travel – Page 2 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – The View from my iPod

I love the little pouch I made for my iPod. With it hanging around my neck, I can quickly and easily take pictures anywhere I go. And, it also gives me access to Instagram, which I love.

Backstrap weaving with camera at the ready with my new silver hair streak..

Using the iPod as a principal camera does have certain limitations, though. The battery life is pathetically short and the zoom is pretty useless. I will probably go back to also carting my larger camera around on my next trip away.

However, the iPod did enable me to take some nice shots during my trip away and so I can now show and tell you that Ohio has the cutest story-book clouds….

And that I learned yet again on my second visit that Vermont has epic sunsets…

While Kentucky has awesome hiking trails and vistas…

And that strolling through Charlotte airport is like strolling though a park! Someone had the brilliant idea to plant trees and place rockers under them. That, with the natural light streaming in through the high glass walls creates a very unique airport experience…

It is so convenient to be able to grab my camera from its little pouch around my neck and snap a quick shot along my warp with the backstrap still in place around my hips…

You might recognize this warp from the cover of my dvd Operating a Backstrap Loom.

I had created it just for the cover shot and then put it away in a drawer. When I was traveling it seemed like the perfect thing to take along and weave on with its bright colors and small amount of pick-up…..reaxing but ot oo demanding with its small amount of pick-up. Finding just the right spot outside is sometimes tricky and I found myself moving around this tree, like the hands of a clock, chasing the shade.

I met young Mira who added an extra bit of sunshine to my day with a warp she had created from her own handspun and naturally dyed wool…

After playing with the warp and making some adjustments, she showed me the bark berry baskets she makes. She made this one into a backpack. It’s lined and she sewed on the leather trim herself. It’s gorgeous! On other baskets she has used tablet-woven trims.

There were so many cool people at this campground doing all kinds of fibery things.

Knitting ”softwear” engineer Alisdair Post-Quinn was there. I got to hang out with him one morning on one of the porches while I wove a band with interlocking Andean hooks attached to my toe. Alisdair was starting a new piece in double knitting. He showed me the pattern he had created and it was also all about hooks in positive and negative space, looked very Central Asian and was absolutely stunning!

There are several relaxing ”hang-out” spots such as this throughout the campground which are great places to sit and and talk to whomever happens to come by. There was even a convenient post for attaching a backstrap loom at this one.

There were folks making felted vessels, painting on silk, weaving rag rugs, making chain mail, doing Sashiko embroidery, double knitting, tapestry weaving, quilting, making long and short bows, plasma cutting, basket making, flute making…and these were just the activities that I managed to get around and see. There were a whole lot of other fiber and fiber-related things going on as well at this five-day event known as Fiber College of Maine. Classes ran for two days, one day and half days and there were several ”taster” activities offered by the hour. I was drawn to the pottery taster but knew that I wouldn’t be able to carry my creation home.

The entire campground is a wonderland of creativity from the plasma-cut fire places to the whimsical outhouses.

I was quite taken with the sleeping quarters which are provided for visiting artist-in-residence that stands within the weaving studio building…a tent structure within the building which has been covered with antique doilies. It was like a little fairy land inside.

From there I moved on to visit with Janie. We messed around with ñawi awapa tubular bands and played with various finishing techniques used by weavers in Peru and Bolivia.

Janie was busy preparing for a show of her tied and dyed silk scarves…

Between weaving and silk dyeing, we managed to have an awesome day out hiking in Kentucky in the Red River Gorge. It was a day of beautiful views and just enough challenge for me whose legs had not been hiking for a long, long time!

And then, I bounced over east again to Vermont to stay with Lausanne and Brian in their little cottage in the woods…

Fall was in the air and we harvested potatoes but I was just that little bit too early to see the leaf colors that I had enjoyed on the Columbus Day weekend on my last visit.

We wove, went to the Harvest Festival at which Lausanne performed on her fiddle, cruised thrift stores and did some short local hikes.

Lausanne put together a beautiful wool warp for her backstrap loom. Yes, wool has its challenges but working with it is so worth it. Once you get used to its hairiness and adapt your shed opening techniques to suit, it all becomes so much less intimidating.

She chose figures from the aquatic set in my latest book of patterns Complementary-warp Pattern Book starting with some little fish in among the currents and progressing to one of the four larger fish that are charted in the book.

Online weaving friend, Lizze Ruffell, has been enjoying my Complementary-warp Pick-up book….

My last afternoon with Lausanne was spent taking a gentle walk on a perfect fall day to a lovely lookout spot where we could enjoy views of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain.

I then moved on and visited with my good friends Claudia, Janet and David in Maryland. It’s been nine years since we met online via Weavolution and there is always much to catch up on. It was tough having to limit the visit to just two days. But, we didn’t muck around. Claudia suggested reviving my limited knitting skills and I was all for it. Perhaps it was the encounter with Alisdair that reminded me of the amazing things that can be created with yarn and two simple pointed sticks. And so…I knitted! I learned the long-tail cast-on and used circular needles for the first time…exciting! Claudia sent me home with a whole kit of interchangeable needles and a half-finished simple cowl.

I think that wearing colored cowls near my face will be nice way to brighten things up a bit when I complete my transition to silver hair. There’s still a loooong way to go on that! I also ordered silk so that I can weave some silk button-up ones too.

And I also visited Leslie.

Leslie had been to Convergence where she took my friend Marilyn’s class. I immediately recognized the bow-loom-woven double bracelet that Marilyn teaches people to weave. Marilyn also presents this class on dvd or via streaming on the Taproot Video website.

