Author: Laverne Waddington

I am an Australian who has recently returned to Australia after having lived for 32 years in South America where I was teaching English, weaving, writing, and studying indigenous weaving techniques. I have been learning and documenting traditional textile techniques of various Latin American countries with indigenous weavers since 1996. Although I have studied using several types of simple looms, my loom of choice is the backstrap loom. After many years of largely replicating, adapting and embellishing patterns that had been shared with me by my weaving teachers and friends, I now design my own unique pieces while continuing to employ the woven structures used by my mentors in South and Central America. In 2009 I decided to leave my English teaching job to focus on weaving and, since then, have self-published eight PDFs on technique and patterns which were sold on various websites over the years. I now plan to sell them here on this blog...coming soon. Please subscribe to this blog for updates.

Backstrap Weaving – The Long-awaited Book Update!

 At last I’ve made a decision about what I’m going to do about selling my publications. At first, I was planning to set up a shop on my blog. That involved updating the blog template that I’ve been using for the last sixteen years to a new one that works smoothly with all the WordPress e-commerce tools. (My old template had been retired by WordPress and although it allowed me to continue blogging, it was no longer compatible with current e-commerce tools). I updated the template and you may have noticed a slightly different look. It’s not a huge change on the surface but behind the scenes it created a bit of havoc! Not fun! One bit of the havoc was that I actually wrote and published this post a whole week ago only to discover that many of my subscribers (possibly none) were never notified. So here we go again.

If you happen to notice any old posts in which the images have disappeared, do let me know. It’s actually an easy fix but it’s been impossible for me to go back and check every single post from the last sixteen years!!

There’s a lot of text coming so let me toss in a photo or two along the way of some of the things I’ve been up to when not on my laptop trying to get my blog back to normal:

Rugged up for winter hiking with my Wednesday Walking Women’s Group at Wentworth Falls. Spinning wool for a lap blanket project at the Springwood Spinners and Weavers Group. We meet weekly! Attending a Jane Austen Tea Dance in Sydney…yes, I’m doing English Country Dancing and am quite obsessed! It’s good to add some non-hand activities. as my poor wrist and hand will probably never fully recover from my accident.

SO, HERE’S THE UPDATE….

My books (in PDF form) on South American pick-up weaving techniques and patterns can be purchased directly from me by leaving a comment on this post. Your comment will not be published. Only I will see it and I will then contact you to explain how it works to purchase my PDFs. Basically, I will send you a Paypal invoice and use Dropbox to deliver the file/s. If you prefer, you can contact me via Facebook Messenger (my account name is Laverne Waddington) or by DM on Instagram where my account is lavernewaddington.

Demonstrating weaving and spinning at Winterfest Medieval Fair while making new fiber friends.

You don’t need a Paypal account in order to be able to pay the Paypal invoice that I send you. You don’t need to already have a Dropbox account when you place your order. You will, however, be prompted to open a Dropbox account, if you don’t already have one, when you click on the link in the Dropbox invitation that gives you access to the PDFs. The Dropbox account is free of charge.

I’ve been selling my PDFs in this way via Facebook Messenger for about four weeks now and the process has been smooth and efficient. The bonus for me is that I get to have a little chat (only if you like) with each and every one of you! Just be aware that I’m in Australia and due to time zone differences there may sometimes be a delay in my response due to my being asleep while you’re awake. I was thrilled just last weekend to meet by chance one of my newest customers at a weaving event in Sydney after having chatted with her while arranging her purchases. You just don’t get to do that when selling on a third party website.

Fortunately, the current pace of sales is something I can easily handle. When the time comes for me to launch a new publication (I have three in mind), I’ll sell them via a shop on this blog as the sales volume (hopefully?) will be more than I can handle on a person-to-person basis.

I chose to weave a pattern that I had transposed to the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave from a historic tablet-woven band for the demo at the Medieval Fair. It has a little dragon-like figure which I thought appropriate. It is charted in the More Andean Pebble Weave Patterns book.

I have written descriptions below with prices to help you decide which book would be most suitable for your kind of loom, weaving style and experience level. I have not listed them here in the order in which they should be purchased. Read the descriptions and if in doubt about the best place for you to start, leave me a comment and we can chat about it. And, before you ask, I’ll tell you that no, there aren’t printed copies available any more. These are all PDFs.

Andean Pebble Weave (US$19), published in 2010, is the first book I published in the growing collection on South American weaving techniques and patterns for weavers. It isn’t necessarily the first one you should buy. It is aimed at experienced weavers and particularly those who prefer a more grass-roots approach. It shows how to wind the warp, create the warp-cross and prepare it for weaving leaving it up to the reader to then decide which kind of loom or what method they will use to hold the warp under tension. The two beams of the ”loom” could be as simple as the weaver’s waist and big toe!

