Celtic knot motifs in Andean pebble weave on my backstrap loom
PUTTING DOWN ROOTS AND WEAVING A GUATEMALAN TREE (PART ONE)
It is exciting how much interest there is out there in backstrap weaving. Some people are attracted to all the beautiful pick-up patterns they have seen on ethnic textiles around the world many of which have been woven on backstrap looms. Others are attracted to the loom itself – its simplicity, portability and low cost. Some people are interested in the products they can produce using up their yarn stash with this inexpensive piece of equipment while others are more intrigued by the processes involved in the “slow cloth” it produces.
I think that some people may be unaware that most of the pick-up patterning techniques do not need to be limited to the
My boyfriend learning Andean pebble weave on my rigid heddle loom
backstrap loom and can be set up and woven on other looms. I have heard from quite a few people in the time that I have been active in the online weaving groups who have jumped headfirst into backstrap weaving and attempted some of the more complex pick-up techniques as first projects only to become frustrated and disappointed.
A few have managed to succeed and I am always reminded of the Spanish girl who wrote to tell me how she had taken my monograph on a hiking trip, picked up some sticks along the way, and woven a band in Andean pebble weave as her first ever backstrap loom project. She blew me away!
Unfortunately, I have heard more stories of people falling in love with the llama motifs on my blog, getting some dowels for a backstrap loom and attempting double weave as a first project. The poor backstrap loom now sits under dust on the shelf.
Jorge made a key fob and quickly got the hang of operating the two sets of heddles.
I would like everyone to be as in love with the backstrap loom as I am but, if you are really more interested in the patterns than the loom, why not lash your warps to other looms as I did for my boyfriend above? Now I have to tell you that Jorge had no particular urge to learn Andean pebble weave. He has been listening to me beat away at my loom for many years now with no desire to get down on the floor and join in but I needed to do a timed test run for a lesson I had planned and he kindly obliged – and very well he did too. He even allowed me to post this picture! He is pretty confident that the fellow members of his heavy metal rock band don’t read my blog. 🙂
For those of you who love the loom and want to get down and beat away, I have put together a kind of tutorial on what I would call the “Steps to Success”. It is a list of all the tutorials that I have put out there and the order in which I would recommend doing them. “Putting Down Roots” would be another good name as, taking it slowly, and following these steps will give you a firm foundation, develop your skills and have you well prepared for all those lovely pick-up patterns that we all want to weave. You will find the listhere. It is worth checking out as you may have forgotten how many tutorials there were out there amongst WeaveZine, Weavolution and this blog. I have gathered up seven that I would list in the beginner category.
Tool bag fabric almost ready to come off the loom
I wove like mad all weekend as I was determined to get two projects off the loom. I have several others churning around in my head and I needed to free up some loom bars. Above you can see the purple fabric that I have been weaving for a tool bag set. This is what always happens when I do pebble weave – I turn the fabric over and then can’t decide which side I like best. Fortunately I have enough fabric to make two bags so I can have one with each of the sides showing. Before I declare this project complete, there is the horrid zipper sewing task to get through. I have one bag finished so far.
The smaller of the two purple bags has not been sewn up yet. I would like to make more in these rich colors.This came off the loom too this week. I should be able to make three coin purses from this - more zips, sigh...This was a yarn test for the Aunt Lydia number 10 crochet cotton. The black is the Brazilian brand crochet cotton that I get here. There was a small amount of pilling on the heddles in the black sections but virtually none in the red.
You may remember that I had planned to go to Guatemala on my way home from my recent visit to the US. I didn’t go as the US trip had been so long and I really needed to get home. It turns out that it was just as well as Guatemala City soon after was affected by a volcanic eruption which caused havoc. I would normally choose to avoid Guatemala during hurricane season but volcanic eruptions can happen at any time of year.
Guatemalan tree designs woven with acrylic supplementary wefts on a fine cotton ground weave
Anyway, I thought that we could do a little virtual trip to Guatemala in the meantime. I still have the bag of bright Guatemalan acrylics on the shelf and am no nearer to getting down to respinning them to use as warp.
I decided I would use them for some supplementary weft patterning, as they were originally intended, instead.
I wove a tree design using the various warp wrapping and inlay techniques that the Guatemalan weavers employ and this was fun as I hadn’t done any of this since 2008 immmediately after my return from my first visit there.
I learned these techniques with my teacher Martine and her daughter Carmen in Santa Catarina Palopo on the shores of Lake Atitlan. I met Martine in Panajachel where she sells textiles in the street market. She took me to her home and spent one morning setting up the loom and then her daughter took over weaving and teaching me for the next week or so. She was a good teacher. Each motif was repeated six or seven times across the cloth. Carmen would show me five times what to do and then would let me weave the last one or two motifs to practice what she had shown.
The weavers set up their looms with great care. Martine was obviously more skilled at doing this and Carmen only took over when everything was set to go. The warp is wound with two crosses. The second cross helps hold the shed rod in place.
LEFT: The basic loom set up with shed rod and string hedddles in place. RIGHT: An extra stick is placed in the second cross to hold the shed rod in position.
In order to create the patterns, two extra patterning sticks need to be inserted and stored up beyond the shed rod. One is stored on top of the warp and the other underneath.
