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Backstrap Weaving – East and West

EAST AND WEST: THE EASTERN CHAPTER

The problem with not blogging…stuff builds up!! But not as much stuff as you might think this time.

Not blogging indicates that I have been way too busy having too much fun.

But that also means that I haven’t been able to take as many pictures as I would have liked. Can you believe it? There I am with camera in hand ready to shoot anything that moves but, on this trip, I have been moving too much to keep up.

Fortunately people have sent me pictures and allowed me to use theirs. The one above was taken by Marge on a visit. I am modeling the Bhutanese inspired scarf that I wove recently using supplementary wefts to create the patterns.

EAST AND WEST…the title of this post.

This refers to the fact that I started “back east”, as people in here on the west coast say, in Pennsylvania and then headed over to the west coast, or the “wet” coast, as some people say, to Washington and now, California.

It also refers to the flow of wonderful eastern textiles that has occurred during this trip into my western hemisphere area of study…textiles from Timor, Laos and Indonesia as well as Central Asia. I have pictures of amazing textiles to show. They have me thinking about tripping off to Asia when next I visit Australia but, every time I think about that, one word pops into my head

:MEXICO:

and I realize that there is a lifetime’s worth of things yet to be seen on this side of the world.

Above is a picture of a backstrap-woven ikat (yes! that’s ikat) piece from Indonesia, a shoulder scarf from Batuisi, West Sulawesi from friend Judith’s collection. That is just a wee tease and hint of things to come in my next post.

So, here I am in a west coast heat wave on my backstrap weaving friend Janet’s berry farm…

Blueberries! Lovely to be out picking in the cool of the morning. Yes, those are strawberries on top of that pizza. That was brought to the recipe competition by a neighbor who attended the annual Strawberry Jam party that Janet and husband Larry throw. I arrived just in time for that. As you can imagine, there was lots of strawberry based foods and lots of jamming by local musicians. But… more about all that in the next post.

For now, let’s stay EAST.

It all started at the Mannings in Pennsylvania with their annual Spinning Seminar…the 45th one, no less!! I have been to the Mannings in the spring….ah, idyllic!

and in the fall….

woven inside and outside on the beautiful lawn down by the creek…

Here was a first…a chance to set up my backstrap loom in a shady spot down by the creek on a lovely summer’s day and just hang out chatting with people.

Ravelry and Weavolution friends dropped by. I have known Trisha, aka Coolsticks, from the early days of Weavolution back in 2009 and we finally got to meet…

There is Trisha on the left with guild buddy April .

Down by the creek things were pretty laid back! I had lots of time to spend with people.

That’s Amanda having a go at the basics of backstrap loom operation on a narrow band. The tree was adorned with straps and bands and one of my wide projects. Several people could be weaving with warps extended spoke-like from the tree. l liked over-hearing hushed comments while I wove on the big warp…”she isn’t using a chart!” (I smile thinking how I have woven items with that particular motif at least 50 times and goodness knows how many repeats of it there are in this one piece I am currently weaving!) And then there was…”Oh. So, it’s slooooow!”

Spinners set up camp, grabbing shady spots by the cool water to enjoy a day of spinning and conversation.

And for those who wanted to be in the heart of all the action, there was room to park a whole gaggle of wheels on the shaded front porch of the Mannings store.

And, at his point, I am going to hand over to the pictures of Pinar Miski who got to visit almost everybody and took the most wonderful pictures. She has allowed me to share them here. It was late in the day when I finally managed to make my way uphill to the shop to see what was going on. Shadows were long over the outdoor demo area at that hour and the crowds had thinned in the dying day. My pictures didn’t come out well. So, thank you, Pinar for sharing your shots!

Things were anything but laid back up at the store…happy shopping and browsing in yarn paradise. Pinar subtitled her photo album …”and then I died and went to heaven”! I think that says it all.

But, apart from the shopping, there were oodles of things to be touched, explored, and experienced with a wonderful selection of fiber artists and educators both indoors and out. I demand a do-over! I didn’t get a chance to see much of it!! But, I was having a lot of fun chatting with people about my passion…the backstrap loom.

It all starts with fiber. There was this…

Ron Bostek demonstrated sheep shearing. He brought Border Leicester and Cormo sheep to the Seminar.

Here is cotton spinner and teacher (and my fun roommate), Joan Ruane, showing one of many implements with which she spins cotton with ease. For me, who goes to the store to buy cotton for my backstrap weaving, Joan’s comment when she saw me at work at my loom was pretty funny…”oh my god, it’s WORSE than tapestry!”…a comment on the slowness of my weaving. And there she is patiently creating cotton thread!

Yet another fiber on display ..Mandi Elliott Bird used antique tools to show how to process flax to the point where it can be spun.

Ron Tyler spun wool on a Great Wheel or, Walking Wheel, hoping to encourage people to take the beautiful inherited piece that may be sitting and simply decorating a corner of a room and actually use it.

One of my neighbors creek-side was Carol Ireland with her hip spindle.

This table was a-buzzin’ at day’s end when I went for my walk. It seemed that folks were invited to grab a bit of this and that and create their own batt. That looked like lots of fun. It was Sally Jenkins who demonstrated fiber blending with drum carders.

And boy, does this look like fun. I bet there were people jostling to get a position for this…

I am copying and pasting the description from the Mannings’s newsletter for this one…

Tartan, Tweeds & Waulking the Wool – When wool tweed or blanketing comes off the loom, it is not yet ready to use. The traditional Scottish method of finishing woolen cloth was a social occasion involving a group of neighbors, a large table and probably a little whiskey! The cloth was wetted and passed from hand to hand in a thumping rhythm kept going by suitable songs. We will skip the whiskey at our wool waulking but have lots of songs! Melissa Weaver Dunning will also have a display of her many woven tartans and tweeds.

Apparently it takes three songs to finish the process. Here is inspection time after the first song…

Again, Pinar captures a great moment!

Ah, now here is something a little closer to my heart. Susan Weaver brought along a large selection of tape looms on which she encouraged people to weave. I believe that all the tape looms for sale in the Mannings store went home with new owners that day. Susan and I know each other. She wove with me a while ago and lent me a Mexican band to study from her collection. So, I was eager to connect with her to catch up and return the band.