The simplest method has the weaver picking up threads to form patterns by hand. The book then goes on to show how the addition of additional sets of string heddles can make the process partly loom-controlled.

The draft and instructions are also given for four-shaft looms.

Not sure what this structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave is? Here are some bands that have been woven using this technique.

Some of these patterns are charted in this first book.

(More suitable starter books for those who use inkle or other band looms are Complementary-warp Pick-up for all kinds of looms that allow you to weave bands or Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms specifically for inkle looms. See their descriptions below).

The follow-up book, More Adventures with Warp-faced Pick-up Patterns (US$25) was published in 2012 and takes weavers who have used the aforementioned Andean Pebble Weave book further into the world of  techniques used in the South American highlands and lowlands to produce intricately patterned cloth. A new structure commonly known as ”intermesh” is also covered in detail.

There are one hundred and fifty new Andean Pebble Weave patterns in this book which draw on inspiration from both South American highlands and lowlands as well as adaptations to the pebble weave structure of patterns from textiles around the world. A new charting system of spots and lines is introduced with accompanying tutorials which will help weavers go beyond charted patterns to create their own designs.

Teaching backstrap loom weaving at the Blackheath Arts Society here in the Blue Mountains. All those serious focused faces turned into smiling ones once they’d settled and started to feel comfortable with the techniques. Some had never ever wove before and can now call themselves weavers!

 

Complementary-warp Pick-up (US$19)was published in 2017 and is recommended as an introduction to these techniques for weavers who can already warp and set-up their looms and confidently weave warp-faced plain-weave bands. That’s all I mean when I say that the book is for “experienced band weavers”.

With a focus on narrow pieces and the very simplest of looms and tools, this book provides step-by-step instruction and forty-two pattern charts for band weavers to use on their inkle looms and other band looms, with rigid heddles, or simple backstrap set-ups. The structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave falls into the category of structures known as Complementary-warp. Many of the patterns in this book are in fact Andean Pebble Weave ones.

Any loom that can produce warp-faced cloth and two basic sheds can be used. The patterns are drawn on the conventional block-style chart.

Here are examples of some of the patterns:

 

The Complementary-warp Pattern Book (US$25) was published in 2018 and is a beautiful collection of one hundred patterns for those who have learned the techniques from any one of the preceding publications. Several readers of the other publications contributed their own original patterns to this collection. Those who have learned the techniques from the 2019 publication Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms will also be able to enjoy this book.

The patterns are charted on the conventional block-style charts. In the Appendix the same patterns are also charted on the spotted charts that were introduced in the More Adventures…. book. Both styles of charting have their fans and so I have provided both.

Note that while most of the patterns in this book are of a width that can be managed on inkle looms, some will be too wide and will be more suitable for those who use larger looms like the Gilmore Wave series of looms or other two-sided inkle looms that allow greater widths.

A second book of 132 patterns was published in 2019…More Andean Pebble Weave Patterns. See the description further down.

The colors I’ve been achieving lately in my natural dye experiments perfectly matched the Autumn colors here in my Blue Mountains home. The most recent color came from lichen which gave me the lovely lavender.

  

The year 2019 brought two more books to the collection. The Eye-pattern Tubular Band and Other Decorative Finishing Techniques (US$22) shows how taking a piece of fabric off the loom signals the start of a whole new process in which the piece can be strengthened and decorated using tubular edgings and other woven and sewn embellishments.

The tubular band with its distinctive eye pattern can also be woven independently and used in jewelry and accessories. A loom is not required. One end of the warp is attached to the weaver’s waist with the other end tied to a fixed point. Weaving the bands is not dependent on the use of heddles and all the sheds are created by hand. Detailed instructions on how to set up the warp and weave the tubular band on an inkle loom are also provided.

Two versions of the book were published. One includes the sewing techniques as well as instructions for weaving the patterned tubular band. The other only teaches the tubular band. (US$16)

Both include instruction via supplemental video clips as well as instructions on how to set up and weave the tubular bands on inkle looms. These books are aimed at weavers but can be used by those who don’t have any previous band-weaving experience.

2019 also brought Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms (US$22). It is aimed at weavers who like to use the standard inkle loom and who, after being able to competently weave plain-weave bands, are ready to take their first steps in one of the many possible patterning techniques.

Two beginner methods are taught with the use of dozens of step-by-step photos, detailed text and video clips. Weavers can decide which method best suits their particular loom and weaving style. A third intermediate-level method shows an optional faster way of achieving the same results by using additional sets of heddles on the inkle loom. This is probably my favourite book so far!