LEFT: To set up the patterning sticks, the shed rod shed is opened and the first set of patterning warps are picked up. Pick one, drop two, pick one, drop two across the width of the warp.. The weavers use a pointed stick to do this. RIGHT: The pointed stick is inserted under all the picked warps and then pushed up toward the heddles. This will raise the picked up warps on the other side of the heddles. Another stick is then placed under the warps on the other side of the heddles. This is the first patterning stick.The first patterning stick sits up beyond the shed rod until called into use.LEFT: A colored weft is placed under the warps in the first patterning shed. This serves as a reference to make picking up the warps for the second patterning shed easier. RIGHT: The heddle shed is opened and the warps in the second patterning shed are picked up. Between each warp in the first patterning shed, there are three warps. You need to pick up the middle one of these three warps. You will pick one, drop two, pick one, drop two all the way across the warp. The pointed stick is inserted under all the picked up warps. LEFT: The pointed stick is moved up toward the heddles which will raise the picked up warps on the other side of the heddles. RIGHT: A stick is placed under the warps on the other side of the heddles. Both the stick and the shed rod are raised and this creates a new shed underneath the two. I have my hand within this shed and will replace it with the second patterning stick.Here you can see the two patterning sticks in place up beyond the shed rod.Two wefts are used to weave the above typical patterns of Santa Catarina Palopo: a red weft is passed through the two main sheds (shed rod shed and heddle shed) to weave the ground weave and the brightly colored supplementary wefts are passed under or wrapped around the patterning warps to form the motifs. These are samples that I wove when I returned from Gautemala.Motifs are usually started and ended with four rows of supplementary wefts in the patterning sheds forming a brick-like design. The colored pattern weft (in this case yellow) is passsed through the pattern shed and then the main weft (in this case light green) is passed through the main shed.
To open pattern shed one, the patterning stick is simply drawn down to the heddles. This will raise the pattern warps and a stick can be placed under them on the near side of the heddles. The yellow weft can then be passed through this shed. Then the shed rod shed will be opened and the green weft passed. RIGHT: To open pattern shed two, the patterning stick is also drawn down to the heddles (under the warp). The pattern warps won't pop up quite so easily for this shed so it helps to have your beater in the heddle shed and tilted as shown. Like this the pattern warps will be more apparent and you can slide a stick under them.The yellow weft is passed under these warps and then the green weft is passed through the heddle shed.In this picture I have laid in the first pass of yellow supplementary weft in patterning shed two. The beater is in the heddle shed and I have just passed the main green weft through.
Here concludes Part One of this tutorial on Guatemalan single face supplementary weft patterning. So far we have looked at how to pick the two patterning sheds and store them on sticks up beyond the shed rod, how to open the patterning sheds and how to weave the basic brick design which separates the motifs on a piece. We also looked at the weaving sequence, that is, first passing the supplementry weft and then the main weft.
In Part Two, next week, I will show you how to create the outlines of shapes by wrapping the supplementary weft around warps and fill them in by laying in supplementary wefts. The Guatemalan weavers create all kinds of bird, plant and human figures. They even include some of their weaving tools, for example, a swift.
To finish off here, let me show you my weaving teacher and her family and some places around beautiful Lake Atitlan where they live.
RIGHT: Carmen is asking for guidance from her mother Martine. LEFT: Carmen's younger sister and niece and nephew. The little niece was so sweet in her tiny huipil, corte and belt.Santa Catarina Palopo is oe of many settlements on the shore of beautiful Lake Atitlan. The sign outside the library shows words in the Kaqchikel language.I hitched a ride another 20 minutes down the road to the smaller town of San Antonio Palopo and visited with some backstrap weavers making incredibly wide pieces on their looms and some siblings all dressed in the same typical colors of the town. It was a nice quiet place to stroll and hear the sounds of warps being beaten from within the walls of the homes and see the warping boards out in the patios. From there I took a launch ride on the lake back to Panajachel.I went across the lake to Santiago Atitlan for the Sunday market. This town is known for its superbly hand embroidered clothing. I saw older women in the market wearing hair sashes wrapped around their heads. The men wear three quarter length loose white striped pants which are often covered in embroidered birds.I sat by the roadside and tried to photograph the parade of people in their gorgeous embroidered and ikat dyed clothing as they walked by.In San Juan La Laguna a women's weaving cooperative is producing items for tourists using only their own cotton thread dyed with natural substances.
Strolling back to San pedro La Laguna from San Juan I met Roi from Israel who was attempting to cycle around the world. I have never heard of him since. I wonder if any of you have run into him in your travels? The lady at right is from San Jorge La Laguna, high up on the hillside above the lake shore, which is known for its ikat woven fabric. Here she is demonstrating spinning the natural brown “cuyuscate” cotton which is highly prized and costly in Guatemala.
Speaking of epic cycling journeys, I was contacted through this blog by a lady who is cycling from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. She stopped off in Huancayo and had weaving classes with the very same weaver who taught me. Funnily enough she told me that Margarita is no more vocal in her instruction than she was with me fourteen years ago! I can just imagine this lady cycling about with her backstrap loom on the back of her bike. If we can get our timing right, she will come to Santa Cruz to visit me and have some more classes.
Last week I showed you what Jennifer , one of my four-shaft loom testers for Andean pebble weave was making on her floor loom. Well now it is finished and here it is!!
Stand by for the four-shaft loom appendix to my e-monograph….:-)
And Karren has been weaving more bookmarks in simple warp float technique with all her own designs.
I set up my loom yesterday to weave a narrow band – just 28 ends. Once I had made my simple heddles, tied them in a bunch and added the shed loop I realized that my entire loom consisted of just two simple sticks – the two loom bars and that’s all – one attached to a bed and the other to me. My weft was tied in a butterfly – no sticks there. The only other stick involved was a wooden beater to prop open my sheds and beat in the weft. How much simpler can it get?
I filmed the entire process from warping stakes to ready-to-weave if you would like to take a look. (Donna, I made this especially for you!)
So, again I ask you, how much simpler can it get?
