books – Page 5 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – What in the world? Where in the world?

Where in the world am I?

The Tibetan tent and flags adds a spot of color in a dreary day. The tent had been erected next to a Buddhist stupa and was intended to shelter honored guests at a Tibetan wedding.

While all this was going on, I was inside weaving with a group of backstrap weaving friends. We heard the occasional gong, deep booming drum beat and singing. We peeped outside to try and catch some of the ceremony but it had been moved indoors due to the weather.

The building in which we were weaving is owned by Sonam, a Tibetan stone mason. He built the stupa and it was his wedding day. We caught a glimpse of his bride and her attendants draped in gold-colored scarves. Each guest had brought a scarf and placed it on the couples’ shoulders. I know that butter tea was served. I had tried that in Nepal where it was called ”Sherpa Tea”.

The sun came out a few days later and we were able to enjoy warping on the picnic table with the lovely Tibetan tent as our backdrop.

I won’t blame you if you haven’t been able to guess where all this took place…it’s Western Massachusetts!

From there I headed to a lovely city where Janie and I discovered an alley named ”Weaver”…

…and where Janie has a fabulous pole in her basement around which we could hold a backstrap weaving party…

We all adopted different sitting positions.

In the picture below, Karen, in the middle, is sitting on yoga blocks which helps her maintain that position with her legs bent under. That position is a handy one if you like to have your warp steeply angled. You can position your backstrap almost under your butt so it doesn’t ride up. You can then have the place on the warp on which you are working almost at eye level. Karen’s warp in this picture isn’t steeply angled but she could use that kind of angle if she chose to. Then you simply raise yourself slightly on your knees to relax tension on the warp. Relaxing tension on a steeply angled warp is very hard to do if you are sitting like I do, flat on the floor. I prefer a more gentle angle on my warp as is used by backstrap weavers in South America.

Alice, on the right, was weaving this sweet Andean Pebble Weave pattern…

Terri warped, wove and finished her backstrap during my visit. She used some really pretty purple and pink variegated cotton yarn…

She got to use it when we wove double weave bands together later…

We explored double weave using some traditional Bolivian and Bedouin motifs and then some people moved on to create their own designs…we had cats and Halloween pumpkins, swinging monkeys and llamas. Chris in Massachusetts brought me a rabbit motif that her daughter Emma created for us to use.

It was a lot of fun…lots of laughs. I have never had a group that could concentrate on weaving pick-up patterns while chatting and laughing so much! We were all very pleased with our work…

And yes, there were some quieter more serious moments. Goodness knows what I am saying here but whatever it was certainly got everyone’s attention!..

Karen, who was the most confident about creating original designs, was using this beautiful backstrap that she wove since my last visit when we wove Andean Pebble Weave together. The main motif is an original one of mine from my first book…

And check out the knit hat in which she has incorporated an Andean motif with pebble spots and all!

Now she is busy adapting some of the Bedouin motifs that I showed the group and creating her own pattern for a fine band that I think she plans to use as jewelry. She’s using the embedded double weave technique for this one.Janie is keen on making jewelry too and has gone down to size 20/2 cotton to weave an Andean Pebble Weave band. She is using a pattern from my second book..

First comes the warping and then the heddles are made. Janie’s cat Bugsy needed some affection as there had been a pesky visitor (me) in the house for several days grabbing mom’s attention…

And here’s the sweet band underway…

I love the close-up of my friend Terri’s bird’s-eye maple sword in that picture and, how gorgeous is that band? It will make a lovely bracelet or neck ribbon.

Speaking of jewelry, I made a couple of tubular bands to hold pendants just before I left Bolivia for this trip…

This ñawi awapa tubular band nicely holds a silver pendant that I bought while scouring stores for beads, buttons and findings that last time I was in Arizona.I made it in 20/2 wool. I have been wearing it as a tripled bracelet rather than as a necklace. This next one is a modified tanka ch’oro pattern also made in 20/2 wool and woven as a tube. It holds a lovely weaver bird pendant which is the logo of the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati. I wanted to show it to the weaving friends from whom I got it last year and so that tells you where in the world we all were in these pictures. I was really ill on my last visit, crawling miserably into bed at the end of each day. This time was different and I even went English country dancing with Carolyn on Saturday night! What fun that was!

Janie also showed us how she uses two dowels to make a simple band lock. Using this system, she can have the end of her woven band hanging freely rather than wound up around the beam. I can see this being really useful if you are weaving a very long or very thick band which would be too cumbersome to have rolled up on the beam. I did see a weaver from Chahuaytire in Peru who had his woven cloth hanging freely. He could pick up his cloth at any time and show us his work without having to do any un-rolling.

So, here is Janie demonstrating for us using one of my silk bands. Pass the woven band around a dowel (you will have to imagine that the part that is sitting on top of the dowel is unwoven warp)…

Place a second dowel underneath…

Roll the two sticks together as shown for one turn…

Place the backstrap around the far dowel (pay special attention to how the strap is placed in this picture)…

When you want to advance the warp, lean forward a little and separate the sticks. Pull the end of the woven band through and then lean back again to secure the band within the ”lock”…

I haven’t tried it myself but Janie uses this system and loves it. THANKS, JANIE!!