 

In late 2019 I decided to re-publish all the Andean Pebble Weave patterns from the 2012 publication More Adventures with Warp-faced Pick-up Patterns. All 126 patterns plus 6 brand new ones appear in this publication on the more conventional block-style chart. They were previously drawn using charts of spots and lines in 2012. Many weavers enjoy the spotted charts and have used them to design their very own patterns. Others, who haven’t had time to study the tutorial which explains how the spotted charts are read, have often asked me if the patterns could be re-published on the more commonly used block-style chart.

More Andean Pebble Weave Patterns (US$22) is for them but it will also be welcomed by those who don’t own the 2012 book and who have learned the techniques from my more recent publications Complementary-warp Pick-up and Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms. This pattern book provides 132 charts with patterns that have been adapted from textiles produced in various regions around the world….Kuba cloth of Central Africa, Komi knitwear, belts with patterns of Russian origin, yurt bands and satchels from Central Asia, historic and contemporary tablet-woven motifs, as well as patterns from textiles woven in the highlands and lowlands of Peru and Bolivia.

Some of the patterns are too wide for the average inkle loom and will be better suited to wider band looms like the Gilmore Wave series of looms or two-sided inkle looms that allow greater widths.

 

Published in April 2020…Warp-faced Double Weave on Inkle Looms (US$22)

This is an advanced-level technique aimed at weavers who use a standard inkle loom. By that, I mean the kind of inkle loom that uses individual string heddles and which requires the weaver to lift and lower one layer of threads with the hands to create the two basic sheds. I use an Ashford Inklette in this book to teach and demonstrate the technique using its two basic sheds. There is a bit more work involved in setting up the loom and weaving requires extra care and attention (hence the advanced-level rating). It would be helpful to know before you attempt this technique that you enjoy doing pick-up as it is one of the slower techniques that I have learned in South America. However, it is one of the easiest structures for designing and I liken it to doodling on plain weave.

The structure does not use warp-floats and so the surface of the band is perfectly smooth. The motifs are identical on the two faces with colors reversed. Angular, curve-like, solid and delicately outlined figures can be produced. The book has 45 pattern charts. Chapters on designing take you through the steps for sketching, charting and planning the layout of patterns. You are also shown how easy it is to chart a motif from an image of a woven textile.

Video clips supplement the instructions and are accessed via links throughout the text.

A section is dedicated to Finishing and includes tutorials on a braiding technique and weft twining.

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I look forward to hearing from you if you would like to purchase any of these publications. I apologise for the long wait but I hope it will be worth it. Just leave a comment here or contact me via the Facebook or Instagram options that I mentioned at the start of this post.

And yes, I have been weaving and doing other fiber related things in these recent months here in Australia where I’m still in the process of settling in. I’ve been more active talking about all that in my Facebook posts lately while I try to sort out the change-of-template issues on this blog but I am planning a catch-up post here on this blog very soon. Promise! It will also take me a long long long time to change every single link I ever posted to Taproot Video on this blog! Thank you for your patience and continued support.

Being King of the World on Ruined Castle deep in the Jamison Valley, Blue Mountains NSW Australia. Day 3 of my three-day birthday celebration a couple of weeks ago…haha. No it wasn’t one of the milestone birthdays but the Beatles thought the age important enough to write a song about!

Backstrap Weaving – Seasons

Daylight Savings is over and we continue what feels like a rapid slide into cooler temperatures here in the Blue Mountains. I welcome snuggling under multiple layers on these cold nights but don’t care much for having to climb out from under them in the morning. We didn’t have Daylight Savings time in Bolivia and I was surprised by how long it took for my stomach to adapt! I kept finding myself restless at 11:30am with my stomach complaining that it hadn’t yet been filled. I still do a large cooked lunch in the way to which I’d become accustomed in South America. And that post-lunch drowsiness is hard to kick too. I can’t blame the tropical heat for it any more.

With the cooling temperatures came the rolling down of shirt sleeves and the layering of coats. I’d have to put away all my wrist cuffs for a while.

In their place out came my woven scarves and neck gaiters that I’ve been accumulating all these years. It was never cold enough in Bolivia to wear them. Sometimes I’d take them traveling to the northern hemisphere spring and fall only to drag them out of a packed bag looking like pieces of crumpled rag and too ugly to wear.

The fall temperatures here have been perfect for wearing things like this light cotton scarf that I wove about eight years ago and never ever got to wear.

I wove this with handspun cotton singles that I’d bought in Guatemala back in 2008. I used my bamboo reed to achieve the sheer open look and used the same cotton as supplementary weft to weave in patterns. It’s a style that I had been wanting to try ever since I bought a sample from the Coban area of Guatemala.