Actually it can get simpler! I was in Tarabuco recently and watched a weaver sitting on the ground deftly wind a warp around her hand and foot. She tied one end of the warp around her foot, passed a length of yarn through the end loops at the other end and secured it to her waist. Then she made simple heddles around her hand, added a shed loop and started to weave. Briiliant! All in a matter of minutes.
A weaver in Tarabuco using a “toe” loom
You are probably thinking: okay, a simple loom for a simple weave– but even very complex weaves can be done on a very basic set-up.
A weaver from Tarabuco creating a complex design on a simple loom
You may recognize Felicia above with her sleepy cat from the video in this previous post. She has a shed rod, a heddle stick and some bars between which to stretch her warp. She has just inserted a couple of thin sticks to help with the pick-up but look at the photo at left and see the complex designs that she creates on this simple set up.
Now what about those looms that you see in pictures on the internet and in those Youtube videos? Some of them are loaded up with sticks – all those mysterious sticks – what in the world do they do? Hopefully I can solve the mystery behind at least some of them here. I have to admit that there are Asian looms that I have seen online with a multitude of patterning sticks and that I still haven’t figured out how some of those sticks work.
An extra stick added in a second cross in Guatemala
But at least I can let you know a bit about the sticks I have seen here in my travels in Central and South America and what they do. In the picture at right, number 1 is the heddle stick and number 2 is the shed rod. We are familiar with these. But what about number 3? This is an extra stick to hold a second cross. A lot of weavers wind a second cross as they warp. I don’t. I find that the fewer twists and turns I make on the warping board, the easier it is to wind a warp with good even tension. I only use a second cross on narrow warps to stabilize my shed rod which tends to slip from side to side and be a thorough nuisance. Making a second cross and putting a stick within will lock the shed rod into position. It is very easy to create a second cross once your warp is already on the loom. Here are the steps…
LEFT: Your loom is set up with heddles and a shed rod. RIGHT: Open the shed rod shed, place your beater within and draw it down to the weaving line. Remove the shed rod. It is important that the beater not fall out at this stage as it is saving your shed rod shed. Use a back up safety string if necesary.LEFT:Open the heddle shed and place an additonal stick within. RIGHT: Tilt the beater to open the shed up beyond the heddles and place your original shed rod within. Tie or tape the shed rod and additional stick together.You have created your second cross.Another Guatemalan loom with a second cross installed. The shed rod is pvc pipe which is often used as it can be thick without being heavy. Notice the orange safety string – if disaster strikes (and it most probably will with those 3 little guys hanging about!) and all this weaver’s sticks fall out, the safety string will save her cross. Even the experts use them! Look at the little future weaver there on the left. She is wearing the typical long “corte” skirt and even has her own woven belt.
Some looms have a mind boggling amount of sticks but the reason can be very simple!!
LEFT: The 11 sticks on this upright loom in Ecuador will become heddle sticks. The 22-row design, which is horizontally symmetrical, will be programmed into these 11 heddles. RIGHT: This is one of my own warps set up on my Navajo loom in Chile. As I am using 4 colors in my pebble weave I have extra sticks to separate and keep the colors in order for the pick up.Miguel Andrango’s granddaughter poses with one of the looms. You can see the two shed rods above the heddle stick. The space for the extra shed rod is programmed into the warp by using an extra stake during the warping process.
In Ecuador I saw the use of an extra stick which I have not noticed anywhere else. This is especially useful for wide warps or particularly fine yarns but I saw it being used on warps of all widths and yarn sizes in Ecuador. It is an extra shed rod. I know from my own experience that the shed-rod shed on a wide piece with fine yarns is really difficult to open. It was a very slow and tedious process on my Abba Yohanni piece, for example. The extra shed rod in Ecuador holds every second warp that passes over the main shed rod. This means that half the number of warps can be raised using the extra stick. Then it is very easy to use the main shed rod to raise the rest of the warps.
This is one of Miguel Andrango’s looms. He is a very well known weaver from Agato, a small town near Otavalo. You can watch a video of his work here. Fifty-seven seconds into the video you will get a very nice close up of the two shed rods. You will also see the typical white woven alpargatas he is wearing. I spent some time with an alpargata weaver and hope to blog about that some time. Miguel Andrango is not a large man and, although the piece above is not particularly wide, he weaves some of the widest backstrap woven pieces I have ever seen!
A weaver near Otavalo is preparing to make her string heddles. She is using the extra shed rod on her loom. This rod has a dual purpose as it also serves to stabilize the main shed rod.
Now we come to the patterning sticks that are used by weavers in Guatemala to create designs using supplementary wefts. The supplementary wefts are either laid in to form block patterns or wrapped around warps to form little figures.
It is not my intention here to teach you how to insert and use these sticks. So, don’t worry if you don’t quite get it. No doubt, I will be doing a tutorial on this in a future post. I just want to take a little bit of the mystery out of it so that when you are looking at weavers and looms in books and on the net you may have a better understanding of what all those sticks do. For now, read on and just enjoy the beautiful textiles!!
Typical designs of Santa Catarina Palopo.LEFT:Supplementary wefts have been laid in to make designs like the X’s in the center or wrapped around warps to form figures, like the stem of the plant below and the arms of the woman above. RIGHT: The upper design has been woven using the technique employed in making the typical huipil of this town.LEFT: Bands woven using patternig sticks and offered to toursits. RIGHT: The typical huipil of Santa Catarina Palopo. These colors are a relatively recent introduction. Old huipiles in crimson and white can be seen in paintings by Carmen Pettersen. My teacher told me that only the very oldest women in the town may still have the old huipiles.Carmelita is teaching me on this loom in Santa Catarina Barahona. Number 1 is her heddle stick, number 2 her shed rod, number 3 the stick in the 2nd cross and number 4 is her newly introduced patterning stick.
