October 2021 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Bonus Book News

Here’s some news for those of you who have bought either of my books on the eye-pattern tubular band or for those who might be considering buying it. What do we know so far? There are two versions of this book, a short version which is about weaving the eye-pattern tubular band as an independent band and the full version which also teaches how to weave the tube as a decorative edging. It’s a clever technique which allows you to weave and attach the band to the edge of cloth at the same time by using the weft as the sewing thread. The extended version also includes instructions for other decorative sewn finishes and is called The Eye-pattern Tubular Band and Other Decorative Finishing Techniques.

But you already know all that.

That isn’t the news.

Here’s the news…..While preparing material for a Zoom class on this topic, I decided to make a couple of additional video clips to enhance my Zoom teaching. I have now added them as Bonus Videos to the collection of clips that already accompany the books. You will be able to access these clips in the same way that you access the current collection. Instructions for doing so are in the books themselves in a section on Videos near the beginning. As you know, the video clips are accessible to those who have bought the PDF version as well as to those who bought the spiral-bound printed version. The original collection of videos were designed to supplement the dozens of step-by step photos and detailed explanations that are in the books. These two new videos will give you more supplemental material in that they give you a chance to see in action the steps that are laid out in the book, in step-by-step photos, for Sheds R1 and R2 .

I know that different people have different learning styles and I hope that I am able to cater to several of them in these books by providing step-by-step photos, detailed explanations, as well as video clips.. Some people like to see a process frozen into bite-sized steps in step-by-step photos. Others like to read detailed explanations and form visuals of their own. Many people like to have both kinds of instruction side-by side. And then there are others who like to hear the steps being described while watching them on video. Some people have told me that they hear my voice in their heads as they weave. Hopefully that’s a good thing! So, there are now two new opportunities to do just that.

Accessing the two bonus videos will be straightforward if you bought the books at Taproot Video. If you bought them some years ago from Patternfish which no longer exists, you will need to contact me via a comment on this blog post. I will see your comment behind the scenes and it won’t get published. EDITED TO ADD: The offer to share the videos for those who purchased from Patternfish ends on November 5, 2021.

I remember when I first learned to weave tubular bands as edgings….I wanted to edge everything I could get my hands on! I thought that the novelty might eventually wear off but it never has. It’s such a pretty finish to a project as well as being very practical. I doubt that my iPod pouch with the amount of use it gets would still be in such good shape if not for its protective edging. The tube actually encloses the edge of the fabric giving it strength and full protection. It could also be used to hide some questionable selvedges! I have edged bags and pouches in my woven cotton, silk and wool fabric. Here are just a few examples….

And, I was really happy to discover that some cotton fabric that I had bought, perhaps to one day use as lining, stood up really well to the tubular band. Until then, I had always thought that light commercial fabric, as opposed to the heavier warp-faced fabric that I am used to weaving, would not be able to support the spiraling energy of the tubular band. But I was wrong. By the time I had turned in the edges of the cloth to make a pouch, I was sewing onto four layers and they were more than able to support the pretty tubular edging. I love this little pouch with its cotton edging! The mouth of the pouch is decorated with the cross-knit looping stitch which I also teach in my book.

The eye-pattern tubular band was used to dress up a simple pouch made with commercial cotton fabric.

And, of course, there are a multitude of things to do with the tubes when woven as independent bands….cords to hold pendants, eye glasses and ID cards, fobs for keys, scissors and other tools, shoe laces, bracelets, draw strings…. They can be woven using a string in the warp ends which gets tied to your waste as my friend Marilyn is doing here. The other end of her warp is attached to a C clamp on a table.

Or the warp can be placed on a loom such as an inkle loom. Full instructions are given in the books to show how to set up and weave these on inkle looms. One of the many cool things about it is the fact that the warp does not require heddles. Once the warp threads are set-up and the cross is saved on two sticks, as you can see above and below, you are ready to weave. The book explains it all.

Weaving an eye-pattern tubular band on an inkle loom.

Independent tubular bands made into fobs.

I had a bit of fun recently using my own hand spun wool for the first time to create one of these lovely eye-pattern tubular bands. Many years ago, I wove some as edgings in my own hand spun llama and alpaca fiber but this is the first time that I have done so in wool.