I have been really pleased and excited to see some pictures starting to trickle in from people who have bought and are using my latest e-book on Complementary-warp Pick-up.

Christine Oettle Rusconi in South Africa showed this picture on Facebook. She dove right in with one of the wide patterns. The patterns in my latest book range from 4 threads to 20 threads wide and this one has 20 pattern threads plus the interesting border that Christine created…This put such a big smile on my face!

Julie showed this next one on Ravelry. She is using her Gilmore MiniWave loom to weave one of the 9-thread patterns. I love that she has used two columns of the pattern separated by plain weave to create a piece that could easily become a lovely pouch for a cell phone. Julie’s picture shows her swords within the two sheds forming her ”picking cross”. Those who have my book will know all about those picking crosses!

Lorna, who wove with me last spring and who also has my book, is weaving this 16-thread pattern on her inkle loom… I love the gold on the border.

Ginny in New Hampshire sent me this picture of her backstrap weaving set-up in her pick-up truck. There is her band attached to the glove compartment with a lovely Andean Pebble Weave pattern in progress. There is an 18-thread variation of this pattern in my new book which uses two simple sheds which makes it easily transferable to an inkle loom or a rigid heddle set-up.

Here is the backstrap and bands that Ginny has been making since she first tried backstrap weaving in June…

And I am thrilled to show you Bethan’s finished poncho. Bethan has been corresponding with me from France about this project for a few years now. It is all her hand spun yarn which she dyed with lichen and walnut husks. She wove two panels on her backstrap loom and sewed them together….awesome! She commented on some problems with getting the tension even but here is the finished poncho and it is absolutely amazing! Where’s my spindle?!

And, I am so happy to see that my second and first books have not been forgotten in the excitement over my latest one. Geja Spruit in the Netherlands just wove this stunning band using a pattern from my second book. I don’t think anyone has yet shown me their work with this particular pattern from my book…

For those of you who have bought my latest book and learned the method, you will find more complementary-warp patterns in the second half of my second book. However, I should tell you that the patterns I include in that book tend to be larger ones (lots of threads for making wide bands) and many may not be suitable for inkle looms.

And, while on the topic of my various books, I thought I would take this opportunity to explain what they are about and what the difference is in the techniques that are taught in each one. As interest has grown in my latest book, I have had a few people writing to me asking me to tell them about these differences and so I have decided to go into that here in this post.

Firstly…. what in the world is the ”complementary-warp” structure?

”Complementary”means that both faces of the woven cloth are structurally identical, with their colors reversed. A motif that is dark on a light background on one face will appear as a light motif on a dark background on the other. A double-faced band is produced. Within this large category called ”complementary-warp” there are several varieties that are woven in the highlands and lowlands of South America.

One variety involves aligning the warp-floats so that little spots or ”pebbles” are created. That form is commonly known as ”pebble weave”. Here are the two faces of a pebble weave band with its characteristics spots. This is one kind of arrangement that exists within this larger category called ”complementary-warp”…

Another way of aligning the floats can give a very solid, rather than spotty, look to the pattern and background. This form is often called ”intermesh”… (some weavers don’t push the warp threads close together which results in a fabric that has a more open ”meshy” look rather than the very solid-color look, shown below, that I prefer). This is yet another variety within the larger category called ”complementary-warp”.

One more way of aligning the floats that is used in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia, is one which creates twill lines within the motifs and in the areas surrounding the motifs. Rather than spots or solid color, you can see the diagonal lines that have formed in this woven band in the sections of the star and in the background….(in some books this form is called ”uneven twill”)

Quite often, I find woven pieces in Peru and Bolivia that combine these various techniques making it impossible to call a piece ”pebble” or ”twill” as the weaver has used both arrangements to be able to most efficiently tie down the floats to form a motif or fill the space around it. You can see both pebble spots and diagonal twill lines in this band….

Once you have learned the method for picking up the threads to weave complementary-warp patterns and can follow the standard pattern chart, all these varieties of patterns – pebble, intermesh and twill – are available to you. Most of the patterns in my new book are of the ”pebble” variety but one or two combine both pebble and twill. Threads are picked up by hand or with a pick-up stick for each and every shot of weft. The charting system is the same for all these varieties of complementary-warp patterns.

The method only requires two basic sheds and can be worked on any loom that allows you to produce warp-faced bands…backstrap with rigid heddle, backstrap with continuous string heddles, inkle looms, to name a few.

My Inklette set up for the complementary-warp pick-up technique.

And, what about this other thing called ”Andean Pebble Weave”….what in the world is that?

There is a certain group of pebble patterns that have two particular pick-up sheds that are faithfully repeated along the entire length of the pattern. I call patterns that fall into this group Andean Pebble Weave (capital A, capital P, capital W) to distinguish them from other pebble patterns. I call the two regularly repeating pick-up sheds ”pebble 1” and ”pebble 2”. The threads from these two sheds repeat so regularly in the pattern that they can be placed within string heddles. This means that the weaver does not have to pick up those threads by hand. He, or she, can simply pull up a heddle.