I enjoy my woven book cover in naturally dyed silk even more now that I am actually living amongst these colors. I was very spoiled by being able to visit Vermont on the Columbus Day weekend many years ago and experience the fall colors there. It’s nowhere near as stunning here but it feels special because I’m living it rather than just visiting.

This little book along with others that I made is now settled in my new home next to books about textiles from this side of the world, places that perhaps I’ll be able to visit some day.

I finally finished the project in which I used my Bolivian teachers’ handspun wool. That project traveled through an entire year of seasons with me and I named the resulting bag Four Seasons in One Bag. The wool went from the sheep of the central Bolivian highlands, washed in mountain streams, into the hands and spindles of my weaving friends and teachers.

I’m pretty sure that the wool was spun during the October spinning event in 2024 in which my teachers and other ladies in the community compete for prizes to see who can spin the most wool. I bought three balls of the doubled singles and dyed some of it with indigo while I was up in the highlands visiting with Maxima during my last Bolivian summer.

It traveled with me to Australia where I spent some of the winter and spring dyeing it with Australian plant materials. The following summer, I moved here to my new home in the Blue Mountains and started the long task of plying.

While I love spinning with a drop spindle, I can’t say the same for plying. I find it downright tedious and I just wanted the task to finish. I’d ply at my craft group gatherings, on the train, at the Arts Society gatherings, at the spinning and weaving group….it just seemed to go on and on.

When I had just about finished all that plying, an Ashford Wee Peggy spinning wheel together with a bunch of accessories became available on Marketplace at a bargain price and I was able to buy it. There it sits waiting to be spruced up a bit until I next need to ply. Perhaps I’ll use it for spinning too. Who knows. The wheel came with lots of bobbins, a niddy noddy (I’ve never owned one), hand carders (I’d had to leave mine behind in Bolivia), a flicking tool and even an apron. A friend at my spinning group has supplied me with a new spring and hooks to replace rusty ones.

I managed to squeeze in some time at the loom between hiking trips. It took two attempts to wind a warp to my liking from all those fabulous natural dye colors but I had to face the fact that I just wouldn’t be able to get them all into the one piece.
Four seasons motifs in progress. The heddle arrangement may look awkward but it works well. I had seen weavers in Bolivia use similar arrangements for their double weave pieces.

Here’s the finished cloth…

The figures as well as the colors are meant to represent the four seasons. The yarn I had dyed with cochineal just didn’t belong here. It can wait along with the greens for another project.

Once I’d decided that this cloth would be a bag, I set about weaving a strap….

I didn’t want to use the handspun wool as weft for either of these pieces and used instead some unidentified soft and very loosely spun ”stuff’ that a friend had given me. It worked well except for the fact that it was somewhat slippery and wanted every now and then to slip out of the shed at the edges rather than lie there snugly. I’d had that very same experience with luscious alpaca yarn that I’d spun once upon a time.

Then came the usual dilemma of deciding which face of the fabric I preferred. The bag would be lined and so one of the two faces would never be seen again. I knew which face I had decided would be the “good” one. The problem was that when I asked others for an opinion, they always chose the other! I stuck with my original plan, though.

The two faces.
I somehow always find myself on the floor at the planning stage. I didn’t have a choice in Bolivia but I’m in a bigger place now with table space. I still end up on the floor.

I rounded off the flap of the bag…always scary cutting into the cloth…and covered and protected the raw edge with coil stitches. The sides then had to be woven, lining attached and everything sewn together…the most challenging part for me.

Here ‘s the completed bag being displayed at the Blackheath Arts Society members’ Easter exhibition. It was so much fun seeing it out there on display!

I managed to also get it in at the last minute, thanks to a kind friend from my spinning group, to the Hawkesbury Show where it won a blue ribbon. I was never able to enter shows like these when I lived in Bolivia and I am very excited about this ribbon!

A buddy from my craft group went to the show and surprised me with this photo while she was there….

So, you will have gathered that my hand and shoulder are now allowing me to be busy at the loom. The one-year anniversary of my accident has passed and things are improving. My wrist at the carpal tunnel level is still clogged and blocked by scar tissue which I don’t believe will ever stretch. My hand is a block of wood first thing in the morning but here I am typing, weaving, spinning cotton and plying. My shoulder is thawing very slowly and my range of reach out to the side to pass shuttle and insert sword is improving.

I am, however, in easy reach of all of this beauty and I just have to ask myself every day what I have done to deserve it!

I’m in a couple of hiking groups and get to go out at least twice a week.

I wonder if some Blue Mountains scenery and colors will start creeping into my work. I have a long-ish list of things I want to weave, some of which I spent a great deal of time designing last year when I couldn’t weave at all. I remember starting out charting with my left hand and the great deal of concentration that was required to fill within the lines!

