person at the times that I wove them.

I look at the black and white guitar strap and think of my ex and and best friend and the music he makes. I see the thistle pattern cell phone pouch and remember my visits with Angela, my Guaraní teacher. The Montagnard patterned pouch makes me think of a special birthday spent many years ago with my friend, Lisa, when we got to weave with Ju Nie. I see the purple double weave pouch that crossed the ocean to live with a fellow weaver in Qatar. The four-color pebble weave piece is like something from another lifetime when I lived at the southernmost tip of Chile weaving with those Patagonian winds howling outside. And, I remember a dear friend and my old roommate of two years, Teresa, who passed away just last week, when I see the red and white wall hanging that I made for her many years ago..

I will leave you here this week with that collection of thumbnail images….

Backstrap Weaving – Doodling

Doodling….One of the things about the replacement of long lazy phone calls with emails is the loss of doodling time. I could cover pages and pages with doodles while chatting. Maybe I should take up the art of zentangle one of these days.

There are two weaving structures that I use that I like to call ”doodling on plain weave”. Both the warp-faced double weave technique and the supplementary- weft patterning that I know allow a lot of freedom for designing. Both are based on plain weave.

The warp-float structures that I use limit design possibilities to a certain extent because the angle of the diagonal lines that they naturally create are quite often difficult or impossible to smoothly alter. The designer also has to keep an eye on warp-float length. A certain shape might be impossible to reproduce because it would require the inclusion of very long warp-floats. (Having said that, I have seen some nice curvy patterns created by a weaver in Argentina using the Simple Warp Floats Technique with fine thread).

You might call the plain weave curvy wandering lines in my Shipibo-inspired piece ”carefree doodles”…

The black-and-white section of this piece is in the warp-faced double weave structure that creates two bonded layers of plain weave.

The supplemental-weft patterning technique that I often use also allows me to create a variety of angles in diagonal lines and produce the impression of fairly smooth curves and meanderings…

I have a lot of fun settling down with paper and pencil to chart patterns for these techniques…

I use a chart of staggered oval cells…

You can find a page of this style of charting paper to download on my FAQ page here.

This is the kind of charting paper that I used to chart figures and letters for the following lanyard project.

This week I have been weaving a lanyard for my nephew who competes in triathlons. I chose the warp-faced double weave structure and 60/2 silk. The silk would give me lots of threads in a small space so that I could create relatively detailed patterns. The double weave structure would give me the freedom to create curve-like shapes for the little athlete figures as well as give me the sturdiness that a lanyard requires. I wanted to weave a favorite inspirational quote of his along with symbols representing a swimmer. cyclist and runner.

After weaving a sample last week, I made some changes to the original plans and got down to charting the figures. It was fun. I was relieved, when I finally wove the piece, to find that the althletes’ heads and bicycle wheels actually looked circular rather than egg-shaped.

I am guessing that some of you have seen my tutorials for these two ”doodling” techniques – warp-faced double weave and supplementary-weft patterning –and are perhaps using them in projects of your own. I figured that even if you haven’t, you may enjoy seeing how the charting process works for me.

I decided to show you how I would go about charting a very simple leaf. While, I can doodle up pages of nonsense, and copy things reasonably well, I am not at all talented at drawing from scratch. So, let’s make this leaf pattern as simple as possible.

There it is…a very basic shape as close to symmetrical as I could manage.

I added some detail in the form of veins but didn’t go overboard!

I then transferred my simple shape to the charting paper…

You can probably make out my first erased attempt to transfer the drawing on the left. In the end, I cut out the shape from the drawing paper and traced around it on the chart. Yep, that’s how poor I am at drawing.

Then, it was just a matter of filling in the oval cells that lie closest to my traced outline. You can see my examples on the left of diagonal lines ascending at various angles. These are just a few examples of the way diagonal lines can be depicted on these charts. At this point, it is probably better to put the original drawing out of sight. The charted motif will never look like the original because you simply cannot produce a real curve on this kind of chart. It is best to just work with what you have from here on rather than be continually comparing the charted motif to the original sketch. Once I had one side of the leaf drawn in, I could just fill in the cells to match on the other half.