A cuff I wove using my handspun llama fiber. It is edged with an eye-pattern tubular band in the same yarn.

I have set myself the task of fishing out every bit of random fleece from my closet and spinning it. It has been slow going as I only do it while I am on Zoom calls. At other times, I would really rather be weaving. But apart from this small indulgence, I have not allowed myself to use the spun and plied yarn. I want to first spin everything, decide which colors I will over-dye and only then plan a project. I did weave some of it right at the start of this project just to make sure that it was suitable for the kind of warp-faced fabric that I weave on my backstrap loom. A couple of wrist cuff projects told me that all was well except that I really wanted to go a bit finer. So that’s what I am doing now.

Of course, the cuff got an eye-pattern tubular edging.

Weaving and sewing a eye-pattern tubular band to a second cuff in my hand spun wool.

So, here is my eye-pattern tubular band in the finer hand spun wool that I have been recently preparing. I wanted to see how well these three colors played together….

I’ll finish this band and continue spinning while planning how I will use these and other colors in what will hopefully be a large-ish project on my backstrap loom. Then it will be time to get back into cotton spinning and another clean-out of the closet. I am still very much in the infancy stage of my cotton spinning.

Here’s an old photo that I recently unearthed from back in 2007 which was taken after I had returned from my second trip to Ecuador. I had had the opportunity to learn about the preparation and spinning of cotton for weaving from a family of weavers and spinners in coastal Ecuador. Here I am practicing the skills that they taught me. The distaff is a miniature version of the kind that they use. I built it while I was there with their help as the full-sized version would have been too difficult to bring back to Bolivia. Yes I know that you are probably distracted by my cat. It’s those eyes…she can burn holes in things with those eyes. She is now a grand old lady of 18 years of age. If I had only continued to practice, I would probably be a pretty decent cotton-spinner by now.

But I have wandered off topic now. This was really just meant to be a quick message about the two new BONUS videos. I hope those who own my books enjoy them and I hope that this post might encourage others to learn how to weave these patterned tubular bands.

Thank you so much for your support and see you next time (with more hummingbirds 🙂 )

A cotton pebble weave cuff with its tubular edging.

Backstrap Weaving – Making the Most of It

Back when I was doing my training to be a teacher of English as a foreign language, I remember being told over and over to make sure that any original materials that we created were designed to be multi-functional. Why go to all the time and trouble to create something that would be used once in only one context?

I loved creating my own materials for English-teaching. Back then when I didn’t have much time for weaving, it seems that I poured all my creative juices into doing that. It was multi-functional in that I got to be creative while at the same time providing some welcome fun time for my students away from the text books. And I got better and better with using the same material in different ways with a variety of groups in a variety of contexts at different levels in their learning. And, as a bonus, it gave me a reason to buy stationery. I discovered that I have a thing for stationery.

Give me a chance to draw and paste and sticky-tape and color and I am happy as a baby.

When it comes to weaving, I have folders and closet shelves piled high with charts that I have created for projects. They got used once and then filed away, like the mega chart that I created for my Shipibo-inspired project that you can see above. Sometimes I wonder why I keep them. But then you know how that goes….about a week after you throw something away, you find that you need it, right?

My cat always enjoyed my get-down-on-the-floor-to-chart time.

So, with all that in mind, I am pleased that I have been taking the hummingbird charts, over which I have long labored, and using them in a variety of ways…making the most of all that time and effort. And, I am not done yet. I have a theme in my head for a future project…something that I wish to express, and all this sampling is hopefully leading me there. It’s all just a vague idea at the moment and I am still waiting for the light bulb to come on. In the meantime, I’ll just keep weaving hummingbirds.

I wanted to see what my hummingbird motifs looked like in a large format. I had completed my piece in 60/2 silk. In that fine thread, the stepped nature of the lines that form the various diagonals and curves is not all that noticeable. But what about in something much heavier? Would those lines then become clumsy and ugly? I combed through my stash and found that the only thing I had that would work in terms of having two high contrast colors was 8/2 Tencel and so I created a short warp for sampling. Some particularly high-twist crochet cotton made pretty heddles for warp-faced double weave.