And, the other thing that the iPod has been good for is…. those dreadful selfies. They are too hard to do with my big camera and I would like to record my transition to silver hair. I promise I won’t bore you with these pictures in every blog post but I figure that if I put a picture or two ”out there” I am less likely to chicken out and go back to dyeing.

Now, I am back in Bolivia and giving myself a few days to clean house, do laundry and re-stock the fridge before jumping back in my loom. First, I will finish the red warp that I took away. It’s going to be a backstrap. And then, I will decide on whether I want to start with the silk cowls, some ikat, linked warp, or perhaps a light gauze cotton piece using some fine handspun cotton that I found in the closet. I think I bought it in Guatemala back in 2008. It has been doubled and rolled into a ball and I have been winding the singles back into separate balls.

I am wallowing in time…exciting! There’s lots of weaving to do and, of course, there is a book or two to work on as well.

Backstrap Weaving – Success

The trusty flip phone that has traveled many years with me alongside one of the pouches I wove for it from my handpsun alpaca yarn.

When looking back on my long trips away, it is always good to contemplate what went well and what could be improved. There are different ways of looking at success. One success for me on this trip was managing to ”Keep Calm and Weave on” when I arrived at a destination to weave with a group only to find that Amtrak had managed to lose both my pieces of luggage in two entirely different ways. One piece ended up in Alabama and the other in Virginia and it was almost 48 hours before I saw them again. That’s when you find out just how resourceful you and others around you can be.

Another successful ”Keep Calm” moment came when I found myself on a Greyhound bus heading north when I was supposed to be going south. I was dumped off. It’s quite shocking standing there with close to 100lbs of luggage watching the bus drive off with the words ”Sorry for the inconvenience” ringing in your ears! There were connections to be made. Needless to say, I didn’t make them. I was reminded of how helpless one can be these days if you don’t have a Smart phone. The load of luggage didn’t help. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers. A college kid, who was one of many strangers to help me out, looked in wonder at my little Verizon flip phone and said ”Lady, it’s time to upgrade”.

Other measures of success are more tangible, such as photos sent to me from my weaving companions on this trip who are clearly enjoying all they learned.

Jennifer has been making cuffs using the sample bands we wove together as well as warping and creating her own combinations of patterns. She is using the sweet wooden bracelet findings from Purl and Loop. I ordered six pairs of them for myself and can’t wait to use them.

Here’s what Ann has moved on with after weaving Andean Pebble Weave with me. She has jumped into patterns from my second book, More Adventures with warp-faced Pick-up Patterns…

Here are examples of both the supplementary-weft and double weave techniques that Tracy and I wove together. The bigger success here is that Tracy is already designing her own patterns in double weave.

Michelle and Kathleen got together to make their own backstraps. Kathleen wove with me last year and got Michelle interested and brought her along this year to join our group on Big Hill…

They used plain weave following the instructions in my Backstrap Basics article and fancied it up a little by adding horizontal bars and variegated yarn in the center. This is Plymouth Yarn’s Fantasy Natural, the yarn I recommend for a backstrap being a nice weight for a sturdy strap as well as being mercerized.

This is what Nancy has been up to since she wove Andean Pebble Weave with me last month…

Mary Alice S finished one of her double weave bands and included her initials…

Here’s Lori’s stunning black and red Andean Pebble Weave band. She also put the finishing touches on an Andean Pebble Weave pouch that she started during one of my previous visits. She sewed a neat finish of cross-knit looping along the edge of the flap…

And, even though Lori’s 8-year old daughter Lily has woven tubular bands, Andean Pebble Weave and double weave with me, she still likes to go back to simpler ways now and then and hook a narrow warp to her big toe to weave…

Karen refreshed her memory on the moves for weaving the ñawi awapa tubular band and Lolita joined us for the first time in the barn.

Folks happily warping, happily weaving….!!! That’s Michelle and Jen, below, who joined me on opposite sides of the country. You can see that the weather was becoming more spring-like by the time I got to the north east…no more long sleeves.

there you can see Kelli and Denise weaving into the evening with chocolate and wine! A successful combination. The results were good….

It is also heart-warming to be sent pictures of backstrap weavers happily at it after I leave them whether it be in solitude or with the support of a group…

Groups from Washington and Alabama form study groups and support and encourage each other.

Anne weaves out on the deck while Mary Alice takes her backstrap loom on the road.

And, it’s always great to meet people face-to-face who have been using my books and tutorials to learn the various weaving structures. Kathy is enjoying the backstrap loom and just needed a couple of pointers to better manage her wide warp.

She was struggling to open the sheds and a few tips on strumming, tension and sett as well as making her aware of the fact that she can use her coil rod to help open a cleaner heddle shed helped her enjoy weaving this piece a lot more. She is using Knit Picks Curio cotton and the pattern is one from Tinkipaya, Bolivia which is included in my second book…

A couple of different ways to set up a backstrap loom.

There are a couple of things that people are often not aware of when they venture into wider warps. It is common to underestimate just how wide a piece is going to be. Having the warp threads pushed too close together makes for a very dense fabric and makes opening the sheds quite difficult. And, it’s important to keep in mind that a certain number of ends in plain weave will produce a wider width than the same number of ends in a warp-float structure. Sampling is the answer!

Another thing that is often underestimated is the amount of tension that needs to be added to the warp when raising the threads in the un-heddled shed. This becomes greater the wider the warp or the heavier the thread. A pvc pipe, like you can see in Kathy’s warp above, is a great favorite among some indigenous weavers as it makes raising the threads in the unheddled shed through the heddles easier without adding the weight of a large wooden rod to the set-up. The draw-back is that it makes raising the heddled threads just that little bit harder. I generally prefer using a something smaller and using a sword to raise the unheddled threads instead. This gives me an easier time with the heddled shed. But then, it depends on the width I am weaving, the structure I am weaving and the kind of thread I am using. There are many variables and it is nice to have options for the ways I set up my loom. I show a few of them in my video Operating a Backstrap Loom. But, each weaver will have their way.