It’s a four-step sequence: 1.Pick up threads by hand to form one shed according to the pattern chart and throw the weft. 2.Lift the heddle for pebble 1 and throw the weft. 3. Pick up the threads for the next shed by hand according to the pattern chart and throw the weft. 4. Pull up the heddle for pebble 2 and throw the weft. Start again.

Only every other shed needs to be picked by hand. That makes the weaving relatively fast! So, warps that have been set up to use the Andean Pebble Weave method will have two sets of string heddles, like Ginny’s band that I showed above attached to her glove compartment, and this backstrap warp below…

And, this one below on an inkle loom. If I use my Inklette or any other small-ish inkle loom for this method, I need to have the loom clamped to a table so I can pull up on the heddles without pulling the loom up and off the table!

I wove an inkle band with designs in Andean Pebble Weave on a couple of road trips and at the beach. Ikea pencils came in handy for heddle sticks!

This is the method that is followed up with many more patterns in my second book. The method is taught in the first book, Andean Pebble Weave. The second book, at left, provides more patterns.

However, it is important to know that you don’t have to use the two heddles. They are simply there as an option to make the process faster. You can just go ahead and pick up every shed by hand if you prefer. As for me, as much as I LOVE pick-up, I’ll use the two sets of heddles whenever I can! But this is not possible for every pattern. Then, of course, it is very handy to know how to form picking crosses and pick threads efficiently by hand. This is precisely what I teach in my latest book.

Recently on Ravelry we were asked by a member of the Backstrap Weaving Group to explain the differences between all the pick-up structures. I made an attempt to at least define the ones that I have encountered in South America and maybe I will write about that next time with the aid of lots of pictures! But for now, let’s leave it with ”complementary-warp” which is, after all, my favorite….for now, anyway!

I have moved onward to Arizona for five days of weaving with friends 🙂 Let’s see what lovely patterns emerge from this gathering.

Backstrap Weaving – A Basketful of Bands and Memories

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has bought my new e-book, Complementary-warp Pick-up, since it was released last Sunday evening. I am looking forward to seeing how you use the technique and patterns. And, thanks also to the many people who wrote to me to give such kind personal comments on it.

And now, after having completed my third instructional manual, I am working on a big book of both large and small patterns for Andean Pebble Weave. I am really excited about it and have many samples to weave and photograph. These are patterns that I have been collecting for years! It is, after all, five years since I published my last book with Andean Pebble Weave patterns and much has happened since then.

Just some of the bands that I wove for my second book.

What I now find myself with, after all this weaving of samples, is a rather large basket of bands. Some of them are from my books and some were woven just for fun.

Band weavers will know that it is quite okay to weave bands just for the pure joy of it. They don’t need to have a purpose! A few of the bands in my basket were woven when I ran some weave-alongs on Ravelry a few years ago. By the way, I am planning to run another weave-along in January on cuffs and bracelets after all the madness of Christmas, New Year and end-of-year activities has passed. Northern hemisphere folk will be sitting by cozy fires. I’ll be in my Fortress of Solitude with the air conditioner blowing cooling air, no doubt! Good times for a weave-along, right?

Each and every one of the bands in my basket holds a memory and I remember very clearly where I was in my weaving adventure at the time that I wove them.

For example, I remember weaving a few bands like the two in the center, above, in sewing thread shortly before heading off to visit my friend Janet in California back in early 2011. One of the sewing-thread bands is still the fob for her car keys. Two of them were made into bookmarks that my brother still uses. These two remain. The upper one is in warp-faced double weave and the other in complementary-warp pick-up. In fact, I included the chart for that pattern in my second book.

Here’s another band in sewing thread…this one uses the Andean Pebble Weave structure. I might recover this one from the cover of my journal and make a bracelet from it.

Now the brown sewing-thread bands have become bracelets by adding ribbon clamps, braids and buttons. One of my favorite things to do when I am traveling is visit yarn, fabric and button stores to find interesting buttons for these pieces of jewelry. I usually find a button that is a good match for an existing band, but there have also been times when I have woven a band just to match a cool button!

The black and red band in the top part of the photo of the sewing-thread bands has beads along the edge which I had threaded on the weft. That one is a leftover band from a key fob weave-along I ran on Ravelry some years ago. That weave-along was a lot of fun. The band never got used as a fob and now it will be a bracelet.

These silk bands were woven specially to be made into wrist cuffs. One end of the bands has a selvedge (which is one of the many nice things about using a backstrap loom….a third selvedge can be easily created) which means that one of the ends doesn’t have to be turned and hemmed. I create that third selvedge on narrow bands by placing a metal knitting needle through the warp ends and lashing it to the backstrap beam. That way, I can start weaving at the very end of the warp. I have all kinds of needles…some super fine ones too for when I weave with yarn like 60/2 silk.

Using a fine knitting needle at the start of the band and finishing by removing the needle and then passing the starting tail of the first weft shot on a tapestry needle to fill the gap.