These patterns are created by adding two extra sticks to the loom – the patterning sticks. In Santa Catarina Barahona, the weavers open the shed-rod shed and pick up every fifth warp. They store these warps on a stick – the patterning stick that sits up behind the shed rod.
The heddle shed is then opened and, once again every fifth warp is picked up but in such a way that each picked up warp sits between two that were picked up on the first patterning stick. The warps are stored on another patterning stick which sits behind the shed rod but, this time, under the warp.
Here is how the loom looks with both patterning sticks installed.
Number 1, heddle stick. Number 2, shed rod. Number 3, stick in 2nd cross. Number 4, 1st patterning stick and number 5 the 2nd patterning stick. The patterning sticks are simply drawn down towards the heddles to create sheds for laying in the supplementary wefts.This diagram shows a loom in profile with the positions of the patterning sticksLEFT: Lydia is laying in a supplementary weft in one of the patterning sheds. RIGHT: The patterns at top and bottom were made with the aid of the two patterning sticks.
Sometimes a second pair of patterning sticks is inserted when the weaver wants to change the design. These are only temporary and will have to be removed when she wants to return to the original design.
Take a look at the photo below…can you name all the sticks?!
A sling braid made from llama fiber from the Colca Canyon area of Peru. It comprises a braid with a finger loop in one end and a cradle in which the stone to be hurled sits.
Now to return to the simplicity with which I started this post…………some braiding and edging techniques with few or no tools required.
After having done the tutorial on cross knit looping last week, I remembered another interesting edging that I learned with my sling braiding teacher in Yanque, Peru. We used it to edge the cradle section of an Andean sling braid.
I made one sling with him and he taught me to make three different braids. Men in Peru braid their slings holding all the braid strands in their hands – no other equipment is required – and can quite happily stroll along the road while braiding. Two of the braids I learned had twenty-four strands and the other twelve. I was told that the main use of the slings these days is to hurl stones in order to keep control of animals straying from the herd.
LEFT: The single cross two-color edging that I was taught on my sling. RIGHT: A double cross two-color edging on an Andean sling that I bought.A few of the braids used for Andean slings. Named from left to right…PALMA, MARGARITA (2nd and 3rd),SALSA and CAJAMARCA (5th and 6th)
When making an Andean sling, first, one half the braid is made. The strands of llama fiber are measured from the tip of the nose to the toes and then doubled. The first section usually includes the finger loop. More strands are added to weave the cradle in tapestry technique and then work the braid for the other half.
The cradle is woven on a backstrap set-up tying the braid to the waist while the strands which serve as warp are tied to a fixed point. Then the second half is worked in two braids – first a thick one and then a thin one to finish.
Decorative tassels and edgings are the last things to be put in place. Some of the tassels can be quite flamboyant. My teacher didn’t care at all for the more extravagant decorations!
I love these slings as there are several skills involved. Without even realizing it, this was my very first taste of backstrap weaving and with this one teacher I learned so much. He taught me the Palma and Margarita braid styles and a thin version of the Palma which didn’t seem to have a name, a little tapestry weaving by backstrap as well as tassel making and decorative edging.
LEFT; The very start of the Palma braid with the 4 sets of 6 strands used to make it. RIGHT: My hand in the braiding position. Two opposing sets of strands are interchanged. The braid is then rotated 90 degrees so the other two sets can be worked.
Zacarias was a marvelous teacher with a lot of patience. He would get me started on my work and leave me while he harvested the barley crop – plans were afoot to make some alcohol – moved the animals from one field to another and generally took care of things on his property.
LEFT: My sling braiding teacher, Zacarias on his property near Yanque, Peru. RIGHT: A woman by the shores of Lake Titicaca shows me how to hurl a stone with a sling braid.
I know that backstrap weaving isn’t for everyone and I am so glad that people are still able to make use of the instructions here and at Weavolution and use the techniques and designs on other looms. Ellen Turner, in Denmark, has woven a double weave band on her inkle loom using my tutorial at Weavolution.
She made a celtic design inspired by something she saw on the internet.
I also ran into Jessica’s blog where she has been experimenting with double weave on an inkle loom too. Check it out.
Kristina in Germany wove a double weave band on her inkle loom using her own handspun llama fiber. She commented that it put a lot of stress on her inkle loom so that is one important thing to take into consideration.
So if you have been enjoying the designs and have found the tutorials interesting and tempting but are still hesitating about getting strapped in, remember that you can adapt these techniques to other looms. I have set up warps on my rigid heddle loom and woven bands with string heddles rather than with the rigid heddle.
I have to tell you, though, that for me the backstrap loom wins hands down for the ease with which I can adjust tension with the slightest of body movements.
And, finally, I mentioned above the paintings of Carmen Pettersen. Check if your library has a copy of “Maya of Guatemala-Life and Dress”. Her paintings of Guatemalan people in traditional dress are stunning.
A firm cushion, a stable place to tie up the loom and a broad well positioned backstrap.
SITTING AT MY LOOM…ergonomics
I have been weaving with my backstrap loom for around 14 years now and feel very comfortable with the set up I have here at home-a stable place to tie up the loom, a good cushion and a broad sturdy backstrap. I try to have everything I need – needles, extra dowels etc – placed around me within reach before I get strapped into the loom as well as an emergency unstrapping strategy so that my warp and sticks don’t end up in a tangled mess on the floor when I jump up to answer the door. I always grab the loom bar and hold the warp under tension while I slip off the backstrap cords and then gently place the loom on the floor. Other non-weaving related essentials that need to be on hand include the remote controls for the dvd player and tv, the cd collection on one side and the laptop and snoozing cat on the other. The phone can just ring for all I care! although I do have an answering machine which I sometimes remember to turn on.