Now to add the details. I sketched in the veins…that was easy. The center vein is a vertical line. I can’t create a true vertical line on this kind of chart. Below, on the left of the leaf, you can see a couple of options for creating what will appear pretty much as vertical lines when woven. I used the thinner one for the vein of my leaf.

Here’s the completed leaf…

Now I can dare to bring back the original and see how I like the comparison. I am happy with it. I even managed to squeeze in some extra vein detail.

I decided that I wanted my leaf to be solid rather than simply an outline. If I were to use very fine thread for my weaving, that outline alone would barely show up…

So, I drew it again, filling in the shape and leaving the cells for the veins blank.

Now, this pattern chart is all set to go for warp-faced double weave. I just need to choose my thread and colors and go wind a warp.

However, I realized that I might one day want to use this same charted motif for supplementary-weft patterning. I use the same style of chart for both structures.

There could be some problems if I decided to use this charted motif for supplementary-weft patterning if I planned to use heavy-ish thread. Horizontal lines on the chart will become weft floats in that technique and those that are indicated by arrows above might be awkwardly long and impractical. It does, of course depend on the weight of yarn you are using for the plain-weave ground. I have had floats that span up to 17 warp threads without any problems when using 60/2 silk, for example, but I have also used heavy cotton on which floats that span more than 6 warp threads are ugly.

So, I decided to alter the chart to eliminate the floats that span more then 6 threads by making the leaf veins a little longer.

Now I have a dual-purpose chart….one that works equally well for both double weave and supplementary-weft patterning. I like two-fers.

Sweet! And, because it is double weave, I can decide if I want to look at the face that has a white leaf on green or the face that has the green leaf on white. I wove the leaf a little to the left so that I could have a staggered line of them veering from left to right and back again. I can even reverse the background and motif color as I go if I want both color options to be seen on one face of the band.

One thing to keep in mind, is that several weavers could work from the same chart yet produce motifs that look quite different. For example, a weaver who has a light beat might produce an oval shape while the weaver with a heavier beat produces a circle working from the same chart. One weaver may tend to have his/her warp threads pushed more closely together than another.

That’s why it is always a good idea to weave a small sample while you are still designing to see if the proportions of the figure you weave match those of the figure on the charting paper. From there you can make adjustments if necessary. That is one of the many great things about backstrap weaving. You can wind the tiniest warp for this kind of sampling, like the one at left, sample quickly and continue charting.

Perhaps you will be encouraged to do some doodling of your own. I look forward to seeing what you create.

Backstrap Weaving – Multiple String Heddles in Action

The lanyards are done and packed away ready to be sent off. I made six in the end and really enjoyed the task.

With so many structures and techniques at my disposal, it was hard to decide which to use for the sixth. I made another Andean Pebble Weave one. I would have liked to have made one in double weave and another with supplementary weft patterns but the idea was to weave them quickly and Andean Pebble weave was better suited to the use of multiple string heddles. I could still make a fairly complex pattern without having to go overboard with the number of heddles. One day, when I am in less of a hurry, I would like to make a set of lanyards representing each of the structures that I have learned in my twenty years of backstrap weaving.

The lanyard on the right is the last I made using a 2-ply crochet cotton that is similar in size to #10. In addition to the two Pebble heddles, this one only needed four sets of string heddles. One shed was repeated within the pattern which made things even more efficient.

I made a short video of myself weaving this last band. The two light green heddles nearest to me hold the threads in the Pebble Sheds. They are alternated with the other four sets of Pattern heddles. I use a Pebble heddle and then a Pattern heddle, a Pebble heddle and a Pattern heddle and so on.