I can sew simple snaps to the ends that have selvedges as well as to those that have sewn hems. And, there are some really cool snaps available these days (thank you to Susan in Canada for telling me about them, and for even sending me some). The usual types that I have always known and used are those classic bulky metal ones. Now there are some lovely flat ones that come in black, white and clear plastic that you can see in the photo of the silk cuffs.. I remember Google-searching like mad for these and getting frustrated as I simply did not know what to call the little things. It turns out that they are pretty easy to find in craft and sewing stores.

Those silk cuffs remind me of shopping trips with people with whom I have woven in my travels. Sue in the U.K took me to the Handweavers Studio in London back in 2012 where I bought lots of tiny leftover spools of 60/2 silk. The little tree pendant that looks so nice on the silk neck ribbon was bought on an outing with Christine in Arizona a couple of years ago. The colors on the silk neck ribbon were modeled on a hand-dyed and hand-painted silk warp that Sara Lamb gave me some years ago. All great memories! 🙂

The bands for my bracelets and cuffs that you see above are woven in various materials…mercerized cotton, worsted spun wool, fingering weight knitting yarn and naturally dyed silk. The pattern on the first band on the left is in my first book. The next one was a sampler for my second book. It remains to be seen how ”pilly” the one made from the knitting yarn gets after a lot of wear. That one was woven for my newest book and reminds me of the last trip I made to the highlands. Maxima and the other weavers up there fell in love with that pattern and I ended up teaching it to them. There are many fond memories tied to that trip.

Adviana learning to weave the new pattern.

The naturally-dyed silk band with the leaves reminds me of warm and generous friends in Grass Valley, California. While visiting with them, I was given a bunch of little naturally-dyed silk skeins which enabled me to weave beautiful bands and pieces of cloth for book covers.

Generally, if my band has a selvedge at one end, I will sew a button to that end. I then use a ribbon clamp to cover and protect the raw edge at the other end. I can braid some yarn and thread it through the loop in the ribbon clamp, knot it together and use that to loop over the button. That is also a good solution if the band in my basket is not long enough to allow me to use the more traditional jewelry findings, like rings and a lobster-claw clasp. The longer bands get the traditional findings (although I have to say that I am no expert at applying the tiny split rings even though I have the tools! I get crazy when those little rings slip out of my grasp and ”ping” across the room!).

If I have two raw ends, I use ribbon clamps at both ends. Sometimes I sew a button on top of the ribbon clamp just for decoration, or because I have a particular button that happens to match the band well. It is very easy putting the bracelet on and slipping a braided loop over the button.

Depending on the kind of yarn, I sometimes paint some diluted PVA glue or Fray Check on the raw ends before putting them into the ribbon clamp. This helps to tame stray warp ends that can sometimes flare out at the sides of the clamps.

The red and black band with the beads is kind of an odd one. It is a very short band that was meant to be a key fob. I had worked the unwoven warp ends into a bunch of tiny braids. I applied the ribbon clamp to the braids and I think it looks pretty good, if somewhat unusual.

So, I hope I have given you some ideas for maybe making some jewelry from your own band stash, or perhaps weaving some bands specially for that purpose. I think the bracelet/wrist cuff weave-along in January will be fun and very productive. If you would like to participate, you will have plenty of time to look for buttons and findings.

I want to leave you with a piece of exciting news about my video Operating a Backstrap Loom. The dvd went touring with me on my recent trip to Australia. It was very interesting talking to people who are interested in the video and who do not live in the USA. I listened to their thoughts on buying streamed content as opposed to physical dvds.

Operating a Backstrap Loom on tour in beautiful Australia.

And so, I am so happy to tell you that Taproot Video is now offering LIFETIME STREAMING of the video as well as the usual option of buying the dvd. Those people who bought the original 30-day streaming option will have heard by now that they have been automatically upgraded to lifetime streaming at no extra cost.

Thank you to everyone who has bought the dvd or streamed option so far.

Oh, and one more thing… my “Sunrise, Sunset” piece is off the loom. This is the piece that I set up so that Marilyn and Rainer could film me for a documentary they are creating. It was a little stressful as I usually dither over new projects and need to ponder them for days, if not weeks. I am usually planning the next project as I sit at my loom half-way though another. In this case, I just had to grab yarn (10/2 mercerized cotton), wind a warp and go for it. I chose berry colors…ones that I like to think of now as the soft tones of sunrises and sunsets…dusty pinks and purples bathed in the golden rays of the sun.

I am going to sew it into a tool pouch for Marilyn, whose yarn I used. Maybe I will dress it up with a tubular edging too.

Until next time….

Backstrap Weaving – Complementary-warp Pick-up…my new ebook

I have been home after my trip to Australia for quite some time. The dreaded jet-lag has washed off. You would think that I would be back in my loom working on my next large project. I do, after all, have a tremendous list of ideas in my head especially after having bought all that luscious silk from the super folks at Red Fish Dyeworks when I was in Canada.

Well, yes, I have been back at the loom, but not at a large project. Instead, I have been weaving lots of lots of lovely bands! What fun it has been weaving these small projects after having spent so much time at one very large one…the black silk wrap…for a great part of this year. It was particularly fun using wool for some of these bands.