I’ve actually started sampling for that large project now that I’ve decided on the thread that I will use. I need to get an ends per inch reading and also make sure that the proportions of the woven figures match those of my charted ones.

The “real” project will be much wider than this.

I started off the year weaving various narrow items just to make sure that I didn’t overdo things, Last year I had jumped back into weaving too early and messed up my shoulder as a result.

The Canberra Guild of Spinners and Weavers asked me to weave bookmarks/award ribbons for their AGM. This seemed like a great way to start the year even though they weren’t due until March. It’s extremely rare for me to take on commissioned work but the guild folk had made it easier by choosing and providing the yarn and being very specific about the layout. I got to choose the patterns and I had a lot of fun with that. I used the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave.

I wove a name tag for myself once again in the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave which produces a quirky style of lettering. The lettering on the award ribbons is less so because the letters are capitals and well spaced. I have joined so many new groups up here that it is a struggle to remember names. At least this tag will help them to identify me and then I can embarrass myself by not being able to identify them in return!

I live above the Aboriginal Health Services office and one day while chatting with the ladies, I admired their lanyards with their indigenous art print. The next thing I knew, one had been popped into my mail box. So, I replied with a woven keyfob. I love these kinds of exchanges.

I had no trouble at all finding a place to set myself up for weaving on my backstrap loom. The previous resident left one of those huge Ikea book cases with 25 cube spaces. I have it filled now with cubes holding pretty much everything I brought over with me from Bolivia. I place C clamps on the edge of the lower shelves and can place my warp beam behind them. It’s a good sturdy anchor point.

Here I sit weaving with some of my late mother’s treasured possessions. She would have had to make the tough decisions about what to take and what to leave behind, just as I had when leaving Bolivia, when she left India in 1962 to come and live in Australia. These things had been in storage waiting for me since my mum died in 2013.There’s a biscuit tin with images of places of interest in Bombay, a pressed tin trinket tray with images of Hindu deities and her sewing basket…all selected by her as being too precious to leave behind. I love that I am able to have them here near me as I weave.

And…one more thing I wove….I converted the pouch I’d made from my handspun llama yarn into a phone carrying pouch for my hikes by weaving and adding a strap…

Between weaving and hiking and other activities, I try to turn this flat, which had been left in a somewhat shabby state, into a cosy home. This town of Katoomba in which I live is Op Shop heaven and I have acquired most of my things there or via Marketplace. Op Shop is the Australian term for a thrift or charity store. There have been a few flat-pack furniture purchases too. Assembling them on my own made me feel like I was playing a game of Twister.

Would you believe I got these Indonesian ikat pieces at a local op shop for the equivalent of US$ 3.50 each?!

I couldn’t believe that after having admired the Indonesian ikat textiles for so many years, particularly the ones from Sumba, that I should run across these in an op shop?!

Next on the agenda is dyeing with lichen. A friend gave me a jar of lichen that she had collected from fallen branches on the coast. It’s been soaking in a mix of cloudy ammonia and water for almost two weeks now and the color it’s releasing is amazing. I still have some of the Bolivian wool left. I just have to wash it and then give this color a go. I hope to find lichen locally that will perhaps produce other colors although I doubt that anything could be quite as astounding as this.

This photo was taken after one week. It has developed even further since.

The sun is streaming in through my sunroom windows and I feel so guilty for being indoors on such an utterly gorgeous day. But at the same time, I have been feeling bad for having neglected my blog for so long.

I want to thank everyone for making purchases before Taproot Video closed at the end of March. I really appreciate your support and hope to have the PDFs back up for sale elsewhere soon. I thought that launching a new publication would be a good way to introduce my new point of sale but I don’t see that happening quite quickly enough. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before I have my publications available for sale once more. The flurry of purchases at the end of Taproot Video will help keep me afloat until then.

For those who don’t see my blog banner on their particular device, here’s what it says….Stay tuned.

Backstrap Weaving – My Books!

My Books, My Books, My Books…..I have been researching my options for a new home for my books between settling into my new home, finding new community, rehabbing my frozen shoulder and wrist, which is all stuck up with scar tissue again and, and, and…..!!!. So….I haven’t settled on anything yet…. but am getting close!

If you have no idea of what I am talking about, you may have somehow missed the announcement emails that the folks at Taproot Video, who sell my books, have been sending to their entire customer base these last months telling everyone that the website will be closing on March 31, 2026.

No need to panic if you’re hearing this for the first time.

If you’ve purchased one of my books in PDF form and downloaded it to your device, there’s nothing you need to do. If you haven’t yet downloaded it/them, you need to do so before the website closes. You have until March 31.