I work one Pebble heddle against the other as an aid to opening a clean shed. The idea of the video is just to show you the use of multiple heddles and what that involves. There is a constant process of straightening and moving the heddles so that the sheds furthest from me can be cleared to the front of the loom. After a few pattern repeats, the sequence becomes second nature. I was surprised, when viewing the video later, how gentle my little tappity-tap beat looks. There is actually quite a bit of firmness in that beat.

On a visit to Peru, I was able to watch a weaver from Chahuaytire using multiple string heddles to weave the tubular band that is used in her community to edge textiles.

You can see the pattern on the band emerging along with the weaver’s hands hard at work. This pattern requires four sets of heddles. I used it myself to edge a tool pouch that I wove using my own handspun llama fiber….

It is certainly a faster band to weave than the ñawi awapa of Chinchero, the pattern for which requires some fairly radical moves and, therefore, all manual pick-up.

In this next video you can enjoy watching a weaver from Chahuaytire using her various sets of string heddles while she weaves and sews the tubular band to the edge of the cloth.

And, finally, I would like to show you a weaver from San Ignacio de Loyola in Peru who uses many sets of string heddles to make her complex band pattern entirely loom-controlled. I think there is a definite limit to the number of heddles that I would want to use while remaining comfortably positioned at the loom. This weaver spends a lot of time with arms extended and leaning forward to reach the far heddles. I imagine she has a strong back and firm abs.

She is using a similar method to that which I showed in my video in that she alternates the Pattern sheds at the back of the loom with the two heddles nearest her. She also works one of the two front heddles against the other in order to easily open a clean shed. This is the two-heddle intermesh technique that I teach in my second book. This is the structure that I used for the blue and white silk lanyard. I only needed six sets of heddles for the simple pattern…four pattern heddles and two intermesh heddles.

Here is a video of the weaver from San Ignacio de Loyola showing how she works her multiple heddles….

I’ve decided that I am not entirely finished with lanyards. I want to make one for my nephew who is a triathlete. Some time ago, I attempted to weave a silk bookmark for him with the words of one of his favorite inspirational quotes for training… ‘’The pain of discipline is nothing like the pain of failure.’’ My letters are adapted from fonts provided in Linda Hendrickson’s tablet-weaving book ‘’Please Weave a Message’’.

I felt that the bookmark looked too cluttered with its three lines of text and so I am now weaving it as one long line of text on a lanyard. I would like to flank the text with triathlon symbols…a swimmer, a cyclist and a runner. This is one of the many nice things about warp-faced double weave….it gives a lot of designing freedom. However, I only have 35 pattern threads with which to work. Let’s see what I can squeeze in there. The bookmark has been washed and pressed to show off the glorious sheen of the silk.

I wove a width sample for the lanyard in 60/2 silk. It looks quite dull in its unfinished state. It was quite some time ago that I wove the bookmark and I didn’t trust it to give me a reliable width reading. Years go by, your weaving changes, and old pieces can’t be relied upon to give accurate information.

And it’s a good thing I sampled as my width estimation was off and the band widened. Now it has settled into a consistent inch and I can start over with a fresh warp and get the pencils and eraser out for some charting.

The heddles you see there are not pattern heddles. They simply hold threads in the two sheds for the two layers of the double weave. I was initially taught this structure using only two heddles but I find four heddles handy when using many warp ends or very fine thread. With few threads or heavier yarn, I find it easier to use just two heddles and use my fingers to select the threads. The pattern sheds in both methods are all picked up manually.

Narrow warps like this one have also been on some of my weaving friends’ looms. Janet made a hatband in cotton using the Andean Pebble Weave structure. It’s gorgeous….

And, Anne decorated her hat with an intermesh band in cotton…

There are so many cool things for which narrow bands can be used but, even if you don’t have a particular use in mind, they are simply fun to weave. They can be displayed on a wall with no other purpose than to delight the eye. They can be kept rolled up in a trinket or treasure box and taken out now and then simply for the fun of running them through your fingers and enjoying the different textures.

I hope that whoever gets my lanyards will enjoy them.