While staying at Kathy’s I got to play on her Chinese braiding stand using Jacquie Carey’s book for instruction. The bamboo bobbins were made by Kathy and they tinkle and clink together in the sweetest way as you create the braid. The little twigs that naturally extend from the bamboo shafts act perfectly to hold the thread on the bobbin and stop it from unraveling. The braiding hand movements are particularly calm and pretty. Here’s Kathy showing me the moves….

Part of the fun for me is getting to learn new things. That is part of a successful trip for me.

People showed me their favorite ways to mark their pattern charts as they weave and it is always interesting to see what kinds of things people find helpful….cute sliding magnet markers for one. Color coding was a new one for me which I found particularly interesting. I’ll be using it!

I can then pass on those tips to others….more success!

A successful trip is one in which I don’t have to spend more than one night in an airport before a horribly early departure.

This one night was really quite comfortable as I found a rather nice place to sleep (pictured above) in an airport that was music-free and relatively free of those annoying security announcements.It’s fun meeting someone with whom I have been corresponding online. Maxine brought along these awesome examples of bands she has been weaving on her inkle loom. She has patterns from various sets in my latest book, Complementary-warp pattern Book, in the band on the right and many figures from the Rivers and Oceans set from the same book in the other one. Her color combinations are gorgeous! She was keen to weave with me on a backstrap loom so she can choose to use either that or her inkle loom in future projects.

Denise has already used ideas from the tubular bands we wove together to add some nice spiral plain-weave tubes to the bag she made from double-weave fabric she wove and shaped on her floor loom.

Marsha’s horse band with figures from my latest book Complementary-warp Pattern Book has gone onto her husband’s hat.

A successful trip is also one in which I have some down time to enjoy the scenery…..this time it ranged from the thundering Niagara Falls (the Maid of the Mist trip was awesome!) to the stark desert of southern California, to tranquil rural spring scenes, to stunning views over the mountains towards Yosemite….

Thanks to everyone who made this trip away so much fun and so successful for me. Here is the last get together at Red Stone Glen just before I left to come home…

Success? Yes! People I met and wove with now know what it feels like to ”be the loom”. Many have a better appreciation of what goes into creating all those beautiful backstrap woven textiles of the South American highlands. New backstrap weavers have been born and are using their new skills. Others who were already backstrap weavers have gone home with tips on how to improve or work more efficiently. And, I have come home with plenty of new ideas.

I still have plenty to show you as lots of things have been happening in backstrap weaving among my online friends. But, for now, I’ll show just this one picture from Carole in Israel. It’s a set of key fobs she made using patterns from my 2nd and 3rd books….

I can’t wait to show you what Tracy, Kristen and Sobahime have been weaving using reeds on their backstrap looms. Until next time….I must get back to finishing my paisley scarf.

Backstrap Weaving – Warm Smiles and Color in the Lingering Winter

While a majestic Mt Rainier in a grey landscape welcomes me to the chilly Pacific Northwest…

and snow continues to blot out color in the northeast, the time that I spent weaving with fellow backstrap loom enthusiasts has been all about color and warm smiles with lovely work by Ann Lynn, Tracy and Mary Alice…

We have been weaving Andean Pebble weave, supplementary-weft, double weave and complementary-warp pick-up structures. The results have been wonderful and I have been particularly pleased with the designs that the double-weave band-weavers have been creating themselves, from Star Trek symbols to patterns inspired by Turkomen rug motifs. And, there is still some patterned tubular band weaving to be done along with sewn embellishments.

We made a new weaver. Bethany wove her very first piece ever…a plain-weave warp-faced band….

And now she is already into double weave pick-up following pattern charts. She has found a comfortable way to set up at home.

And, more experienced hands, like Stacy, below, dove right in and started winging it and designing their very own patterns in double weave pick-up…

Tracy also got very comfortable with the technique very quickly and was soon adding her own original patterns to the collection of pattern charts with which we were working. I love how people react when they see how effortlessly and automatically the lower layer of the double weave appears. It really is a little piece of magic!

I know that Tracy will come up with awesome patterns and color combinations in supplementary weft too. That’s what she is working on below and her pattern ideas come from the various places she has lived around the world and the various textile cultures in which she has moved. I will tell you more about that in my next blog post. Now Tracy knows two techniques that I like to call ”doodling on plain weave”: double weave and supplementary-weft patterning. There are almost no rules and the pattern charts for one technique can also be used for the other.

Jennifer was weaving patterns in complementary-warp pick-up and is already making jewelry from her finished bands. Her 7-year old daughter, Tabitha, also keen to try this band-weaving stuff…

Kathryn finished off her woven woven backstrap using the instructions in my article on Backstrap Basics...

And, it is always very pleasing to see what people have created since the last time we all had a chance to weave together…

Kathryn moved on with her Andean Pebble Weave skills and wove this fine band in 10/2 cotton using motifs from my second book…

Tracy used the handwoven cloth I brought from Bolivia last year and her tubular edging skills to construct this great cylindrical bag with its drawstring lining. The top and bottom is edged with a ñawi awapa tubular band.

So, these have been the just some of the colorful results of the face-to-face interactions I have had with my backstrap weaving friends in my recent travels. There’s been lots of color to brighten up the lingering wintry days. I got dressed in a splash of color while looking over the awesome ikat robes that my friend Marilyn brought back from her trip to Uzbekistan last year. The one I picked to try on is in one of my favorite combinations of color, as you will know if you have been following my blog. She has prepared a presentation of images and video in which she has documented the entire ikat process and we had time to watch it together. If your guild is interested in seeing this as part of a program, I can put you in touch with her.