If you’ve purchased the PDFs that come with supplemental video clips, you don’t need to do anything either. You will continue to have access to the videos by clicking on the link to the folder of clps that you’ll find in the chapter titled Videos. Access to the clips will continue after the Taproot Video website closes.

There are four titles that come with clips:

  • Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms
  • Warp-faced Double Weave on Inkle Looms
  • The Eye-pattern Tubular Band and Other Decorative Finishing Techniques
  • The Eye-pattern Tubular Band of the Peruvian and Boliviain Highlands

ACTION NEEDED FOR THE FOLLOWING:

If you purchased a printed copy of one of my books that comes with supplementary video clips (‘those listed above), you will need to download the clips to your device before March 31 if you haven’t already done so.

Access to these clips is provided via a link on the Taproot Video website. Naturally, that link will no longer be available to you after the site closes. So, if you haven’t downloaded the clips yet, please go to taprootvideo.com and…..

  • Log in.
  • Click on the Purchased Items tab.
  • Click on the title of book you purchased. That will take you to a page with the link to the folder of videos.
  • Clck on the link.
  • Download the videos to your device.

These instructions are also outlined in the books themselves in the chapter titled VIDEOS.

There are only two or three titles now at Taproot Video that have remaining copies of the printed books. I won’t be selling printed books again after Taproot Video closes. My books in PDF form will soon be available elsewhere and I’ll let you know as soon as that’s up and running.

In the meantime, yes, I have been weaving! And so, I ‘ll finish this quick post by showing you what I’ve been up to using the handspun wool I purchased from my Bolivian weaving friends in the highlands in January last year. You may remember that we dyed some of it with indigo while I was there. I dyed the rest in Australia last year with local plants. I love that my new community of friends in my transition home up on the mid north coast contributed so much to that project with their contributions of mango leaves, silver dollar eucalyptus leaves, local info on where to find a peppercorn tree, onion skins and rusty nails for my iron water.

This a celebration of connections made in what I’ve left behind and where I now find myself. The images depict the four seasons considering that now that I live in a place that truly experiences all four. We had two at best in my tropical home in Bolivia! I’m going to make this into a bag so I can carry those connected memories with me.

Bye-bye Taproot Video and thank you.. Thank you to all those who have purchased my publications over the years and supported me through following my blog as well as leaving me kind comments and reviews here and on my other social media pages.The blog will continue. I have a lot saved up to post! You’ll be hearing again from me soon.

Backstrap Weaving – Dyeing to Weave

Well, hello…….. Here we are well into 2026 and yes, I’m still here. And here is a long overdue blog post. Typing at this laptop keyboard was not doing my shoulder any good while I was still unable to rotate my wrist into a full palm-down position. As a result, I am still stuck with a frozen right shoulder and a wrist that turns most of the way but which I fear will probably never recover its full range of motion.

So I’ll attempt to fill you in with just a little of what has been happening starting with way back last year when I joined a group called the Fiber Artists Network up on the mid-north coast of NSW. What a group! Such an incredible collection of talented women who use a mind-boggling array of techniques to create their textile art works. I wasn’t sure how exactly my work fit with this group but I enjoyed every opportunity to get together with them and soak up inspiration. And here I am now moved to my home in the Blue Mountains where I can only continue to see their work from afar.

Another new member to that group, Dale, immediately after joining, invited a group of us to her home for a day of natural dyeing. Everyone was there to do some botanical printing except me. I’d brought my own pot, which I’d lugged all the way over from Bolivia, and was planning to dye some of the wool I’d bought from my teachers in the Bolivian highlands on my final visit (sniff!) in 2025.

I took along the dried cochineal bugs that I’d got in the market in Santa Cruz (and before you ask, I did declare it when I arrived in Australia. I had hardly even begun explaining when the bored officials waved me through). This caused much excitement in the group and although the focus remained on botanical dyeing, I ended up with quite a mix of fabric and thread in my dyepot alongside my wool skeins.

Dale provided a nice variety of plant material from her own garden for the botanical printing.

This included leaves from what is commonly known as the Silver Dollar gum tree which produce a gorgeous burnt orange color. You’d never imagine by just looking at the silvery leaves. She gave me some to take home. I posted messages in the local Facebook groups hunting for more and a lady drove over one day with a small bucketful for me.

Trying to stir and poke more fabric into the pot.

I was happy about the rosy red color we were getting from the cochineal after all the trouble I’d had in Bolivia with the very hard tap water there when I was trying to dye silk.

Later at home, I dyed another skein and shifted it to a bright red by adding lemon juice.