I have to say that I have never put much thought into the “correct” way to sit. I feel comfortable sitting with my legs
I am looking and feeling very uncomfortable weaving at Felipe’s loom in Salasaca, Ecuador reaching high and with the backstrap up around my waist. I did like the stake at the bottom of the post for bracing my feet and the baby chickens that would come and sleep on my legs while I wove!
stretched out and my warp angled slightly upward. There are sheets of wood under the bed against which I can brace my feet and I do get up frequently to walk about and stretch. Yet I still don’t know if this is the “healthiest” positon for a backstrap weaver’s body or just something I have gotten used to.
And what about the indigenous backstrap weavers here in South America who have been weaving since childhood? Do they experiment with different positons or does tradition alone dictate the way they sit and weave?
I know that I am usually very uncomfortable at first sitting at other people’s looms when I am learning with my indigenous teachers.
I like to try to do things just as they do but sometimes it’s difficult-either the loom is angled too steeply, the sitting position, sometimes on cold bare concrete, is almost physically impossible for me or the loom has been set up for someone a lot smaller or larger than me.
Felipe, very much at home at his loom with three of his four sons, his wife and mother-in-law.
Let me show you some pictures of other backstrap weavers including some of my teachers, the way they position themselves at the loom and some of their beautiful work.
Valeria in San Roque near Otavalo sits with legs outstretched and feet braced against a block of wood. The looms in the typical weaver’s home will have several blocks of wood like this which can be added to accommodate different warp lengths and the leg lengths of the various weavers in the household. She has just finished what will become the collar for a poncho and is brushing it with thistles that have been mounted on a frame.Valeria’s father, Carlos, weaves the ponchos. His backstrap is a thick twisted cord which he is padding with cloth. I don’t imagine that feels too comfortable. He is about to make the last few weft passes in this four-selvedge piece.For narrower weavings, this piece of hide is the typical backstrap in the San Roque area. It is wonderfully sturdy, broad and comfortable.Margarita is sitting crossed legged on a cushion and weaving this very narrow band with just a piece of yarn passing through the end loops and tied around her waist.The tiny pebble weave bands that I made under Margarita’s tuition.These ladies in Pisac, Peru are obviously a lot more felxible than I am as they kneel while weaving narrow bands which are used as decorative edging for their skirts.A close up of the bands used in Pisac for skirt trim. I believe this is called “buyto”.Catarina in Nebaj, Guatemala sits on a low chair. Hopefully she will be my teacher on my next trip to Guatemala. This looks really comfortable and I would like to have a small chair like this made for myself. I love how she has set up the phone on the table next to her. She is weaving a small huipil for her little daughter. She also wove the blue huipil that she is wearing.Of course it always helps a weaver if there is a visitor to entertain the little guys. This is the little Nebajense who will be wearing the red huipil that is on the loom. The huipiles of Nebaj are amazing and I was fortunate to be there over Easter when everyone was out in the main square in their best outfits. More about that in a future post.Another of Catarina’s beautiful huipiles.In Zunil, Guatemala I learned how to make the typical hair sash of the area. The weaver is attached to a 4-shaft pedal-operated loom by backstrap. I sat for 4-5 hours every morning on a small wooden stool and had to take towels and sweaters for padding after a painful first session. Clara teaches a lot of the teenagers in the town so I was learning along with a 15 year-old neighbor.Clara’s hair sash is on the right with my frst attempt on the left. I also had some of the essential parts for the little loom made by the carpenter in the town, photgraphed and sketched the loom and took measurements so that I can have one built here some day.Clara also weaves this beautiful fabric on a large floor loom which is made into the typical skirt of ZunilMost weavers I saw in Guatemala knelt to weave. This position is impossible for me to maintain for more than 5 minutes and so I would sit with legs outstretched for my lessons with Lidia. When Lidia once tried to sit and weave in my position, she just fell about laughing!
When I was in Guatemala in 2008, I met Karen Piegorsch who is President of Synergo Arts. Synergo Arts works to educate backstrap weavers about ergonomics and is currently introducing their ergonomic bench to weavers and carpenters in Guatemala ” to protect their health while producing more textiles of better quality. As a result, they increase their ability to provide for their families, and also preserve their weaving culture.”. In fact, their aim is to help all weavers and artisans work more comfortably.
In the words of the organization…
“Synergo Arts is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3), tax exempt organization based in Arizona. Our purpose is to help artists and artisans around the world use ergonomics to maximize their health, income, performance, productivity, creativity, and art or craft quality. We do this through a grassroots approach to innovating and delivering resources in ergonomics education, consulting and design.”
Information on the ergonomic bench project and other articles about ergonomics for artisans can be found here and here.
I showed you a picture at the start of this post of Felipe in Salasaca weaving on his porch with his family. I went to Salasaca in 2005 for the frst time and met Felipe’s cousin Anita. I was looking for someone to teach me to weave the supplementary warp patterned belts of Salasaca. Anita is not a weaver although she owns a wonderful set of six beaters of varying sizes made for and given to her by her father when she was a teenager. She doesn’t have any daughters and is waiting for the first grand daughter to pass these tools on to. Anita’s sons work at floor looms producing the tapestries for which Salasaca has become known. The designs include those from Navajo weavings, artwork of M C Escher as well as traditional motifs of Peru.
MC Escher inspired design on a tapestry made in Salasaca
I have read that not one of their tapestry motifs is Salasacan in origin. The tapestries are made specifically to be sold to tourists.
The traditional Salasaca designs can be found on their clothes and it was the frutilla (strawberry) motif belt that I wanted to learn to make. As it turned out, they persuaded me to teach them to weave instead! Anita had me teach her youngest son, Juan and their neighbor Natalia to weave Andean pebble weave which is a story that I will save for future post.