Mushroom dyeing! Hmmm…wondering what kind of aroma is coming from that pot. This is fascinating. Who knew that you could get such a range of colors from mushrooms and now I know that someone who studies mushrooms is called a mycologist. Susan Hopkins’s interest expanded from mushroom identification to dyeing.

Look at the colors…

Susan’s face says it all…she’s passionate about dyeing with mushrooms. Check out her t-shirt.

Anne Marie Decker was probably not around at the particular moment when Pinar went by. As Pinar says in her album caption, she still doesn’t know what nalbinding is, and neither do I! I have to say that it looks like something I would enjoy.

Indoors, Ron Woolcock gathered spinners to tell them how to keep their wheels happy and there was a display of the stages of silk production and processing. Thanks again, Pinar for the use of your pictures! Take a look at the entire album here. Pinar’s concise captions are fun.

One day to rest, and then my Ravelry friend, Julia, came by to weave and sew..

We wove a lot!. I was starting to crash by 4pm with all the things we got into. It’s so much fun putting those finishing touches on things!

We wove tubular bands, sewed and wove tubular bands to edges, sewed coiled stitches, edged and lined pieces with decorative stitches, warped for more bands….phew!

But, rather than get into all that now that she is home, Julia has been practicing the supplementary-weft inlay techniques which I show in tutorials on this blog.

Here are a couple of her projects…

The butterfly is one that I charted from an inlay motif on a Huave weaving of Mexico. The pattern on the right is one that I adapted from a motif woven with weft substtution, if I remember correctly, on a textile of Central Asia. I think that it is charted here on my blog. Loving the soothing colors Julia used.

Caroline also used weft inlay techniques to decorate her backstrap. I love how people are taking to this technique!

I adapted this particular motif from one on an Indonesian piece of fabric. The backstrap itself is beautifully woven and put together!

More fun weaving with friends that I have met online…Bands got finished with ends braided and all. Here’s Kathy practicing the four-strand braid on her warp ends.

If you have been following my blog, you will know about my recent experiments with weft inlay where I have been filling negative spaces with weft to outline patterns in the ground cloth. Some of the weavers were keen to try this. Another fun thing was combining strands of different colors for the supplementary weft which created interesting effects. Kathy and Bettes put together blues and other jewel-like colors while Nancy put together a very festive, sunny Mexican type of combination.

Marge came over for a day to weave and try a bit of double weave on her inklette and a touch of intermesh on the backstrap loom…

She brought her band box to show some of the things that she has been weaving on her inkle loom…straps for her musician friends. She plays in a band called Tater Patch and gave me a cd!

There’s the double weave band that we started on the inklette next to a nice knot-work pattern in pebble weave. And then we did a wee bit of intermesh.

Marge went home to finish that double weave sampler with some of her own designs. Guess what instrument she plays in Tater Patch?!

Meanwhile over in Tom Knisely’s Mannings teaching studio, there was lots of overshot loveliness coming off the looms. Here are a few examples. It is nice to be able to stay on the premises and get to see the weavers working late at night on these pieces.

Speaking of Tom, he gave me a wee gifty. You may have seen this before on this blog. Tom showed me this on one of my visits last year and has now decided that it really needs to belong to me :-)!!

More Ravelry group projects to show…

Cindy tried out the “palma” braid…nice job!

I finally got to meet Cindy on this trip. More about that next time…that’s a “west side story”.

Laura has been practicing pebble weave…

I love the color flips and how she has joined the three single motifs into one long continuous one.

And just to finish and lead into Chapter 2: “West Side Story”, which is largely based on the ANWG conference in Bellingham, Washington followed by fun with my friend Betty at her home in WA and then with my friend Janet in northern CA, let me show you the weavings that I submitted to one of the conference exhibits.

This series is a work in progress. I have many more panels in mind to add. It is entitled “Textile Trails” and each has its little “traily” story to tell. It won the Committee’s Choice Award at the conference. I was thrilled! Thank you to Linda for taking this picture. The beautiful black wooden hangers were made by Terri of Magical Moons. Terri makes the custom swords and other implements that I often show on my blog. By the way, she is making spindles now. They look exquisite.

The fact that I am wearing a black top and a red jacket is just a happy coincidence, I swear!

Here’s the lovely handwoven ribbon…

See you next week. I am back on top of the blogging now…I hope!

Backstrap Weaving – Encuentro de Tejedores de las Americas – Part Three…and more….

Before I get into Part 3 of my report on the Encuentro de Tejedores de las Americas (see Part 1 and Part 2 here and here), let me show you how I have been getting on with my latest experiment with supplementary-weft patterns.

You may remember from last week’s post that I was inspired by seeing textiles from Bhutan with their gorgeous motifs created by using supplementary wefts.

I was happy to see that I could decorate my own woven cloth with similar patterns using techniques that I had learned in Guatemala.

At left is the sampler I made to practice the techniques and experiment with the spacing of the pattern warps. I had some fine cotton from Guatemala that my friend Betty had bought about 30 years ago. How nice that this cotton could finally find its purpose.

The black cotton disintegrated as soon as I pulled it out of the closet. I guess that there is something in the black dye that causes the yarn to rot quickly. The other colors…red, green and purple….were just fine and, fortunately, there was plenty of white to dye black. I had my heart set on a black scarf.

There were a lot of ends to wind to make 7 inches…672!!

The cotton is kind of sticky and I can see why Guatemalan weavers very often choose to size their yarn with a kind of corn starch wash.

I am using it as is and need to be very gentle. I broke one warp before even getting started and my heart sank but it turns out that it was due to my clumsy handling of the pick-up stick…phew! No more breaks so far but there is still a looooong way to go.

Of course I made a wee sample before diving in to see how many ends I would need to make an inch. I also needed to test the ideal number of strands of tencel to use for the weft patterns.

In the picture you can see my tiny warp with its string heddles and shed loop . The two sticks are the pattern sticks that I talked about in my last post. Of course, the yarn was already showing signs of stickiness even on this tiny project but I decided to go ahead undaunted 🙂

Sample done…width calculations made. Now, how long should a scarf be? Seems like a silly question, but I have never made a scarf before. Fortunately, I do own just ONE. After all those years spent skiing and then living in Patagonia you would think that I would be more scarf-wise.

There is the warp and I am ready to make the 336 string heddles. I like making heddles…time to put on a cd and sing! and I didn’t cross or double up any warps…phew!