Apart from all this face-to-face interaction and time spent sitting by and backstrap weaving with friends, there has been lost of online interaction and long-distance trouble-shooting and guidance as new weaving friends all over the world take an interest in the wonderful backstrap loom.

There is always a certain amount of frustration knowing that if I could only be by someone’s side I could set them along the right path in moments. This usually comes from not being able to communicate in writing how a certain part of the process should feel…how much tension should be applied to warp, how hard should the beat be, how does one ”be the loom”. I want to somehow be able to dive through the computer screen but it is amazing what can be achieved with the right amount of tenacity!

I made my video class on Operating the Backstrap Loom to help communicate those concepts to those with whom I don’t have the chance to weave side by side. I want to help people understand how it feels to be part of the loom itself. The video class is not quite like having me by your side but so many people have commented that it is pretty darn close and that pleases me no end!

I got to visit the home of my video class, Taproot Video, on this trip. It was fun seeing both my and John Mullarkey’s dvds going out to a customer in the one package. John Mullarkey is the latest instructor to join the Taproot Video co-op and his tablet-weaving class is on Egyptian Diagonals. These and all the Taproot Video classes are also available for lifetime streaming.

My interaction with my online weaving friends has involved more cuffs, among other things. Just as I was about to archive our Cuff and Bracelet Weave-along thread in the Ravelry group, I got to see this…

Tracy and I went along to see an exhibit of the private collection of Leslie Grace in Seattle. It included this fabulous example of the woven and twined cuffs made on simple looms by the Mayoruna people of tropical lowland Peru. Check out the two sweet dangling shuttles. Some months ago, I posted on this blog about the way the weavers close the cuffs by threading the braids through the header cord. Jan had brought this to our attention and used the technique to finish her cuffs. She is even using the dangling braids as a wrist distaff for her spinning.

The Mayoruna cuffs have subtle patterning in relief. If you look closely you will see a diamond pattern. Certain warp threads are twined while others are not. The twined threads stand out in relief against the others. I had tried this some years ago using twine for the warp threads as I had wanted to weave border panels to accompany my Shipibo-inspired wall hanging. I chose twine because I thought that it might resemble the kind of fiber used by the Mayoruna people. I thought that using a lowland technique would be very suitable. However, the pattern simply didn’t show up enough in the twine. I think that something even stiffer is needed to make it work and I didn’t want stiff panels for my hanging.

That’s my sample in red twine above closest to the black-and-white panel. You can see the red-on-red cotton warp-float technique I decided to go with instead on its right. You can see pattern in my twine sample but it wasn’t showing up as well as I had hoped. (Actually, now I am looking at this picture and wondering why I had rejected that band. The pattern seems to be very clear to me now!) In any case, it gave me the opportunity to explore the technique and understand better what was going on. Next to my cotton panel is a lovely white-on-white Mexican example of a simple warp-float pattern.

Here’s the finished cuff from Leslie Grace’s collection.

Of course, there are plenty more things to show you from that collection. My adventures with dear Tracy in Seattle at this exhibit and in her home in magical Port Townsend will be coming in another blog post as well as pictures of some of the amazing textiles and bands that Marilyn brought back from Uzbekistan.

And then, something else came into my hands to pour some more energy and interest into the Cuff weave-along (which officially finished at the end of February but which may never really end!)…

Here are some sweet wooden ends for woven bracelets that come in four different kinds of wood. I have already ordered some maple and walnut ones and look forward to using them with my bands. I do have, after all, a whole bunch of woven sample bands from my last two books that can be made into bracelets or cuffs.

Indigomargo made another cuff since I last wrote a blog post…I love seeing this pattern which is one of the ones I created myself for my first book way back in 2010.And speaking of those books, I have been receiving the sweetest feedback of all…pictures of things people are weaving using the patterns and techniques!

My friend Emerald in Australia wove this belt using a backstrap loom. There’s probably a pattern from each of the four books in this piece. The viscacha is in the latest book.

These ones come from Alexandra (top left), Maxine, Nancy and Maxine again who has just started on the various ”River and Ocean”-themed motifs. All three weavers are using inkle looms. The complementary-warp pick-up technique is well suited to inkle looms and any other kind of loom that can give you two sheds and allow you to weave warp-faced fabric. My third book teaches the technique and provides 42 patterns for band weavers. The fourth book has an additional 100 patterns using the technique for bands and beyond.

Marsha on Ravelry is weaving a hatband in 20/2 silk using the horse motifs, ”Eldy’s Mustangs”, designed by my friend Deanna. Now she is playing with lots of different patterns in the left-over warp from the various themed sets in the latest book of 100 patterns…

I will leave you here. I simply must. I’ll be weaving double weave tomorrow with friends old and new and I have been experimenting with a new way of arranging the edge threads and need to get my head straight on that. Of course, I have learned a couple of different ways of handling the edges from my indigenous teachers and I am using a bit of this and that to create something a little bit different.

But, I must show you something that just arrived in my inbox as I was writing this post. Dorinda sent me pictures of Maribel’s very first faja.

I have written about Maribel quite a few times. I met her last January when I went up to the highlands to meet with the weavers in Huancarani. She was 19 years old at the time and she was alone waiting for us in the football field with her toddler Daniel when we drove up…waiting patiently long before any of the other ladies arrived.