Next came the Silver Dollar leaves. I added to the supply by buying a few sticks of it from the local florist. The pretty rounded silver leaves are frequent additions to flower arrangements here particularly those that contain a lot of native varieties.

On top of a stunning color, it gave such an intense aroma of eucalyptus. Beautiful!

I was thrilled with the results but did have to ask myself if I was ever going to weave with so much orange yarn. A quick glance back at some of my past work reminded me that I have included this color much more than I had imagined.

Next on my list was leaves from the peppercorn tree. It’s a native of South America but was a popular shade tree at one stage used in rural areas of NSW. We had one in our school yard when I was a kid and we certainly enjoyed the cool of its shade and the aroma of his peppercorns on sweltering summer days. I hit the local Facebook notice boards again and was told of a tree offering its weeping leafy branches to passing strollers on one of the main streets of a neighboring town. Off I went. The search became a big part of the whole adventure. While gathering leaves, a silver-haired gent whose long beard was tied in a pony-tail told me that he too had had a peppercorn tree in the schoolyard. He and his mates would use the leaves to soothe the sting after a caning! Maybe the boys at my school had done so too but kept it a secret from the cane-wielding nuns.

The smell of the peppercorn leaves in the pot evoked a lot of memories.

Known as “molle” (which is part of its botanical name) by my weaving teachers in highland Bolivia, it gives a rich gold color. I was only using alum pre-mordant. I believe that my teacher Maxima and her group also use chrome during the process and achieve a much richer gold.

I had my friends in the local craft group collecting both red and yellow onion skins for me and was surprised at how much richer the color from the yellow skins was. I had been expecting the opposite. I didn’t use the alum mordant with the onion skins having read that it wasn’t necessary. However, the color was a bit uneven…but in a good way!

After connecting with a keen natural dyer up in northern Queensland on Facebook, I then tried mango leaves. They gave a beautiful buttery yellow in very little time. A second skein left in longer was more golden. I got a nice green by adding a touch of copper sulfate and some other tones using water and a bit of white vinegar in which rusty nails had been soaking for two weeks out in the sun.

Some results. You can see the indigo that we dyed up in the highlands last year. I added a natural white skein to this photo for comparison.
At last I get to keep some notes in the book with my handwoven cover.
I love these three together.
Playing with different color combinations. I have plans for this wool in my weaving but first I have to get out a spindle and ply. I’ve dyed skeins of doubled singles and have yet to twist the two single strands together. We’ll see how my wrist feels about that.

Other non-weaving activities involved updating, adding final touches to and improving some of my woven jewelry pieces.

My two boxes of jewelry-making bits and pieces made it over to Australia. I spent ten days house-sitting for a friend at Shelly Beach and needed an activity.

All the dyeing paraphernalia had been put away and I spent my time refurbishing and creating pendants and wrist cuffs between walking around the deliciously cool nearby pocket of littoral rainforest and visiting the beach in the evening to watch the paragliders take off in the evening breezes.

While this strangling fig isn’t being very kind to this tree, it makes a very fascinating and eerie sight.

Lying crumpled up within one of the boxes of jewelry findings was a small strip of silk that I’d woven. It was the piece on which I’d been sampling the figure of a weaver at her loom to be included in a larger project. I was able to cut off the final version and turn it into a pendant. I couldn’t believe that I just happened to have the little hand charm to add to the bottom.

Other things that got refreshed and updated…my garabata pouch pendant and wrist cuff. I didn’t make the earrings. I bought those from an Ayoreo artisan.
It was never a good idea to wear jewelry in the streets of Santa Cruz. I learned that the hard way in a couple of incidents during my first months there. Anything was fair game. I’m enjoying being able to feel confident about wearing my things out and about here.

I spent a couple of very peaceful weeks there at Shelly Beach keeping Catherine’s beautiful garden watered. It gave me a chance to see just how independent I could be hand-wise and if I was indeed ready to make the bigger move away from my brother’s home to my real home in Katoomba. Spoiler alert: I’m there now….but more about that and my return to the loom in my next blog post.

And then came Christmas. A dear friend bought me a (quite expensive!) ticket to a wreath-making afternoon. I must admit that I was reluctant to go. Anyone who is a regular reader of my blog will know that I don’t do Christmas. But hey, this was my first one back in Australia. Let’s make it a memorable one in that I actually participate!

I did feel extremely handicapped. I didn’t have enough grip strength to handle the secateurs on the thicker branches and I struggled to work the florist wire and weave the stems in and out of the frame. But I gave it my best shot..I finished mine ages before anyone else in my group who spent so much more time selecting and planning. This wasn’t their first time and I should have probably slowed down and put a bit more thought into it. I was just a bit frustrated and disappointed with my hand and shoulder’s performance and wanted to get it all over with.