I have lots of pictures that I have taken of Bhutanese textiles in friends’ collections for inspiration and David K Barker’s books are wonderful too. (See my RESOURCES page for information on how to download his books for free.) However, I decided to play it safe to start with and weave one of the patterns that I had already tested on my sampler.

So, I sat down to weave and that is when it hit me…wow, this yarn is really FINE….and….it’s black! All the clues that I usually use to make the pick-up easier for supplementary-weft patterning are dependent on actually being able to see the threads!!

Boy, had I made things hard for myself but, believe it or not, I got used to it and came up with other ways to eyeball the placement of the patterns without having to become a slave to pattern charts and endless counting. It became a very cool learning experience and, as with all things new and experimental, much un-weaving was done and all with my heart in my mouth as I don’t think that this yarn will take much “backing and forthing”!

Here is the first pattern under way. I placed several thin pieces of cardboard in alternate sheds in the warp beyond the cross sticks. This gave me a place to make quick adjustments to loose warps within arm’s reach and with the warp under tension rather than having to get out of my backstrap and crawl up to the end of the loom.

Sometimes you don’t get to choose when to weave. I would come back in from a break to find Her Highness reclining in what was, apparently, the most comfortable spot in the house. Would you dare disturb someone with a look like that on their face? You can see the next set of patterns in progress here.

And this is where it stands for now. I am just getting past the first warp break and have my fingers crossed that there won’t be more. I watched a gentleman from Chahuaytire weaving on his backstrap loom when I was in Cusco. A warp broke and I loved the calm and cool way he went about fixing it like he had done it hundreds of times before (well, of course, he probably had). He didn’t need to have anyone tensioning the warp while he leaned forward to fix the break. That is the part I find hardest.

Be prepared to see a lot more of this project in the weeks to come. Unless, of course, those warps start a- snapping, and then you will most likely see it finished really soon as a zippered pouch or journal cover!

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ENCUENTRO DE TEJEDORES DE LAS AMERICAS – PART THREE – SPINNERS AND WEAVERS IN ACTION

The Encuentro…it was over two months ago now and I am finding it hard to sum up here but I will try!

It was about yarn being created with the simplest tools…

Handspun cotton by the Matsigenka weavers of the Amazonian region of Bajo Urubamba, Peru — Fine and incredibly even handspun cotton by the Matsigenka weavers of the Amazonian region of Bajo Urubamba, Peru

The "malacate", spindle used in Mexico to spin silk with its horn whorl. — The spindle known as “malacate” used in Oaxaca, Mexico to spin silk. Its whorl is made of horn.

The traditional "sig sig" spindle of Salasaca, Ecuador made from pampas grass. — The traditional “sig sig” spindle of Salasaca, Ecuador made from pampas grass stems. A small piece of thin solid stem is inserted into the soft interior of the large stem section to suspend the wool yarn as it is spun.

A spinner from Chiclayo, Peru showed me how she spins the natural brown cotton that is cultivated in the region. She told me that a heavy stone is usually placed on top of the cotton as she draws out the fiber to be spun. Not having one handy, she used the bottle of water that you see in the video. The spindle whorl is a piece of avocado seed.

It was about sticks…lots of sticks!

Sticks used by the weavers of Bajo Urubamba to create their warp-float patterns.

Twenty-four heddle sticks are used to weave the traditional pattern on the "faja sara" of San Ignacio de Loyola. — Multiple heddle sticks are used to weave the traditional pattern on the “faja sara” of San Ignacio de Loyola.

It was about threads being strung together in a stunning display of color and texture…

An ikat warp ready to be woven into the traditional shawl of Tacabamba, Peru. The ties on the sections of threads were the only means I could see to keep the threads aligned for the ikat patterns.

Threads are stretched on the typical leaning vertical loom of Tarabuco, Bolivia. Multi-colored figures depicting ceremonies and scenes of daily life in the community will sit on a white mesh-like background. The colored threads are generally thicker than the white ones which gives the figures relief.

The backstrap loom with its cotton warp from Chiclayo, Peru. A single-faced cloth decorated with warp-float patterns is created.

Bunches of string heddles control the colored layers of warps on the horizontal loom of Taquile Island, Peru — Small bunches of string heddles control the colored layers of warps on the horizontal loom of Taquile Island, Peru.

A floor loom holds the warp on which a weaver from Ayacucho, Peru will create a beautiful tapestry. — A floor loom holds the warp on which a weaver from Ayacucho, Peru is creating a beautiful tapestry.

And it was about the wonderful hands and spirits of the talented craftspeople and artists who use sticks and fiber to create beautiful cloth….such an amazing variety of people from across the Americas!

Weaver Natividad Machaca Quispe of Taquile Island, Peru creates a sash with bands of warp-faced double weave motifs and complementary-warp patterns. — Weaver, Natividad, of Taquile Island, Peru creates a sash with bands of warp-faced double weave motifs and complementary-warp patterns. This piece had six bands of pick-up patterns.

A weaver of panones of Tacabamba, Peru, puts the finshing touch on hher woven ikat shawl by knotting an intricate pattern into the the fringe. — A weaver of Tacabamba, Peru, puts the finshing touch on her woven ikat shawl by knotting an intricate pattern into the fringe.

Here is a short video of Nila at work knotting the fringe of her woven ikat pañon…

And what about that belt loom with its twenty-four sets of string heddles? Araceli shows us how it is done…

A Matsigenka weaver from tropical lowland Peru creates warp-float patterns in cotton on her backstrap loom.

A woven tubular band in progress...putting the finishing touch on a woven piece from Pitumarca, Peru. — A woven tubular band in progress…putting the finishing touch on a woven piece from Pitumarca, Peru. The tubular band had been set up with three sets of string heddles and a shed loop and, therefore, did not require any pick-up.

And cloth comes off the loom and comes to life when draped around shoulders…

and wrapped around waists and heads…

Diana from Guatemala, pictured above, wore this spectacular fine, ikat-patterned corte, or skirt…

There was time to watch and chat and share….