Two of the six beaters in the set that makes up the Salasaca weaver’s tool kit. The small one is used to pick up the warps. The typical spindle is called a “sig sig” after the pampas grass plant stems from which it is made.
Eighteen months later I returned to see how my students were getting on and you will have to wait to hear more about that. It was on this return trip that Anita introduced me to her cousin who happened to have a warp all set up with which he was teaching his youngest sons to weave. This was so lucky for me as it meant that I coud also have classes and not have to worry about messing up someone’s precious belt. The acceptable parts of the belt were going to be salvaged and sold to the local shoemaker who had recently started making sandals using pieces of the traditional woven belts.
Pieces of the “frutilla” design belt used to decorate sandals.
“Manamay” belt with Anita’s spindle and distaff
Salasaca people are small and it was obvious that even the largest pair of sandals would not do for me. In fact, quite a crowd gathered to watch me trying to stuff my big gringa feet into them. I bought them anyway as this was the only way I would get to have a sample of this textile. I could not persuade anyone to sell me a belt eventhough I jokingly pointed out how unfair this was to Anita as her pig was tethered to the gate with one of her old belts! She did permit me, however, to take photos of her frutilla and manamay belts.
So I spent a few mornings with Felipe and wove on his loom. The trickiest part was remembering to let go of the weft before slamming the gigantic beater down – bruised knuckles to show for the times I forgot! We wove on Felipe’s narrow porch and, as his home is on a hillside, enjoyed a beautiful view over the fields and surrounding countryside.
Front and back of a “fruitilla” belt/
The belt at right belongs to Felipe’s mother-in-law and she kindly allowed me to photograph it. Neither she nor her daughters know how to weave although they are all expert spinners.
I had a lesson in circular warping from Felipe and his youngest son and then came back to Bolivia to document the process in my journal. The warping was quite complicated with several colors traveling at the same time in different directions and being anchored under toes. Then I wove two pieces to be the front and back covers for my journal.
The back cover
The back cover piece on the loomThe front cover. The zig zag designs are called “kingus” and the circular designs are the “frutillas”. As the colored supplementary warps shoud be thicker than the ground weave warps, I used doubled sewing thread for the ground weave and perle cotton for the supplementary warps. In Salasca they use cotton thread for the ground weave and thicker acrylic for the colored warps.Anita, her son Juan and Natalia wanted to pose for a picture. This was on my first visit and I was only able to give them the pictures on my return 18 months later as they don’t have a reliable mailing address. Women in Salasaca wear traditonal clothes everyday-all that you see here in the picture except for the hat and every spare moment is spent spinning. They normally use other kinds of head coverings on a normal day. Juan put on his festival gear especially for the picture. Anita and her family own a store and you can see their floor looms and tapestries in the background.
I have plenty more to tell about the wonderfully friendy people of Salasaca but will save it for another post.
I have some projects from readers to show again this week.
Jeannine made asupplementary weft patterned band from her own design. You can read more about the whole process and see more pictures of her band and her pattern charts on her blog.
Ann finished her supplementary weft patterned band. It looks great with that fringe. Both she and Jeannine are about to embark on another project using this technique.
Stitchwort wove a backstrap following the instructions in my article on WeaveZine and is now weaving what will be a bag for her loom. She is weaving the bag from her own handspun tencel and it looks so wonderfully sleek and shiny on the loom. I have been curious about tencel for a long time having heard so much about it in online groups and seen gorgeous pictures of pieces with wonderful sheen.
I was lucky to be able to organize a swap of woven goodies with a friend in Denmark and my package arrived this week-tencel at my request and a couple of her own spectacular handwoven articles. The tencel is everything I expected and more!
First, here is a photo of Stitchwort’s projects…
She is using her own handspun ramie as weft and I must confess I have no idea what that is. But I won’t give too much away as you can read all about her backstrap projects on her blog. I just love the shuttle she is using.
Tencel, Japanese silk and Argentinean silk
There’s my tencel on the two spools with a ball of silk that a colleague brought for me from Japan along with a skein of raw colored silk from Argentina. The Argentinean silk is a lot thicker than the tencel and the Japanese silk and so I was thinking of using the thin yarns as ground weave and the white silk as supplementary warp. I am terrified that I will mess it up and waste this precious stuff. I will definitely be sampling on a bookmark.
BALANCED WEAVE, DOUBLE WEAVE AND BALANCED DOUBLE WEAVE….
I made some New Year weaving resolutions. What about you? One is to weave at least one balanced weave on my backstrap loom per month. So I got one done in January which I’ll show you later and I am planning February’s project. You will see that I am all about process rather than product for this project as all I know is that I want to weave a shadow weave piece but I have no idea what I want the piece to be. I am counting on an idea developing as I go through my yarn bags.
Another resolution is to weave reproductions of the designs on some pre Columbian textile fragments that I have gathered over the years. How did I get hold of these tiny scraps and fragments? Well, some industrious Peruvian artisans have been recreating Chancay dolls and dressing them in bits and pieces of old textiles.
Sets of Chancay doll reproductions
The Chancay culture existed on the Peruvian central coast from around AD 1000-1476. It is believed to have been conquered and incorporated into the Inca Empire in the mid to late 13th Century. The people of this culture were prolific weavers and, as the central coast of Peru is a particuarly dry area, many of their textiles have survived remarkably well preserved and are kept in museums around the world.
I was dubious for a long time about the authenticity of the textile pieces. However, it just didn’t make sense that someone would weave structures, some of which are no longer woven in Peru, take all the trouble to stress the fabric in order to make it look old, tear it up, sew the pieces onto dolls and then sell them for very little in the street market.