There was weaving involved and so I guess this does deserve a place on this blog….

I based it mostly on silver dollar leaves.

There was a Christmas party with the Fibre Artists Network group out in the beautiful lush Bellingen countryside. We played Secret Santa, or Kris Kringle, as they say here in Australia, and were charged with making a brooch for one of the other members.

Here they all are after being randomly distributed and unwrapped…..

I can see more natural dyeing coming up hopefully with my own handspun especially now that I have borrowed this book to peruse….

And here I’ll end this post. There’s so much more to tell as a whole new chapter has begun and is well under way but here’s a look at the beginning of that new chapter which marks the end of this long, long roller coaster of a journey from the other side of the world.

There lies within my life’s possessions!

The most I’ll tell you for now is that I am very happy!!

The brooch that I got in the Christmas exchange on the left…..and the result of another Christmas exchange in a different group on the right. In that exchange we were presented with materials and asked to stitch a Badge of Honor with a word that describes another person in the group. We drew names from a hat. I stitched Vivacious for Francie and Present was chosen for me.

I happily put on my badge for the group photos knowing that the time has indeed come to exhale and live in the Present and if that’s the impression I gave the person who stitched my badge, I am thrilled. Time to stop holding my breath and worrying about my future here in Australia. Time to stop feeling sad and doubtful about having left Bolivia.

Until next time….(.there will be weaving to show!)

Backstrap Weaving – Finding Joy

Here’s just a quick hello and update (as I’m typing with one finger of my left hand)…

I’m still in transition mode living on the mid-north coast with my brother and sister-in-law (and loving it!) while working on rehabilitating my hand. I did end up having a second surgery because it was all pretty messed up….tendons and a very irritated nerve were encased in scar tissue and stuck together. Another tendon had become adhered to the bone, plus the plate that was too bulky for my small frame was removed. I had been expecting a minor miracle after that but it was, in fact, a move back to square one rehabilitation-wise. Expectations were adjusted and I’m back to work exercising.

In the meantime, there have been several textile-related exhibits to visit at Port Macquarie’s fabulous Glasshouse. I was drawn to this piece by Hannah Garside called Book of Hands because of the hand theme. These well-used and worn gloves “darkened with age and use gently interlace evoking touch, intimacy and the presence of former wearers “

I managed to get one more key fob gift woven before being advised to stop weaving until I’ve recovered wrist rotation. It’s quite limited right now. I was kidding myself thinking I could manage weaving with my injured hand. I was, in fact, compensating with my shoulder and ended up injuring it.

This fob is for my hand therapist, an occupational rather than physio therapist, and has the name of her business. The name will only make sense if you understand that the last two letters are capitals and are pronounced Oh-tee.

So, weaving is on the back-burner once again and I am entertaining myself by designing a hand-themed triptych which will be a story of my Indian roots, my 32 years in South America and the new possibilities that will come to me now that I’m back in Australia.

I’ve joined an organisation here called the Fibre Artisans Network and am excited about being able to exchange ideas and share skills and perhaps exhibit some of my work alongside that of the other members one day. We’ve met up twice already and will do so again tomorrow. The first thing I’d love to learn more about is dyeing with eucalypts.

I’m going to leave you with something I’ve posted before but which brings me joy and makes me want to share it again. I hope the melody isn’t an ear-worm for you. I’ve added some bits since I last showed it to you.

MY FAVORITE THINGS (a few of)

Intricate patterns on bamboo and gourd,
A beater, a shuttle, a small weaving sword,
Plant fibers twisted and woven like string,
These are a few of my favorite things.
Bone tools and wooden ones shaped just for picking,
Others to strum across threads that are sticking,
Laid out before me the pleasure they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Books that tell stories of teachers I’ve known,
Covered with fabric and carefully sewn,
They hold the memories to which I will cling,
These are a few of my favorite things.
Spindles a-whirring turn fleece into thread,
Dipped in a dye pot of cochineal red,
Patterns of summer, fall, winter and spring,
These are a few of my favorite things.

When I must wait,
Cannot cre-ate,
And I’m feeling sad.
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel
So bad.

Spring has sprung here and it’s glorious! The air is drenched with the aroma of jasmine and the sound of bees. An increasing number of surfers can be spotted bobbing about in the waves and it’s time to make friends with all the magpies I encounter on my walks lest they start swooping me at nesting time.

Until next time when maybe I can reveal some of my hand-themed patterns. I’ve made some good thrift store purchases of cotton (I love how thrift stores here in Australia are called “op shops”) which I’ll dye for this project…..or maybe I’ll use eucalypt-dyed wool. It’s exciting to think about.