Time to look and learn from Navajo weavers and spinners and an alpaca fiber weaver from Tanta, Peru…

Time to sit or stand and ponder…

Time to listen to weavers talk about their communities and textile traditions and meet new leaders in the field of textile research…

Bolivian Elvira Espejo shows the two most recent books she has written with British/ Bolivian Denise Arnold on weaving in the Andes. Representatives of the textile community on Taquile Island, Peru spoke about weaving and knitting traditions and the 547 families that are part of their textile co-operative which had begun in 1971 with only 7 families. Taquile Island has become an enormously popular tourist spot over the years. One point which created a bit of fun was their comment that "Taquile fashion" was being worn and loved around the world despite the fact that it was not appreciated in their own country of Peru. "Taquile fashion" then became one of the catch phrases of the conference and made us all smile. — Bolivian Elvira Espejo shows the two most recent books she has written with British/ Bolivian Denise Arnold on weaving in the Andes. Representatives of the textile community on Taquile Island, Peru spoke about weaving and knitting traditions and the 547 families that are part of their textile co-operative which had begun in 1971 with only 7 families. Taquile Island has become an enormously popular tourist spot over the years. One point which created a bit of fun was their response to a question about how they felt when a hat that was created to be worn by a high-ranking official was bought and worn by a tourist completely out of context. They said laughingly that they were proud that “Taquile fashion” was being worn and loved around the world despite the fact that it was not appreciated in their own country of Peru. “Taquile fashion” then became one of the catch phrases of the conference and made us all smile.

And time to just stand in complete awe…time and time again!

A weaving of the Jalq'a people of Potolo, Bolivia. — A weaving of the Jalq’a people of Potolo, Bolivia depicting *Ukhu Pacha*, the underworld, with its *khuru* figures.

Well, I hope that this gives you just a taste of what the week of ETAM was like. Thank you Maria Elena del Solar, Paula Trevisan and Luis Masa for organizing this event. And thank you Mara Elena for pushing me to go when I was dithering over the cost of getting there. It was the best birthday gift to myself ever!

Thank you Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco for the fabulous exhibit of textiles from your nine member communities that you organized in the Convention Center to coincide with this event and for providing outstanding teachers for the workshops.

As for Elvira Espejo and Denise Arnold’s books about which I know you will be curious, I have to find out if they are available in English and from where…stay tuned.

Of course, you do know that the CTTC is having its second Tinkuy this coming year, don’t you?! 🙂 Are you coming?

Backstrap Weaving – Encuentro de Tejedores de las Americas – Part Two – the cloth and the looms.

Read Part One of this story here.

ARE YOU GOING TO WEAVE TODAY?

I probably make a thorough nuisance of myself at weaving events like the Encuentro de Tejedores in Cusco Peru earlier this month. I have so many questions and want to be into everything and not miss a thing.

conference venue ETAM 2012 — Calm and serene despite being in the very heart of the city of Cusco, the venue for the conference was beautiful both by day and night. There were plenty of pillars to which looms could be attached for weaving displays and shaded areas under the arches where weavers could show their textiles.

Bright and early on day one, I registered along with other participants. The receptionists, looking smart in their uniforms with colored conference scarves and headbands, were efficient and clearly trained to be able to handle anything. The whole process was very slick and it was interesting to hear all the different Spanish accents and Quechua being spoken in the line-up of participants from all over Peru and South America. I recognized fondly the accent from Chile where I lived for five years as well as the song of the Argentinean-style of speaking used by my ex-boyfriend and the special way that Bolivian highlanders pronounce “rr”.

I then stepped outside to the courtyard to another world…a buzz of colorful activity… where I watched all the stands being assembled by weavers from all over Peru, Bolivia and Latin America, saw all the marvelous textiles emerging from travel sacks and being arranged and labeled, touched the fiber, tools and implements which were used to create the colorful cloth and spoke with the creators themselves. Some of them seemed somewhat overwhelmed by the high level of interest in and admiration for activities that are quite normal and commonplace, almost passing without remark, in the communities, villages and towns where they live.

Taquile Island and Tacabamba — Weavers and knitters from Taquile Island wearing and displaying their textiles and the creators of the wonderful ikat pañones of Tacabamba, Peru

The question that I really wanted to ask everyone right there and then is “Are you going to weave today?” Is today the day when we will get to sit by you and see how you created all these exquisite textiles? And all the while the excitement is building as I see more and more gorgeous textiles and looms being extracted and arranged. I had already seen at least ten things that I wanted to explore further after having passed just once quickly by each of the twenty-two half-erected stands.

Navajo Nation and San Ignacio de Loyola — Weavers and spinners from the Navajo Nation, my friend from the Tinkuy, DY, and TahNibaa and Albina from San Ignacio de Loyola showing the crocheted “chullos” and the belt loom full of sticks which is typical of her community.

Chol Chol foundation and Matsigenka — The Chol Chol Foundation of Chile was present bringing with them textiles made by the Mapuche weavers that they support including a spectacular ikat- patterned “manta cacique”. Lowland areas of Peru were also well represented with a group of Matsigenka cotton spinners and weavers from Echarate, Bajo Urubamba.

The looms!……

Looms of Taquile Island and Echarate — A horizontal loom with a broad belt patterned with double weave and complementary-warp pick-up patterns of Taquile Island and a backstrap loom with a cotton warp-float piece in progress from Echarate.

The simple backstrap loom of Tacabamba, Peru on which the indigo ikat-patterned “pañones” are woven. The process of creating a pañon is anything but simple. They are up to one-meter wide, covered with tiny motifs and have patterns knotted into their fringes.

ayacucho and tarabuco — A floor loom from Ayacucho, Peru with a tapestry in progress and the leaning vertical loom of Tarabuco, Bolivia.

Chiclayo and Santiago Atitlan — The cotton weavers of Chiclayo managed to preserve their native cotton despite the fact that its cultivation was banned for many years in Peru. The backstrap loom is used to weave their natural brown and white cotton into saddle bags, belts and table ware for their own use. The Guatemalan loom from Santiago Atitlan holds brocaded cotton cloth destined for the typical woman’s blouse or “huipil”. Panels are sewn together and the neckline embroidered with birds.

Wide warps, narrow warps and everything in between… A Tinkipaya weaver’s leaning vertical loom, holding fabric covered n complementary-warp pick-up patterns, rests on the ground. A weaver from Pitumarca speedily edges her finished woven lliclla with a tubular woven band using three sets of string heddles and a shed loop.

ayacucho and Tanta — A backstrap weaver from Ayacucho, Peru, creates a belt patterned with supplementary warps. She uses a forked stick to hold a secondary cross, the manipulation of which helps her to open the heddle shed quickly and efficiently. The wide backstrap loom parked against the pillar is from Tanta, Peru where handspun alpaca yarn is often combined with bright synthetic threads to make shawls, ponchos and blankets.