A close look at a couple of the fragments with bird and bat motifs
I have yet to find a good image of an authentic Chancay doll to make a comparison but apparently the originals did not have embroidered faces. Rather, the facial features were woven into a piece of cloth which was wrapped around plant fiber to form the doll’s head. As with most things, I imagine these dolls started out as quite faithful reproductions of the originals and that the quality of the work has since deteriorated.
Two more pieces with bird and snake motifs
The original Chancay dolls have been found in tombs and were possibly funerary offerings. Recently I found an article online which, not only confirms the authenticity of the ancient textile fragments used to dress and decorate the dolls, but also gives information abut the Chancay culture and speculates about the dolls’ purpose. It just gives me chills looking at and touching these pieces-something the museums won’t let you do! and wondering about the weavers, their looms and their lives.
Snake motif in pebble weave
I have been weaving the designs I have seen in photos of museum pieces for years. The two pieces above center and right were made by me in the 90s. Imagine the thrill when I found a fragment, on the left, with a very similar snake design some years later.
A piece in slit tapestry that I copied on my backstrap loom
I copied the slit tapestry piece at left on my backstrap loom without the slits and made it into a small sewing kit purse with a zip on three sides.
This little purse goes with me on all my weaving safaris. Some people tell me that the design looks like figures from a 1980’s video game!
This was a very slow and tedious weave using split embroidery floss for the weft. I was quite happy to see the end of this one!!
Bird motif in pebble weave
Again, I had woven this little 4-color bird motif many years before finding the little fragment almost completely in tatters on a doll at the Otavalo market. I had to work hard to hide my excitement while cooly bargaining with the vendor-bargaining at the Otavalo market is expected. Although my bird is a little different and was copied from a book, it is still thrilling to see a similar original piece.
According to the aforementioned article, birds were highly esteemed in these cultures “because of their ability to cross between earth and sky” as well as due to ” their association with water…..and source of guano for fertilizing crops”.
Pre Columbian bird motifs
I love these birds and they find their way into a lot of my weavings.
Balanced double weave bird figures
Which brings me finally to balanced double weave and my weaving resolution for the year. This structure is no longer woven here so there is no one around to teach it to me. I found out that the Huichol people in Mexico weave it and recently got Chloe Sayer’s Mexican Textile Techniques which has pictures of some examples. I had dismissed the instructions by Suzanne Baizerman in Double Woven Treasures of Old Peru as they were written for the treadle loom but recently returned to them to find, to my delight, that I understood them. So I set to and wove the above band using the pattern chart in the book which just happens to be the very same bird motif that I have on a doll fragment. I used four sets of heddles for this weave and kept the cross sticks in to help spread the warps. This was just a narrow band. Now I hope to make a large wall hanging incorporating bits and pieces from several of the fragments.
Something that is on the loom at the moment….supplementary weft patterning. You can see the tiny fragment from which I am copying the design on the right. This was another exciting find as, at least here in Bolivia, I have not seen this technique used for anything other than hat bands and on one old chuspa in a book. I would love to know the original use for this piece.
You can find the chart for this design here. I have also put the chart for the Abba Yohanni double weave design from last week’s post here.
This is just a small selection of my fragments. I am sure that more will show up in future blog posts as I strive to reproduce them. There is one technique that I as yet have not been able to identify.
Now what about those balanced weaves? I am still very much into my recently gifted rigid heddles and have been using them to make samples and a few useful pieces.
"Strawberries and cream" pinwheel mats
The rigid heddles arrived while I was in the middle of this “strawberries and cream” pinwheel piece. Rather than struggle on with my multiple stick spacers, I added the rigid heddle to the backstrap loom and finished it in no time.
Last month we had a WAL at Weavolution weaving rosepath motifs so I used my rigid heddle as a spacer and beater and used four sets of string heddles for the motifs.
Spring garden table runnerA small log cabin sample
Sometimes I just mess around and make samples trying to discover what is comfortably possible on my backstrap loom. The above log cabin piece was the first balanced weave I tried before my rigid heddles arrived. I thought the squareness of the design would look good as a notebook cover. I’ll take this little notebook along for my next weaving classes wherever that may be. It is nice to find a use for even the smallest of samples. You can see my test piece for the llama bookmark has been padded with foam and made into a pin cushion saddle cloth for the ceramic llama!
As the title of this post suggests, there is also some warp faced double weave to talk about. The last of my weaving resolutions is to design some nice letters to weave in double weave. I have been very much inspired by Linda Hendrickson’s beautiful book Please Weave Me a Message where she has designed alphabets to weave with tablets. You may have listened to Syne Mitchell’s recent interview with her at WeaveZine. I hope to come up with something like that for double weave. My stick alphabet above looks very humble next to her beauties.
Lastly, I would like to show off some work by one of my blog readers. Ann Littlewood wove a supplementary weft patterned band using embroidery floss for her supplementary weft. It is a great way to “paint” in designs and play with colors. It absolutely makes my day when I hear from people who have used my instructions. 🙂
I will leave you with a cheery little Otalavalena, below, at her brightly colored market stall at the enormous Saturday market. Otavalo is a town in Ecuador which has a lively and popular craft market every Saturday and is where I bought some of my dolls. Goods from near and far are sold there such as braids and beads from Peru, molas from Panama and Colombia and belts from Bolivia and Guatemala as well as an enormous variety of weavings and crafts from all over Ecuador. While the market largely caters to tourists, locals also shop there for clothes, footwear and beads.