What a dream it has been to weave with this heavier thread! Firstly, the Tencel is gorgeous to handle. It plays well with the crochet cotton heddles and is so easy to see when doing pick-up compared to to the 60/2 silk…no surprises there. I do think it is a shame to use Tencel, which is so much appreciated for its draping qualities, in a dense structure like warp-faced double weave but it was the only option in my available stash for this experiment. I promise that I won’t do it again!

Because the theme that I have in my head concerns embellishment and also the lack thereof, I decided to embellish my king-sized hummingbird to the max. I really enjoyed planning those “hippy bandanna” curls and swirls and I think they add to the playfulness, the love of life and joy of flight that hummingbirds always suggest to me. The hummingbird will be my new signature pattern.

I felt that the curve-like lines and stepped diagonals looked fine. I certainly did not feel distracted by the fact that the steps in these lines are more obvious than they are in finer thread. In fact, I would have to say that I was pretty thrilled with the whole thing.

So, what was next? I could see that 8/2 in warp-faced double weave in something of this width (3″) would simply not be useful for much…too wide for a sturdy belt or bag strap and much too thick and heavy for anything else. So I turned once again to my stash for something a little finer. I happen have, courtesy of my friend Deanna, a good supply of natural-colored 30/2 silk along with a small quantity of it that I had dyed in a color called “rye” for an ikat project I wove last year. The problem was that I did not have any other color that would allow me to weave pick-up patterns in double weave. Yes, I could dye some but…sigh…I wasn’t in the mood!

Solution….use supplementary weft to create the patterns. Bonus: for the supplementary weft structure, I can use the same chart as I do for double weave. I like to use several strands of a finer thread for the supplementary weft which gave me a nice selection from which to choose in my stash of 60/2 silk. I went with rye warp and teal supplementary weft.

The pattern color that you see in the double weave version on the right comes from warp threads that do not float as opposed to the silk piece in which the pattern is formed by floating weft threads. I love the added dimension that the supplemental weft threads give to the cloth. Bonus: I only made one set of heddles for this structure as opposed to four for the double weave piece. The double weave bonus: I can create horizontal lines of any length I please which I can’t do in the supplemental weft structure as the weft floats need to be limited to a certain practical length. That meant that some parts of my original charts needed to be modified. Long horizontal lines for wings needed to be transformed into sweeping curves. It took some time but wasn’t difficult to do and I am really pleased with the way they turned out.

While I wait for that light bulb to come on which will enable me to figure out how exactly to compose the themed piece that I have in mind, I will weave these embellished hummingbirds into something useful. I think I will use my embellished hummers with some indigo-dyed cotton from Guatemala that I have and use it to make journal covers as I have in the past. That will involve an outing to the stationery store to find a nice sized journal. I want something quite big so that I can squeeze in a lot of hummingbirds. I am hoping to get something that has paper that is nice for sketching.

The indigo and champagne colored Guatemalan thread along with the initial width sample that I wove for the first journal.

I used this 30/2 cotton in the past for mini-journal covers which I have given away as gifts. I wove my friends’ initials into the spines of the books…no re-gifting allowed!

For these, I used embroidery floss for the supplementary weft but I can tell you that removing strands from the slightly twisted six strands of floss is a royal pain if you are wanting to use very long lengths. I like to split all six strands and then lay them back together again so that all twist is removed. That way they lie flat and ribbon-like on the cloth just the way I like it. Yes, it’s a pain and so I might use silk instead. Combining threads to create multi-stranded weft is so much easier than pulling stands apart.

In the meantime, Zoom time is still spinning-and-plying time and progress is ever so slow. It gives me lots of time to think about how I would like to over-dye some of these colors and what I would like to weave with them. The planning is all the more important when using one’s own handspun and I already blew it by over-dyeing a really nice green with black the last time I used this handspun to weave some cuffs.

I also have another idea for an ikat project developing in which I combine it with three-color reversible pebble weave. I am sure that it will happen long before this handspun is ready for use.

And so I keep myself busy and out of trouble and keep my spirits lifted. Book sales at Taproot Video are keeping me afloat and I am hoping that the cooler temperatures in the northern hemisphere mean more cozy time at home weaving for those who live up there and maybe time to try some of the patterning techniques that I teach in my books. As always, thank you all for your support!