And then there was that tantalizing backstrap loom with its twenty-four heddle sticks…Señora Araceli, are you going to weave today?

making string heddles for faja sara — First Araceli has to make the twenty-four sets of heddles on this fresh warp. The pattern has already been picked up and saved on sticks.

Just before lunchtime one day when we were indoors listening to speakers, I got the uneasy feeling that I really needed to be somewhere. I got up and tip-toed out at the start of the morning’s final presentation by Manos del Uruguay to find Araceli seated and preparing her warp for an afternoon session of weaving.

Well, you know that I am fascinated by the entire process and so I was happy to be able to sit alone with her and watch her make her heddles. I was tickled to see that she makes her heddles with the extra security hitch just as I have chosen to do. I have seen and learned so many ways to make string heddles for backstrap and other kinds of weaving and this method is by far my current favorite. I always say “current” as who knows what cool new method I will find tomorrow.

Here is a short video clip of Araceli making her heddles. She certainly has a smooth and elegant way of doing so. I know some people don’t like making heddles and dread that part of the process…I like it!

And what about the woven cloth produced by these looms and the pieces produced by talented hands using knotting, braiding and crochet?

chullo and hatband — Head gear…Crocheted “chullo” from Peru and a woven hatband from Bolivia.

There are four countries represented here….cloth from Mapuche weavers in Chile, Salasaca, Ecuador, Taquile Island, Peru and Tinkipaya, Bolivia.

Cloth from different corners of Peru. The variety!

Of course, each piece has its story and it was those stories that we were told in the weavers’ own words in the seminar sessions that were held in the mornings and afternoons. The stories were very inspiring and educational, often with very personal touches which brought life and meaning to the fabric that simply could not be transmitted from the market stall or loom alone. All told of hope, perseverance, strengthening of ethnic identity and a revival of pride in oneself and culture and were often very moving.

The faja sara ( the one created with the twenty-four string heddles) has its own fascinating story. It is part of an unbroken weaving tradition that dates back at least 500 years to Incan times. The belt is described in the chronicles of Mercedarian Friar Martín de Murúa in 1590 A.D. and the knowledge of how to create one has been passed on ancestrally over all these years.

Lynn Meisch has written an article about her research on these belts here. We were told by the weavers that the name “sara’ comes from the verb ”sarear”, although I have never come across this verb before, which means to choose, or in a weaving context, to pick-up.

Interesting to me from a structural point of view is the rolled edge of the belts which is surprisingly easy to create. I am guessing that it serves the same purpose as the woven bands I have seen added to other textiles in that it strengthens the edge. When I was in Holland, Marijke van Epen and I followed Mirja Wark’s explanation of the rolled edge used by the Wayuu people of the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia and Venezuela and the way the weavers of the sara belts create theirs is equally as interesting and practical.

Here is Araceli in action with a band of spectators. When doubt was expressed by the onlookers about the quality of the cloth since Araceli does not use a ruki, the llama bone tool, to beat in her weft, Araceli immediately invited them all to feel the belt. They were all surprised and impressed by the firmness of the weave. It is a very dense piece of weaving.

The poncho shown above is from Catamarca Argentina and represents the recovery of the exquisitely fine work done with handspun vicuña fiber on floor looms which has the made the poncho Catamarqueño famous for centuries.

Two people weave the pieces side by side and have to coordinate the strength of their beat perfectly to maintain a consistent weave. With the fine vicuña thread a piece that measures 2 meters by 1.30 meters weighs only 320 grams and takes up to eight months to complete.

Fine vicuña shawls are also woven and embroidered using designs copied from old colonial textiles.

We had a chance one afternoon to handle and clean pieces of vicuna fiber and everyone was invited to try their hand at spinning it on the 25cm spindles.

More cloth…..

…. a bulsico , or cotton double-pocket saddle bag from San Ignacio de Loyola with beautiful patterns in simple warp floats worked in two colors. The weavers from Tarabuco and Potolo in Bolivia of course brought large fine examples of their textiles. I decided to show you here some very small and practical pieces that they also brought to sell. The tiny USB pouch is from Tarabuco and the cell phone pouch with its woven khuru figures is from Potolo.

The supplementary-warp patterned pieces in lovely pastel colors are from Ayacucho, Peru and the last shot is of an impromptu sling-braiding demonstration from one of the Peruvian presenters in the coffee break.

More lessons along the way…

Diana from Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala showed me how to wrap her hair and head with a woven hair sash. You can see that most of the band is plain red with just the last part, which will be seen on the outside, decorated with pattern. Albina’s husband showed me how married men wear the typical chullo of his home…with the flaps standing out sideways. A single man will wear his with the flaps pointing out front and back.

So, now you have seen a selection of the stands, looms and textiles and heard a few backgroud tidbits about some of the weavings and the people who produce them. You are probably dying now to see the weavers in action, right?

ARE YOU GOING TO WEAVE TODAY?

Sorry, but I am saving that segment for the next blog post as uploading the video will be so much easier for me when I am in the US.

In the meantime I am packed and ready to leave tomorrow and I did manage to finish the discontinuous warp piece that I started in the workshop on the last day of the Encuentro. Handling alpaca fiber is not a nice business in this heat with sweaty hands, I can tell you!

Here is my ticlla piece off the loom and all curled up…

The overspun alpaca yarn made the grey and black panels curl in and the other two panels curl under. You can see my finish line on the white panel. I ended up removing one weft as I had packed too many in. I really need to remove two as now I have two wefts in the same shed. The finish line isn’t as noticeable on the other panels. I am really pleased with this!

I wove and sewed on a tubular band to the edges….… in the same way as the Pitumarca weaver that I showed earlier in this post, using three sets of string heddles and a shed loop. See how nicely the piece lies flat now? I hemmed the sides before applying the tubular band because I didn’t like the way the warp stripe at the edge was interfering with the color of the tubular band.

Here’s a better look at the tubular band and that lovely dovetail join of colors…

Done! I am keen to try this all again!