And, why have I been weaving bands? Because I have just published a new e-book on taprootvideo.com.

I have been at the loom, the computer keyboard and at the camera…back and forth, back and forth, from one to the other…. while I finally finish off one of the several book projects that have been lurking around the middle of my project list for quite some time. You are probably tired of hearing about these books that have yet to appear! I am excited to be able to present one of them now….Complementary-warp Pick-up…

The complementary-warp structure produces lovely double-faced bands like the ones you see at left.

The method I teach in this book can be applied to any loom that allows the weaver to create warp-faced bands.

The warp threads are divided into two simple sheds from which they are selected to create the patterns. Generally, two colors are used…one light and one dark. One shed on the loom holds all the light threads, and the other all the dark threads.

Inkle loom weavers, for example, could place all the dark threads in the open position and all the light ones within the heddles.

Weavers who like to use a rigid heddle to weave warp-faced bands need to thread all the ends of one color through the holes and the ends of the other color through the slots.

While weaving some of the samples for this book, I enjoyed using the band lock and wooden rigid heddle that Becky and friends at Vavstuga so sweetly gave me the first time I visited. Vavstuga stocks various sizes of these cute band locks!

But, I am sure that you know that I am a continuous-string-heddles gal at heart!

And, of course, the other fans of those lovely continuous string heddles, will set up their warps for the complementary-warp pick-up technique by enclosing all the threads in one of the two colors in the string heddles and the others in the nifty shed loop. Remember that you can always refresh your memory on the warping technique by watching Method 2 on my free video.

Here are some of my backstrap weaving students from my recent visit to Australia getting their complementary-warp groove on…

And, look at the fabulous guitar strap that Helen Deighan has woven since our Complementary-warp class in Australia!

She has taken an idea that I would like to encourage further with my latest book, that is, using small motifs as border designs alongside larger patterns. I have provided charts for a variety of such pretty border patterns. These smaller patterns alone would make lovely lanyards, shoe laces and straps for pouches. They also add a lot of interest along the edges of wider patterns.

The charted patterns in the book range from four to twenty threads. For those of you whose loom allows you create wider pieces, it is just a simple matter of piecing together two or more patterns from the book, just like Helen has. They work wonderfully together. Or, you can always weave two columns of the same pattern and add a lot more border threads to create something wide enough to hold a cell phone, for example…

After finishing this latest book, I really want to thank all my weaving teachers, weaving friends and students who give me so many ideas and who are always so inspiring.

And now, I find myself with a basketful of bands. The bands are pretty to look at and I might just leave them there. Or….. I could use the dozens of little jewelry findings I have been collecting such as, split rings, lobster-claw clasps and ribbon clamps, and make these bands part of my woven bracelet collection.

From band to bracelet…quick and easy…no sewing required…I love that! I have to admit that I was really lucky to find that I had just the right size of ribbon clamp for this band. I have them in four or five sizes and various metal colors.

Now I have some teaching warps to work on which will take me back to my loom once more….my happy place! I’ll be sitting there thinking about the other book project which is part-way done. I hope to have that ready early next year 🙂

I might also make some more jewelry with various closures, like buttons and braids, and give you some ideas for those in the next post.

If you decide to buy my new book, I hope you enjoy it and I welcome any feedback. Of course I would love to see anything you weave using it.

Backstrap Weaving – Connected

Connected! ”Connected Diamonds” is the pattern theme of my latest backstrap weaving. It’s not a new piece. It is the same very long silk warp that I started some time ago on which I am slowly inching along. A couple of days ago I celebrated having reached half way and stopped to figure out what I would weave in the very center.

I charted a set of six interlocked diamonds in Andean Pebble Weave. They remind me of little ballerinas with their arms linked dancing their way across the warp. Today is not the best day lighting-wise for photography and so I will wait for another time to show them to you.

Here is one version of connected diamonds in the first band of patterning right at the start of the piece. This was done using a reversible 3-color Andean Pebble Weave structure.

The motifs on the side are woven using silk supplementary weft. I used a supplementary-weft technique which has the colored weft extending far beyond the limits of the motif, hidden between the layers of warp threads while it travels to the edge of the cloth. There it exits the shed and turns to enter the next shed to create the next row of pattern.

Let me show you quickly how it works…

You get started weaving warp-faced plain-weave cloth. Then you open a shed, beat and pass the weft. Leave the shed open and drop threads to create spaces, or gaps. Your colored supplementary weft will be exposed in these spaces.

Pass the colored supplementary weft in the shed with the spaces. Open the next shed, beat and pass the main weft. Leave the shed open and drop threads according to the next row in your pattern to create spaces, or gaps. Then, pass the colored supplementary-weft. There it is in a nutshell. I have a more detailed free tutorial on this technique here.

Now, continuing with my black silk project…I finished off the section of 3-color patterned Andean Pebble Weave with weft twining. The twining nicely marks the transition from the complex 3-color weave, where 3 colors (gold, brown and red) show all at once, to plain pebble weave. In the plain pebble weave part, colors A and B (gold and brown) show on one face while colors B and C (brown and red) show on the other,Here is some progress on the piece with various versions of connected diamond motifs in pebble weave and supplementary weft.