She was keen and determined to be a weaver, join the co-op and produce things to supplement her family’s income. She was the first in the group to ask to learn the new pattern I had brought to show and she fast became my favorite. Since then, she has produced some of the bands that get made into yoga mat straps using the pattern I taught her as well as the traditional patterns of her community. Her husband has been really supportive and sometimes helps her wind the warps.

Here’s the first yoga mat strap she made with the pattern I taught her. It has its little swing tag with her name on it. I imagine she was very proud of it. However, it is a slower pattern to weave because threads need to be picked up by hand in every single shed. The traditional patterns of the area are in a technique that can be partly loom controlled and, therefore, just that little bit faster to weave.

I adore this picture of her proudly showing her first faja with a variety of local patterns! What a way to end a post that began with the awesome yet somber and snowy Mt Rainier :-)… with color and a warm smile!

Backstrap Weaving – Windows

I can tell when I have had a particularly full travel schedule when many of my photos have been taken through windows. Scenes fly by out of plane and train windows. I grab my camera and try to take a shot out of the car window as something amazing flashes by or I curse the fact that I left the camera in the trunk with the rest of my stuff. Sometimes in the dying light of a day I arrive at my new ”home” and just manage to take a picture out of the bedroom window. Windows open and close giving me glimpses of people, places, life styles and personalities.

I am nearing the end of the Australian visit. In a couple of days I’ll be making the long trek home. It feels weird saying that I will be going ”home”. On this visit, Australia has felt more like home than on any other I have made in the last 24 years. On other visits I have watched the places where I grew up become less and less recognizable. Sydney had become strange and foreign to me. A whole new younger generation had appeared in my absence and I was on the outside. This was especially true after my mother died in 2013. I came to realize that she was actually what represented home to me. She seemed to be the one comforting constant while everything and everyone else had changed and moved on.

I guess I have adjusted my idea of what it is about Australia that represents ”home” to me because I really felt different about it all on this visit. I won’t attempt to figure out what has changed. I’ll just enjoy the warm feeling and be grateful for now having two places in the world in which to live that feel equally familiar and welcoming.

My dvd Operating a Backstrap Loom has been making the rounds visiting all the places in which I have stopped and woven on this trip…

I guess the background to this picture could be one of any number of places around the world. Gum trees turn up in so many countries and I am always surprised and happy to catch that wonderful aroma of eucalyptus in the breeze when I am in certain parts of South America. It immediately transports me back to Australia. The gum tree in this picture is special as it seems to be the favorite hangout for a trio of baby kookaburras. I only managed to photograph two of them together at any one time…

I wove with friends in Sydney. We tackled warp-faced double weave. We had woven together on several occasions in the past and so everyone was up for this more advanced technique.

We arrived early trying to shake off the Sydney winter chill. Lunch time would find us outdoors soaking up the warmth of the midday sun. Weaving warp-faced double weave on a backstrap loom involves a few more steps than those that are normally used to create pick-up patterns. This is what makes it a more advanced workshop topic. It is the method, rather than than the structure itself ,that makes it that little bit more challenging. Once the steps are mastered, students can move on very quickly to creating their own patterns. I call it ”doodling on plain-weave”. It is, after all, just two layers of plain weave on which we virtually ”draw” patterns. There aren’t any floats to consider. You can literally decide on the spur of the moment which of the two colors you want to pick without having to be careful about not creating a warp-float that is too long.

Susan designed and wove gum leaves while Brenda, who loves to knit celtic knotwork patterns, did the best she could with the relatively few threads with which we were working to design and weave some cross over lines that could later be expanded into knotwork motifs. Tapestry weaver Marie Clews also took the class and told us about her recent visit to New Zealand where she took a workshop from visiting Peruvian tapestry artist Maximo Laura. Here is the sampler that she wove in his workshop…

Jen brought in a tablet-woven band that she had bought on a visit to Uzbekistan. I had marveled at these bands that were being used to edge the magnificent Uzbek ikat garments that I saw at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe. Jen had bought her band in a street market in Uzbekistan. It is quite long and wider than the edging bands that had been used on the garments. I wonder what for what it was intended.

Seeing these bands in Santa Fe had inspired me to weave one to use as the closure tab on a shoulder bag I was weaving.

The piece in the middle is a wrist band that I bought at the Santa Fe market…a precious example that I could take home and study. On the right, you can see one of my first attempts to replicate it in heavy thread and, on the left, the final piece that I used on my bag. Because my piece was so short, I didn’t use tablets to weave it. I just set up a warp on my backstrap loom and twined the warp threads by hand rather than using tablets to do so. I only needed a few inches of band for my project.

It was nice to be able to handle and examine one of these tablet-woven bands once again.

My good weaving friend Emerald joined the group for the class. She usually invites me to her home in Sydney so we can weave together and it was nice to have her join the group this time. She bought my dvd Operating a Backstrap Loom and has returned home full of energy and ready to tackle wider warps. One of the topics on my dvd is about how to set up and operate a backstrap loom for wider warps. This seems to be just what Emerald was waiting for! Look at the gorgeous warp she has made…Emerald seems to get in quite a lot of practice between my visits. She was certainly the one who most quickly and efficiently made her heddles in the double weave class. She made heddles using nylon on her latest warp. Lots of weavers use nylon and love it. I have to confess, and you will have heard this before, that I really hate using nylon for heddles! I have nothing against the use of synthetic thread. I just prefer thread that has a bit of ”tooth” and grip.