See you next time from the US 🙂

Backstrap Weaving – Encuentro de Tejedores de Las Americas – Part One – The Workshop

Back from Cusco!

Bleary-eyed from the long road trip and slightly spinning out from the altitude, I had a little time to wander the streets of Cusco on the Sunday of my arrival before the start of the weavers’conference on October 1. The trip from my home to my hostel had involved fourteen changes of transport including an overnight bus ride, the highlight of which was watching the big ol’ yellow harvest moon rising over Lake Titicaca. Stunning! I don’t think I have ever seen such an intensely bright moon before.

Needless to say, there is plenty to tell about that journey and my first hours in town but it will all have to wait. Of course a trip to the CTTC (Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco) was a must. The walk down to the CTTC is impressive in itself. It sits right next to this…

This is the church of Santo Domingo built by the Spanish colonists on top of the stonework foundations of the demolished Inca temple Qorikancha. The inca stonework has apparently survived earthquakes which the Spanish construction was not able to withstand.

The CTTC is one of those strange and wonderful black holes where you lose all sense of time! I sat with the weavers all afternoon and learned so much. A weaver from Chahuaytire let me sit by and watch while she wove and sewed a tubular band to the edge of a finished weaving. You can see how a thread toward the end of the cloth extends to her toe which helps the weaver hold the cloth taut as she sews.

Eventually, fatigue started to set in and I spent a little while in the evening trying not to nod off in the pleasant flower-laden main square of Cusco before admitting defeat and crawling into bed. I had no trouble sleeping in my cheapo “party hostel” in a room with seven strangers!

But back to the present for a moment….I had fully expected to slip back into the old routine when I got back home late last Sunday. I thought that I would have no problem spending a couple of days going through and editing my pictures from The Encuentro de Tejedores de las Americas and that I would get my blog post out on Thursday night as usual. You would think that I would be bouncing around with energy with all those rich red blood cells that I must have grown during my week up at high altitude. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way! I was tired after the week of intense activity and the long road trip back and very much wilted by the Santa Cruz heat.

However, the thing that was most to blame for my failure to get back on track quickly was this…

This is one my favorite souvenirs of the trip… the piece on which I worked on the last day of the conference which was Workshop Day. The weaving technique is called ticlla, or, discontinuous warp, and it allows changes of color along the length of the warp. As you can see above, the piece is divided into panels of color along its length. The white panel changes to black and the grey to brown. Both halves of the piece, that is, the grey and white and the black and brown, will be woven with four selvedges.

It was very exciting arriving on Friday morning and seeing these sitting on the table…..and yes, I was the first one to get there!

And there were our teachers from Pitumarca sitting in conference, possibly reviewing some teaching strategies, each wearing a stunning lliclla decorated with pick-up patterns on panels of discontinuous warps. If you think that they look very young, you are right! Our two instructors, Janet and Petra are twenty-two and eighteen years old. Janet has been weaving for fourteen years and started weaving ticlla when she was twelve.

We were split into groups and Janet and Petra showed my group the warping process. This process of warping is something that I had only ever seen in pictures some of which, like the one below, had been taken and sent to me by my friend DY when she visited Pitumarca in 2010.

The pictures were enough for me to be able to make some small experiments of my own with this technique at home but there is, of course, nothing like seeing the whole thing unfold before your eyes. How much nicer and simpler it is when there are two pairs of hands at work! I warped three panels on my own at home and had to call several toes into use to hold tension on warps of one color while my two hands worked with warps in another color.

Janet, the more talkative of our two instructors, explained that the natural alpaca colors that we were using are called yoro (white), ch’umpi (brown), o’que (grey) and yana (black) in Quechua. How deftly the two ladies passed the balls of yarn back and forth falling naturally into a rhythm which they were able to maintain even as we plied them with questions.

Black and grey warp threads are being wound simultaneously with each color following its own figure-eight path. They are passed in turn around a central rod in dovetail fashion. This allows the creation of panels of different colors. Each half of the piece will have its own shed rod and set of heddles and will be woven with four selvedges.

While we watched the creation of this warp, other ladies from Pitumarca were busy setting up the prepared warps on which each of us would weave. We stood up from the demonstration to find twelve warps stretched out and ready to go.

The pretty courtyard of the convention center was conveniently surrounded by pillars to which we could attach our looms.

And now you will find that there is a sudden lack of photographs on my part…I was far too absorbed in my weaving to stop and take pictures! Here’s one I took on a short break…nearby, weavers from Chinchero were giving a workshop on making jakimas with pick-up patterns.

Above you can see a couple of jakima students with their instructor. Beyond them you can see my “pillar partner”, Marcela with the head scarf and cloak of her Mapuche people in Chile. There is something special about sitting all day and weaving next to someone who shares your passion. The preceding four days of conference had been hectic…so much to see and do. This last day allowed us all to slow down and take some time to talk and get to know each other while working at our looms. Janet had to come and pry us out of our chairs to take a lunch break.

The discontinuous warp piece had been started with a few rows of weaving at each loom bar as well as at the center cord that held the dovetailed warps. Therefore, the four selvedges on each half of the piece had been set. Our task, therefore, was to weave to fill in the gap between the loom bar and the center. As the gap got smaller and smaller, naturally it became increasingly difficult to open the sheds and pass the weft. The later part of the afternoon session of the workshop was spent watching a demonstration of how to go about creating sheds and passing the weft as the space in which to work decreased.

I have to tell you that there are no secrets or magic solutions to this…it’s simply a matter of plain old determination, tenacity and patience. When the shed rod is too big for the small space in which you are working, replace it with a thinner one. When the shuttle is too thick for the shed you are creating, pass the weft on a needle. When it is impossible to open the shed by pulling on the heddle rod, remove the heddles and rod and create the shed thread by thread with the blunt end of the needle. Save the shed on a stick and then pass two wefts…one on the each side of the gap.

Plod along like this and you will slowly but surely get there!

By the way, I was not happy at first about having to use brown weft to weave the grey and white panels as the brown could be seen slightly between the white warps. However, once I got to the needle-weaving stage I was very grateful to have that contrasting color weft as it clearly showed me under which warps I needed to pass the needle. It is much harder to see the warps for needle-picking in the grey section than in the white. I am guessing that doing the other half (the black and brown one) is going to be REALLY tough as the black will be hard to see and I won’t have the benefit of contrasting color weft in the brown section…oh boy.