If you look at the smaller gold motifs in supplementary weft on the right hand side of the picture you might notice a difference in their appearance to the one that sits beside the 3-color pebble weave in the first picture of my piece, above. Now they are outlined by what look like little dots. Here I used a different technique where the weft hides under just a few warp ends at the edges of the motif and then turns on the surface of the cloth to return and complete the next row of pattern. The little dots you see are the weft turns and they follow the contour of the motif.

You can see the two techniques together in this next example…

I used white supplementary weft to weave the motifs in the band of pattern across the bottom of the red sashes. You can see where the white weft exits and enters the sheds at the very edge of the cloth. Can you see the little white dots along the edge? The small flower patterns were woven using the other technique I described where the turns of the supplementary weft outline each motif. See how the little flower heads are surrounded by white dots.

For me, each technique has its charm and its place.

You can barely see the weft turns in this fine silk piece. They outline the star motifs. In this case, I didn’t want to carry the gold supplementary weft all the way to the edges of the cloth within the shed as I felt the silk piece would be too heavy with all that additional weft thread in each shed.

For me, the outlining technique works best around regular shapes with smooth sides, like triangles and diamonds. I like weaving leaves and curling vines with supplementary weft but those kind of very irregular shapes look much nicer if the weft is carried all the way to the edge of the cloth and turned there.

That’s what I did on this piece with its leaf motif. You can see the turns of the white weft along the edge of the cloth.

The regular shapes on this piece work well with the turns of the weft outlining the motifs.

Because the motifs in this piece are irregular in shape, the supplementary weft travels from edge to edge where it exits one shed ready to enter the next. You can probably just make out the dots of weft along the edge. On the small sample band on the right, I didn’t take the supplementary weft all the way to the edge. I stopped just before the edge at the beige vertical stripe and turned the weft there to camouflage the turns within the stripe.

As I said, each technique has its charm and its place. The dots of the weft turns on the edges of the cloth can sometimes look like beads and look very attractive. However, that technique tends to thicken the cloth as the supplementary weft is sandwiched, along with the main weft, within every shed.

But, there are times when that kind of bulk is exactly what I want; for example, when I am making a bookmark or a key fob with very fine cotton. I like the way the fine cotton allows me to create patterns with a lot of detail in a small space and I also like the way the supplementary weft, which is sandwiched between the warp layers, gives the cloth more substance. The band needs a bit of sturdiness to perform well as a key fob.

If I am weaving a plain-weave piece in fine silk, I don’t want to lose the luscious liquid drape of the cloth by having lots of additional weft stuffed in the sheds. I will choose, in that case, to turn my supplementary weft as close to the motif as possible. This means that I have to think carefully about designing the kind of motif that suits this technique…preferably something regular and smooth-sided.

Almost halfway and ready for the dancing diamonds. — Here I am almost halfway through this silk piece and ready for the dancing diamonds in the center.

The folds in the cloth give glimpses of different parts of the patterns. I used red here and there to tie in with the third color in the 3-color pattern at the start.

Connected! I am feeling particularly connected to weaving friends around the world this week as my new dvd starts to arrive in various parts of the USA, Canada, Thailand, Australia, England, Germany and South Africa, Thank you all so much for your support! The dvd or streamed option can be found at Taproot Video. Thank you for the encouraging comments on last week’s post.

I didn’t get to see the actual disc in its nice case as I had to return to Bolivia immediately after filming. I was able to participate in as much editing as was possible in the evenings after filming but I have not yet seen the final cut with my chapter title pictures, music and various other details added.

When I returned to Bolivia, I designed the artwork for the disc and case, took the title pictures and chose the opening, closing and transition music. I sent the artwork off for printing and the music for editing. I love the rhythm of that music! Sometimes I feel my warp is jiggling and dancing along to that rhythm as I weave plain weave….strumming, opening a shed, beating, passing weft… sometimes accompanied by the clacking of sticks. And, you will learn when you watch the video that moving your body is a big part of creating a smooth and rhythmical sequence.

Mary was sweet and sent me a picture of the dvd in its case when it arrived in her home…

I hope you will indulge me as I link to some of the comments I have been receiving. I really appreciate the efforts people have made to give me feedback.

Videographer, Rainer Romatka, had all angles covered so that you often feel like you are seeing things through my eyes…

I sat right under the tripod and was careful not to move my head forwr=ard or bump the tripod as Rainer captured the ''weaver's view''. — For one sequence, I sat right under the tripod and had to be careful not to move my head forward or bump the tripod as Rainer captured the ”weaver’s view”.

A nice close-up showing how I handle the weft for neat edges in warp-faced weaving.

Connected! I also felt connected once again to the highland weavers I visited last month as I received some sweet snail mail from them. I posted about that visit to the highlands and the time spent with the weavers here and here.

Veronica, Abi, Nelva, Maxima, Dorinda and Justina made Thank-you cards and sent them along. They are really lovely.