Thank you for the nice comments last week. I am glad you found the videos useful. One of the visitors from Argentina, who has a limited understanding of English, had one of those “aha!” moments when she watched the double weave video. I hope to be able to show you one of her weavings soon 🙂
A girl from Otalvalo in typical dress-embroidered blouse, "anku" secured by a woven belt, beads, woven hair wrap and alpargatas
Lately I have been playing with supplementary weft patterning and, once again, have been inspired by Weavolution members. One member joined my Backstrap Group as she is interested, amongst other things, in reproducing a Central Asian yurt band. She has introduced me to many beautiful Central Asian designs and often sends me photos of pieces she has seen at reenactmant events that she attends.
Together we figured out the technique on a yurt band she had bought and even wove it simultaneously- all coordinated by email!
When she sent me this photo (at left) of a Central Asian piece she had photographed at one of the historical events, I couldn’t wait to weave the design into something. The technique wasn’t clear in the photo and, as I wasn’t concerned with reproducing the original technique, I decided to weave it in either double weave or supplementary weft patterning. I chose the latter as, since studying this technique in Guatemala in 2008, I hadn’t put it to much use.
In this technique, it is really important to get the right balance between the weight of the warp yarn and that used for the supplementary weft and so I quickly wove a sample and then went ahead and made the table runner below in 4/2 cotton (24wpi) warp with 6 strands of the patterning thread that I had brought back from Guatemala as the supplementary weft. You can see that I added a little embellishment of my own to the pattern.
My colors are rather bland compared with the original. I love that orange zigzag next to the main design. Perhaps I will be more adventurous with color next time!
My table runner with a Central Asian inspired design
My other source of inspiration has been a Brazilian member of Weavolution who has generously shared what she knows about the weavings of the Huni Kuin people who live in the tropical forest of Brazil and Peru. They weave with backstrap looms using cotton that they spin and dye themselves. You can see a video of their work here and a photo of a Huni Kuin weaver here. Although they do not use the supplementary weft technique, I chose to use this method to weave one of their designs into a bag.
A small bag with supplementary weft patterning inspired by a traditional Huni Kuin design.
Here in Bolivia, the supplementary weft technique is used by women to weave bands to decorate their hats. It is in these hatbands that I have seen the widest variety of woven designs. Except for in Calcha, where it seemed that the women had decided on one hatband design to represent their village, I have never seen two hatbands alike.
This Potolo woman is using three hatbands at once.
Hatbands from Bolivia
Sometimes the supplementary weft is used to form the motif as in the small condors on the upper half of the center band above. At other times, it is used to fill the negative space to outline the motif on the ground weave.
From having purchased some hatbands here, I was able to see how they were woven. I made a few sample bands but, as I didn’t get the right warp to weft ratio, I wasn’t too pleased with the results and never really went on to explore this technique further- that is, until I went to Guatemala in 2008 and studied weft patterning with three teachers there. It was my first time in Guatemala and an absolute explosion of color and inspiration was awaiting!
The traditional hair sash of the women of Aguacatan, Guatemala
So I would like to spend the rest of this post introducing you to my first teacher in Guatemala and showing you how I learned supplementary weft patterning with her.
Lidia lives in the very small town of Santa Catarina Barahona near San Antonio Aguas Calientes in Guatemala. The typical blouse, or huipil of the area has designs woven in single and double faced supplementary weft patterning. The large areas of double faced patterning are those that most distinguish the huipiles of this area.
Typical huilpil of San Antonio Aguas Calientes.
Single faced weft patterning. The patterns can’t be seen on the back of the textile.
This double faced patterning looks very much like embroidery. The national bird, the quetzal, is a very popular motif.
Day 1-Lesson 1. I have chosen my colors for my piece and am winding the thread into balls prior to warping
Making a small warp for my lessons
Once the loom was tensioned, the heddles were made.
Lidia’s sister Carmelita showed me how the warps, under which the patterning wefts would be placed, are picked and stored on two additional sticks. The resulting designs are called ”pepenado”.
The first design lesson-Lidia is weaving the ”tijera” (scissors) pattern. She uses a pointed stick to hook theweft tails and pass them under the raised patterning warps.
The finished tijera pattern
Double faced ”abeja”-bee
Three ”abejas” that I wove when I got home
The ”abeja” was topped off with another section of ”tijera” and that completed my second day of classes. Finally, on day three, I learned the ”arcos” (arches) pattern. This is a combination of weft inlay and warp wrapping.
Weaving the ”arcos” designs
The finished ”arcos” design
It looks like my teachers did all the weaving and I just stood around and snapped pictures! Well, I can tell you that it wasn’t so. Lidia was a very ”hands-on” teacher and she would take over only when I got up to stretch and take photos.
But it wasn’t all hard work. Other family members and neighbors came to visit, we paused to make and eat tortillas, chatted and played with the nieces and nephews in Lidia’s shady yard and walked to town to go yarn shopping.
Snack time. While making my way around Guatemala I learned to recognize the ”slap slap slapping” sound of tortillas being prepared.
Small rectangular pieces are covered with double faced designs and closed with a drawstrig to make a baby’s hat.
Whne I got back to Bolivia I finished off the piece that I had been making with lidia and then wove another sampler to consolidate the weft patterning techniques I had learned.
And I used my lesson piece in the lid of my weaving toolbox.
I went on from Lidia’s home to study with two other weavers in Guatemala but, more about that in another post!
Lidia’s daugther Sara and her cousins
I will be doing a tutorial on suplementary weft patterning with lots of step-by-step photos here on my blog in the following weeks so that you can add designs like the Central Asian and Huni Kuin ones, that I showed you above, to your projects.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip from Central Asia, to Brazil, to Bolivia and onward to my teacher’s home in Guatemala. If you did, I would love to hear from you 🙂
Motifs are usually started and ended with four rows of supplementary wefts in the patterning sheds forming a brick-like design. The colored pattern weft (in this case yellow) is passsed through the pattern shed and then the main weft (in this case light green) is passed through the main shed.