Here I was at home on Monday inching my way to closing the gap. The metal rod is a long Navajo weaving tool that I have that came in very handy with its flattened shovel-like nose. It held the shed open while I passed the two wefts on the needles.When that rod became too thick for the shed, I changed to an umbrella rib. It was all guess work and experiments at this stage as Janet did not get to this point in our class. We ran out of time.

The final weft went in alone on a needle…over, under, over, under. It’s funny that I had expected the finish area to be noticeable because the wefts would not be as tightly packed as they are in the rest of the piece. As it turns out, it is exactly the opposite! I packed in too many wefts in the gap and that part is more tightly woven than the rest! Do I dare undo all that hard work and remove two wefts? I don’t think so!!

Now to attack the other side. I have high hopes of finishing this before I leave for the US next Wednesday. I want to attach a patterned tubular band around the piece.

Here is a video of Janet showing her skill with the needle as she teaches us how to go picking up the warps to create a shed…

So that was the Workshop Day. What about the rest of the conference? Oh my gosh…I have SO much to show and tell but this is enough for this first installment…my loom is calling as well as prep for my US trip. I plan to write more before I leave about….

one meter-wide backstrap woven pieces, backstrap looms with 24 heddles, gorgeous ponchos made from handspun vicuña fiber, cotton ikat-patterned shawls with intricate knotted fringes, double weave on horizontal looms, Tinkipaya weavings, cotton weavers from the lowlands dyeing their yarn with strange and amazing substances, all kinds of ways to set up and operate backstrap looms and make string heddles, tapestries from Ayacucho, new books…. and lots of weavers, wonderful weavers interacting and learning from each other! I met some of my blog followers from Chile and Argentina…what fun!

A couple of pictures to finish…I can’t resist!…a weaver and spinner from Puno, Peru shows Navajo weaver and spinner DY Begay how to spin yarn “Puno style” using DY’s Navajo spindle. This created a lot of laughter and fun…hand movements and sound effects overcame all language barriers.

After another long day, a weaver from Tinkipaya, Bolivia who uses a leaning vertical loom, contemplates the backstrap loom with its twenty-four string heddles used to weave the traditional belt of San Ignacio de Loyola, Peru. More about that next time! I wonder what she was thinking.

Backstrap Weaving – Braids 2012, Threads that Move

Braids 2012 is all over and all the British attendees must be back home now wondering what hit them. Many of the foreign visitors went off to families or packed their things into rented vans and hit the road leaving just Elizabeth Kolb of Canada, Ingrid Crickmore of the USA and myself, all of us more or less “homeless”, together here in the MMU dorms.

So, what did we do with our time alone here? Ingrid and I had a fun morning checking out the Costume Museum and the Ede festivities in a nearby park yesterday. Today we all caught up on some much needed sleep and laundry then of course, of course, what else?…we braided.

I spent this afternoon editing my pictures and wondering why I hadn’t taken a whole lot more.

This is the first big conference at which I have registered, signed up for classes and taught which meant that there really wasn’t much free time to just wander about, soak up the atmosphere and take pictures. It was up early every day to participate in a steady stream of activities. Coffee and meal breaks seemed to be spent waving the food about in the air in our hands while trying to explain a braiding or weaving move rather than actually consuming the stuff!

That is why I have decided to re-name this conference “Hands that Express”.

I was getting frustrated with my photos which had been taken indoors in low-light conditions with so much movement going on. My pictures always seemed to show two people in deep conversation with a blur of hands in front of their faces…hands that flitted and floated and turned gracefully in the air as they described their craft. Then I understood that my pictures with the blurred hands actually captured better than anything the spirit and essence of this event….expressive hands, conveying passion and ideas even when not putting threads into motion.

Too bad I only realized this after already having deleted many of the pictures!

And such interesting hands. Above we see the hands of Errol Pires Nelson of India with their built-in ply-splitting tools. He is starting off a ply-split braid for a new student in one of his many impromptu classes outside his scheduled teaching days. I, too, rely heavily on a long thumbnail as a handy tool for my backstrap weaving, especially for heddle making, but I am a bit shy to leave it long when I am out and about.

The city of Manchester was a wonderful place for this event with its fascinating role in British and world textile industry history. The MMU made a nice home for us all. I have always loved communal living and staying in the dorms took me back to my ski bum days except that we were all tucked up in bed early each night so we would have enough energy to face the full days of lectures, classes, conversation and all that hand-waving!

The little I saw of the city itself was impressive…all that brick and stone…old and new side by side with the gorgeous Palace Hotel, with its landmark clock tower pictured above, built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, standing majestically on the other side of the street from the Holiday Inn Express.

The old and new, the very old British structures and the newer items representing the British melting pot of cultures stand sometimes comfortably, sometimes clumsily and very often very colorfully side by side….the lovely old “Picture House” perched on top of the MacDonald’s…. But this is just the quick impression I got from the very little time I got to spend out and about before and after the conference.

Day one pre conference was spent settling and meeting my dorm-mates…the “naughty old British ladies” as they called themselves. We spent the first evening putting together “fill-the-gap” braiding kits which we were to use to teach braiding to visitors at the Museum of Science and Industry the following day. These humble “fill-the-gap” kits were responsible for providing a considerable part of the funding for the Braids 2012 event. Braid Society volunteers attended fiber events during the many years of planning, taught braiding and sold the little kits. Hundreds of people were introduced to this fun craft for a tiny fee which helped make Braids 2012 possible….impressive!

It was a lot of fun seeing Rosie and Sally in action at the museum. Of course they had no problem getting kids to try braiding. It was a little more difficult convincing some of the adults but Sally and Rosie obviously had a lot of experience with this and their cheeky sense of humor soon had entire families of all ages sitting and standing about completely absorbed in braiding. The kits were free at this event.

About 100 braiding kits later….we went directly to the conference opening and were welcomed by the Chairman of the Braid Society, Steve Pretty. Society President Jacqui Carey gave the keynote speech. We were then treated to a koto recital by Enokido Fuyuki who then invited us to come and try our hand at this traditional Japanese instrument. Steve Pretty is being given some playing tips below. It was a lovely way to open the event considering the large number of Japanese attendees and the many traditional Japanese braiding techniques that were being offered in the workshops.