Veronica with her hook pattern band almost finished. — Veronica was very pleased with her progress on the hook pattern band on the first day.

Vero and Abi drawing their Thank You cards in Dorinda's lovely garden — Vero and Abi drawing their Thank-you cards in Dorinda’s lovely garden.

Here are two of the cards posed on a couple of the beautiful woven bands made by some of the weavers I met. Maxima and I are winding a warp together in the drawing on the left and then I am shown weaving on the leaning vertical loom in the other (a blob of dark hair! against the yellow wall). Dorinda is shown drinking tea on the stoop and strolling in her garden….sweet!

I LOVE all the tones of cochineal in this band. This card is from Dorinda and Justina.

These are cards from Nelva and Maxima on more of the beautiful woven cloth.

A closer loom at those stunning natural dye colors…

Now I just need to repeat everything I have done so far on the other half of my silk piece. I can’t wait to do the wet finishing and feel it relax and ooze into supple silkiness.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial on supplementary-weft patterning. Many of you will already know it but it might be a nice reminder to give that technique a try.

I will leave you with the drawing 12-year old Nelva sent to me. What fun!. She even drew the patterns on my belt. I am holding the sample band that I wove and left for them.

Backstrap Weaving – Those Other Techniques

This month the winners of the annual weaving competiton run by the CTTC (Centro de Textiles Tradicionales, Cusco) were announced and the weavers were awarded. Many pictures of the evaluation of the textiles and the prize-giving ceremony were posted to the CTTC’s Facebook page. Although it isn’t clear to me which group was the overall winner, there is a wonderful array of pictures of the gorgeous textiles and their proud creators on the page. In the CTTC’s next newsletter we are bound to be told which textiles were judged to be best.

This year’s competition was based on four challenges….

1. The creation of a knotted four-cornered hat based on those made in pre-Incan times (you can download a free e-book on these hats here).

Here is an extract from page 10 of the book with a basic description of the techniques employed…

Almost all four–cornered hats are made with larkshead knots, variously manipulated for texture and color change.
A major distinction can be made between plush hats, patterned with supplementary pile yarns caught into the knotted foundation, and knotted hats without pile.

This intriguing video from Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino shows how the hats are constructed.

Here is a translation of the text that accompanies the video…

The four-cornered hat is constructed from the crown, with a ring formed from the first series of knotted loops. The knots are continued in a spiral pattern, with additional knots added on the diagonals to achieve the square shape of the hat. To make the sides of the hat, more knots are added at different intervals, depending on the shape and type of hat design: The knots are added in a spiral pattern if the hat is a single color, or in sections if more than one color is being used. The lower edge of the hat is finished off with a final row of knots. The “points” on the top of the hat are made separately. The relief designs on monochrome and bichrome hats are achieved by combining “front” and “back” faces of the knot, according to the motif desired. In contrast, the designs on polychrome hats are made using up to nine different colors of yarn, with the knots always tied in the same direction and grouped by motifs or color fields.

2. The creation of pieces inspired by Incan cloaks worn by the ñustas (Incan princesses)

Image of a late 18th century painting from the Museo Inka in Cusco provided by CTTC.

3. Double-weave belts.

4. Tapestry.

A weaver from Pitumarca taht I watched at Tinkuy 2010 creating a taspestry using a backstrap loom. — A weaver from Pitumarca that I watched at work during Tinkuy 2010 creating a tapestry using a backstrap loom.

The following pictures are from the CTTC’s Facebook page and are used with their kind permission.

Here is one of the tapestries spread out on the floor during the evaluation process. I don’t envy them that job! Every piece must have looked amazing.

In this piece, you can clearly see the squares of woven fabric that were pieced together to form the large textile. I am assuming that, as in the competitions in previous years, the weavers were challenged to create 30 x 30cm squares and combine them to create one large piece. That reminds me of the interesting and emotional presentation at Tinkuy 2010 that I attended where weavers from the various communities talked about their experience with these competitions…the difficulties as well as the advantages involved in working as team, the pain of rejection of pieces that didn’t quite fit or meet the standards, the enormous amount of time involved with planning and agreeing on designs that would suit the year’s themes, and the rewards and benefits of participating in these events.

One such rejected square (see below) from the 2010 competition made it into the hands and home of my friend Virginia. I am sure that the pieces that don’t make it into the final work do not get tossed by the weaver or forgotten in a box under the bed. They stand alone as beautiful pieces of work even of they don’t fit within the whole.

What an experience it must have been to be seated within that courtyard surrounded by those amazing pieces of work and their proud creators.

Here are some of the four-cornered hats displayed for evaluation.

An award winner in what could be the Inca cloak section judging by the image on his certificate.

I am assuming that these are some of the fajas from the double-weave section.

I will leave you to look at all the other pictures in the album on the CTTC’s Facebook page.

This is the first year’s competition (that I am aware of in my brief experience with them) where different techniques have been highlighted….tapestry, double weave and the knotting technique used in the four-cornered hats.