Emerald sewed together several of the bands that she has been working on to learn the various techniques and has made a really cool and unique backstrap…

I got to weave with Brenda again today. I joined her in Epping with a group of weavers, knitters and spinners. She and I attached our warps on each end of a small table and spent a few happy hours weaving our bands while listening to the other fiber-y conversations. Brenda was weaving a double weave band that she had warped and set up herself. She also designed the pattern. I wove off a few of the sample bands that I use to demonstrate techniques in my classes. Here’s Brenda about to create a pick-up shed on her double weave band…Brenda’s backstrap is a finger woven band and the cords that attach it to the beams are kumihimo braids. I love this wonderful combination of techniques…

Pictures of other backstraps have been appearing in my inbox and Facebook feed. This one was made by Tara, who wove with me in Seattle…

There’s a lot to be said for weaving a backstrap in plain weave. I love the flowing rhythm of plain weave. I think it is a great learning experience for the first steps in working with wide warps. Many people long to have a backstrap that is covered with pick-up patterns. That can come later. The first backstrap you weave will tell you a lot about what will be the ideal length, width and weave structure for the next one.

Cornelia, who wove me more recently in the Bega Valley, sent me a picture of her backstrap and some tools. I love this picture…so many natural materials and interesting textures…

Other weaving friends in other countries have been taking up the challenge of creating wider warps. Here are my Arizona weaving friends, Christine and Caroline, at one of their study group days. It is nice to see Christine here after having spent time with her in Canada recently…

Caroline’s warp looks great! I hope I will get to see it in person this October.

A couple of days after the Sydney workshop, I took the train up north to Maitland to do some complementary-warp pick-up with a group of weavers who were taking their first steps in using a backstrap loom.

I awoke to pretty mornings of heavy frost and fog drifting among the hills. I was nice and warm in Kerry and Graham’s beautiful mud brick house. The mud brick house was awesome! I don’t think I have ever been in a place where warmth was so evenly distributed. We spent happy snug evenings looking at the photos and textiles from Kerry’s recent trip to Bhutan.

Magpies competed with kookaburras and rosellas to greet the day. I spent a good part of the early morning trying to record all that lovely birdsong before we headed out for a day of weaving.

Galahs came to feed and a satin bower bird had built its impressive bower and comically decorated it will all kinds of blue objects. Painters tape, yarn and bottle tops, all of them blue, were among the treasures collected and strewn about to attract females to the harem.

There’s my fabulous Maitland group. They were all there to greet me when I arrived and came in extra early on the second day so we could get even more done. No dawdling over lunch! Everyone wanted to pack in as much as they could on those two days…and we certainly did that! Di came down from the Gold Coast in Queensland to join us. Amanda came over from Tamworth, Liz came over from Morisset and Raelene traveled up from Canberra. Kerry, who hosted me in her home, will be going to the Tinkuy in Peru this November. If you are going, make sure to say hi to her for me. I think I might have helped her make the final decision on that one :-).

Kerry took me around to see as much as we could of Newcastle before I got my flight south to Melbourne. Growing up in Sydney, I really didn’t know much about Newcastle. I knew that coal was mined in the area and so I guess I always had a picture of a bit of industrial and mining ugliness. So sorry about that, Newcastle! It was great to have this little window of opportunity to banish those images from my mind and see Newcastle for myself . This beautiful view is from the ANZAC War Memorial cliff-top bridge.The sky on my day out and about with Kerry was so pretty with clouds that looked like soft strokes from a painter’s brush. The lines seemed to draw your eyes outward and beckon you away. This is an observation tower down on the banks of the Hunter River backed by that lovely sky…

From there I headed to Melbourne and Raelene followed me so she could have another class.

I was excited about flying over and actually being able to see Australia’s Snowy Mountains where I had spent six ski seasons working many, many years ago. For all of you outside Australia who raise your eyebrows when I mention skiing in Australia, I took this shot for you :-)…

Another window, another lovely view. They are not exactly the high rugged peaks that one might get elsewhere but I can tell you that the backcountry skiing on that range is superb!

Melbourne: you may remember that I had woven with members of the guild in Melbourne last year. I had some familiar faces in the workshop as well as a bunch of new ones.

I was happy to be back staying with Ruth in North Carlton surrounded once again by all those gorgeous terraced houses with their wrought iron railings and fences. That reminds me that a plan to weave some of the wrought iron patterns is still on my list of things to do.

The late evening arrival gave me a pretty sunset view over wrought iron spires from my bedroom window. The other window in my bedroom looked out over the Melbourne skyline.

Last year, we had two three-day classes on Andean Pebble Weave and this year we decided on complementary-warp pick-up.

Raelene was coming from having just taken that very same class in Maitland but I had plenty up my sleeve to keep her challenged.

We had two first-time weavers in that class…not just first-time backstrap weavers. They had never done any kind of weaving at all and they did so very well!

When not weaving with a backstrap loom at the Guild, Ruth showed me how she has been doing pick-up weaving on her inkle loom. She took the Andean Pebble Weave class with me last year and has been continuing to make bands using her Ashford inklette. It’s interesting to see Ashford’s new version of the inklette with its sliding tensioning system rather than the one that used a paddle.

She has one loom, the nearest, set up for Andean Pebble Weave (she is weaving the little pre-columbian bird motif that is charted in my first book). The other loom is set up to weave the intermesh structure which she learned from my second book.

Here she is doing some pick-up on the intermesh warp..

This picture was taken late on the second day of our workshop when energy can sometimes be flagging. Everyone is very absorbed with getting the new wider and more complex patterns started on the fresh warps that they had created and set up themselves.

It’s always exciting seeing a new pattern appearing and then it’s hard to stop! So, here’s Raelene continuing to weave on her train ride back up to Canberra…

She doesn’t have much room left to weave on that particular warp but she has several more bands that were started in the two classes to complete.