Morning lectures included those offered by Carol James and Stacey Harvey-Brown, pictured above, on North American Braided Sashes and Northwest Archives for Research and Inspiration.

There are those expressive hands at work while Ingrid and Carol discuss techniques besides Carol’s display of beautiful finger-woven pieces.

I signed up for Anne Dyer’s class on a technique which she calls “snagging” on tablet-woven bands which has given me some cool ideas for plain-weave tubular bands that I make on my backstrap loom. I also took Robyn Spady’s class on handwoven decorative trim on an inkle loom. I was happy to have Susan Foulkes as my classmate and we were both rebels and wove on backstrap looms rather than on inkle looms. Susan used a rigid heddle and I used my usual string heddles and a shed loop.

Both instructors gave a us a run down of the technique and a multitude of inspiring samples and then let us run with it and create. It was fun to stop every now and then to take a spin about the room to see which direction the other students were taking. This was very interesting for me as the techniques I teach need to be built up in steps throughout the entire duration of the class leaving little class time for any free wheeling and experiments. Things need to be more structured. It is always so wonderful being a student again and especially in the hands of such great teachers. I get to evaluate the way my classmates and I react to the material, the pace of the instruction and the general learning atmosphere. I learn so much that I can then apply to my own teaching.

On Monday night we had the Braiders’ Bazaar. I bought nothing!

Happily, I was too busy demonstrating backstrap weaving and meeting various online weaving friends as well as talking about my first book Andean Pebble Weave. It was fun to tell an Italian attendant about the translation that has been made of the e-book to her language.

Happily, I was also able to show the front cover and also tell everyone about my follow-up book which had just gone up for sale the night before on Patternfish.com.

Later I heard about all the wonderful things that had been offered at the bazaar…books, tools, yarn and textiles including some amazing ply-split camel girths, which I did manage to photograph (see above). Ingrid and I were oblivious at our table where I was weaving a pebble weave band on my backstrap loom while she demonstrated how to do what would normally be a two-person/four-handed braid on one pair of hands.

Evenings had us gathered in our communal kitchens, showing what we had learned that day and sharing new techniques with the usual flurry of enthusiastic hand gestures….doing the techniques, talking the techniques, watching (although you weren’t allowed to get away with just watching for too long!), enjoying, discussing…it went on and on.

Many a warp was wound…all Carol needed was a chair and pair of chopsticks. With an ironing board and frying pan Helen sets about making a braided and felted scarf. All hands were occupied and, if you walked in without a craft, you would soon find yourself with strings dangling from your fingers as did the Japanese visitors above.

Kathleen has a ply-split scarf in progress on her knee and Sally, Rosie and Phyllis are knotting bracelets. Ruth found the coffee break a good time to teach silk spinning on one of her home made spindles to Mari Omura who lectured on Chinese and Korean loop braids. And if you run out of chairs, as often happened, just perch yourself on the window sill as Shirley did with her marudai. Carol is finger weaving with her work suspended from the kitchen cupboard while Steve and Elizabeth can do their ply-split braiding anywhere anytime without tools or supports.

A still moment for a photo op with Anne Dixon…two “warp-faced” ladies, an inkler and a backstrapper who love to weave pick-up patterns.

Every now and then we did manage to sneak out of our classrooms to peek into others and the teachers were all very welcoming. I was lucky to find a moment to pop into Rodrick Owens’s classroom and see his stunning display of Peruvian sling braids which has made us all the more enthusiastic about his up and coming book.

I didn’t get to see Jacqui Carey’s class on Chinese Braid Embroidery in progress but I heard so many wonderful things about it and did manage to see her display of Chinese braiding bobbins, a few of which are pictured above. We were also able to see her Chinese braid embroidery work called “Jo’s Jacket” which is breathtaking. I am sorry, but I have nothing to show you about that. All I can say is “just wait until you see it!”

On Wednesday we had what was called a “rest day” and were taken off to be fully immersed in the history of silk weaving in Maccelsfield with visits to the Heritage Center, Paradise Mill and Silk Industry Museum…a wonderful day out.

This, along with my weekend visit to the Museum of Science and Industry, gave me a glimpse into life at the peak of the cotton and silk weaving industries in Manchester and Maccelsfield….It really is all too much to go into here…life working in a mill, Sunday school and home life for the working children, the hardships of the mill workers, the cloth, the buttons, the costumes, the magnificent looms and machinery….it was a full day which left our heads spinning. I know that I am leaving you hanging here with a bunch of pictures with no description, but maybe I will be able to elaborate in another blog post some time in the future.

Ingrid and I were both slated to weave and braid on Thursday and Friday. Here’s Ingrid with Debbie Richardson, the amazing organizer of this brilliant event, on Thursday morning. I can see Ingrid’s enthusiasm shining in her eyes. I know that all the braiders were thrilled with her.

Errol was also ply-splitting those days and had already made himself a big favorite with his quiet presence and special dry sense of humor. He seemed to be able to just produce out of nowhere at any time one of his fabulous ply-split creations.

My goodness, I had a fabulous hard-working group! I suggested we not have tea break on day one and everyone was more than happy to stay in and continue working. We also started at 8am on day two rather than at 10am as scheduled. Why not squeeze as much out of this as we can?! It really was a pleasure to have such keen and tenacious weavers. Susan Foulkes joined us on day two for the Andean tubular band segment. Ruth MacGregor, who edited the conference proceedings (along with Shirley Berlin) was also there with Clare, Margot, Marge, Bridget, Janet and Mayako.

Thursday night was banquet night and a chance to congratulate and thank all involved with the organization of the conference before everyone started disappearing on Friday evening and Saturday. At the banquet it was announced that Braids 2016 will be in the hands of Robyn Spady and will be held in Seattle USA. It was a night for dressing up and our Japanese visitors did not disappoint!

And that brings me to my last night in Manchester. As I said, I am sitting here looking at the pictures and wondering where the week went and why there are so few pictures to tell this story. I hope I have been able to convey just a little of the fun we had and have you all thinking that maybe a trip to Braids 2016 in Seattle is something you should be planning.

Lucky Elizabeth and I got private braiding classes with Ingrid today. I am off to Cambridge tomorrow. I wonder if I will see Elizabeth again somewhere sometime. Ingrid always weaves with me when I am in California so we are bound to meet again soon. That kind of thought always makes the goodbyes easier.