This made me think about my own future projects and the possibilty of basing my next wall hangings on some of the non-weaving techniques that I have learned or observed as well as techniques that involve not only warp-faced pick-up. I suppose my latest ikat project has been a good start towards that.

As you can see, there are two versions on the go. Long story short…I got some black cold water dye from a one-time unexpected source and was able to unwrap and weave the larger motif.

I am loving the way this looks with that bit of red in the background as I think about the red panels that will accompany it. I haven’t decide which of the two ikat pieces will eventually be used. It will most likely be the one that came out more brilliantly white.

As for other non warp-faced pick-up techniques that I might use in future wall hangings, I ran across this piece of fabric that I bought from an alpargata-maker in Ecuador. This shaped piece, which is created around a mold, forms the cover for the front part of the foot.

When I originally posted on this blog about these alpargatas that are used by mostly older men in Otavalo, Ecuador, it was suggested by a reader that the technique used to create the fabric might be called ply-split darning. I spent a day with an alpargata artisan and watched how he created the fabric. I wouldn’t mind trying to include the technique somehow in a wall hanging. I love the textured white-on-white pattern and I could perhaps use in the red side panels that accompany some other kind of technique from Ecuador.

Another technique that is begging to be explored further is soumak and my greatest inspiration for that has come from Julia Miryam Chavah. I haven’t seen soumak in use here in South America and have no idea if, in fact, it is practiced here. Miryam frequently posts her projects online. I have watched in admiration and wonder as her skills have grown over the years and she attributes it to a humble little booklet (and a lot of hard work and determination, I am sure) that I managed to buy on a recent US trip…

Here is a piece called Double Happiness that she recently posted…

First, a nice close-up of the structure…

The work in progress…

And, the finished piece…..

Wow!

I confess that I have never been quite clear about what exactly soumak is. Fortunately I have some books to guide me (and Julia’s work to inspire me)…

Jean Wilson in her Soumak Workbook describes soumak as a method of wrapping weft around warp. It is worked on a closed shed. The wefts do not pass through a shed.

However, I have also seen techniques described as soumak in books where the weft is supplemental, that is, a separate ground weft is used to create fabric and another patterning weft creates the soumak. In her book Woven Treasures, Sara Lamb teaches to create soumak using a supplemental weft. Another foundation weft is used to create a ground fabric.

Marla Mallett’s book, Woven Structures, has a section on soumak in which she indicates that reinforcing ground wefts are sometimes used but she says that “the thin ground weft hidden in most allover soumak fabrics exists merely to reinforce the wrapped construction.”

Peter Collingwood in The Techniques of Rug Weaving describes soumak with two wefts…

“One is the gound weft which weaves with the warp to make a normal weft-face structure, the other is the soumak weft which crosses the warp at intervals, wrapping round its ends, more in the manner of an embroidery stitch than of weaving.”

He also writes that the technique can be carried out on a warp-face plain weave background.

It seems to be, in that case, that the upper form of patterning on the sampler above, that I studied in Guatemala, could in fact be called soumak. The supplemental wefts follow the path described and diagrammed in my books. (I would be happy if a reader were to enlighten me further!) There is a warp-faced ground cloth beneath the colored patterning wefts. I think that this would be the technique I would explore further on a backstrap loom because it is something with whichI have had experience in my travels in Guatemala.

And then, there are the sling braids and edgings that I studied in Peru way back in 1997. I would love to somehow incorporate those in the sets of wall hangings I hope to create.

To pick-up or not to pick-up…all kinds of beautiful things can be created on a backstrap loom. Gwen just finished this plain-weave guitar strap for her husband using variegated Plymouth Yarn Fantasy Naturale. It’s only her second project and it is gorgeous. The hardware for the strap is from ASpinnerweaver’s Etsy store.

Julia is doing pick-up and is practicing designs that are charted in my second book that require all pick-up (that is, they are not semi loom-controlled as the Andean Pebble Weave ones are). This one is a sample and I know that she is already on to bigger things using colors with higher contrast.

Jane wove with me once and then joined the Weave Wide/Weave Fine challenge group this last spring. Here is her finished project. She made a backstrap using all pick-up to create the central motif. Jane is totally at home with this and I can’t wait to see what she creates next.

Ahem…as I was typing that last line, Jane was already posting the next project…a camera strap…

How cool is that? The interlocking design is one that I adapted from tablet-weaving by Louise Ström and charted for Andean Pebble Weave in my second book. For this project, Jane would have used two sets of string heddles which makes the technique partly loom-controlled. She’s also good at charting patterns from pictures and textiles. A photo of a textile with the cute bear motif appears in Nilda Callañaupa’s book on Traditional Textiles of Chinchero.

I am ablaze with ideas for more wall hangings and have another ikat idea brewing, if I dare…just when it is time to put down the loom and start winding warps. Actually, it is the warp-winding that starts the ideas flowing. It gives me lots of time to think and ponder and, as my warping board is on a table in front of a wall of books, there are plenty of reasons to pause and start leafing through pages.

For now, I will get in a bit of weaving time at the loom, wind some warps, sketch and dream.

Mexico has been working its way into my life recently. I will show you some of things that have been coming my way next time.