Glenys, from the Canberra group, sent me a picture of one of her completed bands…

And, while I am showing finished bands, I’ll show you Claire’s from Hobart (Tasmania was my next stop after Melbourne). Claire chose a different pattern to weave on the warp she wound herself…

Jeanne in the Bega Valley sent me this picture of one of her finished bands…

Here’s Caitlin in Hobart showing that she can not only weave a hook, she can also flip it back and forth…

But, I am getting ahead of myself! First stop in Tasmania was up north in Launceston. From there I headed a bit south-west to weave with a group in Deloraine. I stayed with Jutta and Heinz in the pretty village of Chudleigh. It was cold in Tasmania…but of course! I didn’t get to see the surrounding hills on the first morning because of the cloud and fog but I was blown away by the magnificently clear night sky when I arrived. It was lovely seeing the Southern Cross way overhead among the stars of the Milky Way. In Santa Cruz Bolivia where I live, the Southern Cross appears just above the horizon.

The tails of fog drifting along the fields and hugging the hills in the early morning were really attractive. After class on the first day, Jutta drove me around to see the pretty dairy pastures that surrounded Chudleigh village.

After two days spent with the weavers in Deloraine, it was time to head on down to Hobart. Jutta made many stops along the way to show me around. We visited Launceston and its Design Centre. There we saw an interesting exhibit of wood that is being reclaimed from the bottom of valleys that were long ago flooded for hydro-electric schemes. Massive tree trunks are being turned into furniture by Tasmanian artists. In the gift store, Jutta bought and gave me a shawl pin made from Tasmanian huon pine. The point of the pin makes it a perfect little pick-up stick. I had bought a kitchen implement made from Tasmanian sassafras wood which I hope to have modified into a sword.

One of Launceston’s cathedrals…

We visited a few historic sites along the way like the Callington flour mill in Oatlands which was built in 1837. I wasn’t expecting to see a windmill in Tasmania!

As we approached Hobart, Jutta kept pointing out the mass of heavy grey cloud behind which she promised was an impressive mountain called Mt Wellington which dominates the city of Hobart. I had to wait a few days to get to see it in all its glory. It peeked out now and then as I came and went from the guild rooms at the start and end of the day. Here you can catch a glimpse of the organ pipe rock formation near the summit…

The Hobart guild has its rooms in Battery Point, an absolutely gorgeous part of the city full of pretty Georgian stone cottages and houses made from convict brick. The houses were built for early-Hobart workers and merchants of the port. The guild rooms have a shop, a library and spacious well-lit rooms for workshops and gatherings. My group surprised me with a lovely gift…a needle case made out of Tasmanian myrtle.

I got to stay on Mt Nelson with Margot which gave me pretty views of the river and bridge and then I swung over the river to Lindisfarne to stay with Jillian. Her historic home offered views of the bridge and the famous mountain that was slowly emerging from its shroud of cloud and fog.

Jillian does all kinds of weaving but has spent a lot of time on tapestry. She shared some of her works with me. I was really taken by this miniature that she wove while seated in a botanical garden. I have seen people with their easels painting outdoor scenes or sketching or using pastels (I have always been so envious of those skills!) but the idea of weaving a scene like that, painting with yarn what is right before your eyes, just blows my mind.

I had a whole day free in Hobart to wander about and so I arranged to meet up with a friend. If you have been following my blog for years you may remember stories about Anna who was bicycling from Alaska to Ushuaia with her boyfriend, Alistair back in 2010. They took a detour to come to Santa Cruz so that Anna could weave with me. We have been in touch with each other ever since. Here we are together in 2010 at my place doing some spinning…

It was a very happy reunion seven years later!

I was tickled to see the fob on Anna’s car key. This is an Andean Pebble Weave band that she had warped and used to learn to weave with me at my place back in 2010. This last remaining shred of band is now her keyfob!….

Here is she is at my place in 2010 learning on this very same warp…

And here are her first steps in double weave…

And, look what she has been doing with those double weave skills!

Much has happened since we met in 2010. Anna and Alistair got married after their three years of bicycling through North, Central and South America, moved to Tasmania and now have two little ones.

Anna and I strolled around Battery Point together catching up while looking at the historical houses.

Anna pointed out the convict-made bricks to me…

I love all the tones of white and grey in this next picture…

Of course, we had to go up Mt Wellington. We almost made it to the top. The roads still get icy and dangerous towards sundown at this time of year and we got turned away before we could reach the summit. That led to a really nice hike out to Sphynx Rock at the highest point we could safely reach…

Hobart has over 300,000 inhabitants and I felt like I could see the homes of each and every one of them from up there!

There’s that elusive summit….at last!

Meanwhile, while I stand there rugged up in a down jacket and vest, folks have been enjoying a summer of backstrap weaving on sunny desks and porches in other parts of the world. Here’s Anne weaving on her deck in California with a little winged visitor…

Alison, with whom I wove very recently in Canada, has been weaving on her porch in British Columbia…

I know that Deanna, who lives in southern California, often weaves outside in her gazebo. She is getting re-acquainted with double weave…

She plans to make bracelets with I-Ching hexagrams.

I’ll end this post with a picture of a curious magpie checking out my dvd. Well, I’ll confess, it was only there for the crumbs. 🙂 The song of the magpie is, for me, the sound of my Australian home. Here is a little clip of birdsong in Australia, much of which I recorded on cold crisp mornings when I was in the Hunter Valley at Kerry’s place…

Backstrap Weaving – In the Bush

At the loom and in the bush…what a perfect mix of activities. Hiking! This used to be so much a part of my life and something I have been neglecting since weaving became such a major part of my daily activity. I have been out and about in Australia enjoying yet again the soft colors of rural sunsets, this time on the far south coast of NSW…

…colors that inspire projects on my backstrap loom…

And now I have a whole new palette of colors from the Australian bush to work on. While on the south coast I met Tabitha who came to weave with me. Tabitha has yarn spun from the fleece of her Lincoln Long Wool and Awassi sheep..”100% Bega Valley yarn” she tells me.

She told me that those long locks are from lambs. She spins a 3-ply yarn and I bought several dyed balls and one natural to try on my backstrap loom. It will be a nice souvenir of that part of my Australian visit…

There among the balls of wool you can see some other little treasures that I picked up in my travels around the southern tablelands. We stopped to take a look at Longbarn provincial antiques. Owners Gary and Jane Kendall travel to France every year to pick up new pieces and it was fascinating picking through their rustic store. As you can see, I found a spindle which I am actually planning on using as a shuttle and two small wooden things that look like shuttles. These ”shuttles” were part of a large fishing kit and are actually not shuttles at all. My traveling companion, Cornelia, bought the whole kit and shared some of the pieces with me. What look like shuttles are, in fact, small fishing reels. They came complete with line and sinkers. Now they will carry yarn for me as I weave on my backstrap loom. They are full of character. They have traveled all the way from France to Australia and will now head to Bolivia.

We also spotted this in the store and hope it goes to a good lace-making owner…

The hard case around the lace-making pillow has a hollowed section at the back which is filled with bobbins and a few pattern sheets.

I wove with two groups when I was down on the south coast.

The place where we gathered was nestled in the most gorgeous sheltered bay and while we wove we could watch its changing moods as the tide came in and out and the sun crossed the sky.

One moment there would be fierce crashing waves on the rocks and at other times sublime serenity.

On the last evening, we had a bit of rain which with the low evening sun created a spectacular double rainbow.

In one of the serene moments, the dark clouds and the golden light of the setting sun painted quite a picture…

The winter sun was so pleasant that Karen and Maeve decided to weave outside, each one adopting the position in which they felt most comfortable…

And here ‘s Maeve indoors getting the hang of using multiple swords…

There’s one of our happy backstrap weaving groups. A couple even have their bands still attached to their waists and have slung them over their shoulder so they can get straight back to weaving!

I loved the far south coast and had some time to take a look around. Karen and Rachel took me out to see some sights around the various bays, beaches and harbors. We lunched on fish and chips at my request, browsed cute stores that carried works by local artisans and strolled among the majestic Norfolk Island Pines on the sea shore….

The Gallery and workshop of Aboriginal artist Merryn Apma.

Driving here and then from town to town there were blissful rural scenes of cows contentedly grazing. This is prime dairy country. In late afternoon, cow-dotted fields would be replaced by ones dotted with dozens of kangaroos. You can tell I am a city girl, right? It was heavenly!

I was happy to meet British weaver and braider Helen Deighan who came to weave with us fresh off a flight from England. She has written books on braiding and dyeing and studied with Rodrick Owen. She always brings exciting and fresh activities to share with the local fiber group and I know that she has come this time armed with many foam discs to share her kumihimo braiding skills and knowledge. She enjoys giving to the group and has been particularly enthusiastic about having the opportunity to weave on a backstrap loom with us.

She went right out and made herself a cloth backstrap and fashioned some swords from wooden spatula handles. She also has one of Terri’s (Magical Moons) cherry wood swords.

I think she is really enjoying operating the backstrap loom without necessarily doing any pick-up. There really is something magical about the rhythmical body movements that are used when doing plain weave. More than ever you become aware of the fact that you are part of the loom itself. Here Helen is doing plain weave with a ”threaded-in” pattern. Using weft in a contrasting color adds yet another attractive design element. I am guessing that this wide piece will become a backstrap…

John was the only male member of our group and he has been working on his pick-up skills since I left. It takes a while for the mechanics of operating the loom, handling multiple swords and developing strategies for chart-reading to all fall into place and it all seems to be coming together nicely for John.

And I just now received this photo from the group of their first backstrapping get together since my visit. A warm winter’s day allowed people to be outside weaving. Apparently too much good conversation and food kept some of them from setting up their warps and weaving.

While out and about once again, I loved seeing the ”cathedrals” of spotted gums that are so typical of certain parts of this southern region…

I was lucky to be able to stay with Delma and Doug Roseman. I had seen one of Doug’s hand crafted weaving benches in one of the stores that supports local artisans and I asked him if he would consider making me a couple of swords using Australian wood. He was happy to do so and made me four!

From left to right, these are made from manna gum, forest red gum, spotted gum and NSW blackwood. What amazing souvenirs to have from this part of New South Wales.

Here’s the loom that Doug built for Delma…

It’s the result of a collaboration with Australian Master Weaver Kay Faulkner. The plate on the side of the loom names this one as the fourth Faulkner Loom to be made. I think Doug has made nine of them so far.

I had a whole other day away from looms to explore the area. A group of us decided to climb Mount Gulaga at 2644 ft (formerly named Mt Dromedary by Captain James Cook). From Wikipedia…

Gulaga is the place of ancestral origin within the mythology of the Yuin people, the Indigenous Australians of the area. Gulaga itself symbolises the mother and provides a basis for Aboriginal spiritual identity; the mountain as well as the surrounding area holds particular significance for Aboriginal women. For the Yuin people it is seen as a place of cultural origin. The mountain is regarded as a symbolic mother-figure…..

We were lucky to have Bernadette and Richard with us who shared a lot about the local flora. That’s Bernadette below telling us about the Rough Tree Ferns which were my favorite things along the way.

After lunch at the saddle we followed an unmarked trail…thanks to Mog and her local knowledge… to a large section of strangely shaped and balanced granite boulders, or tors, or ”standing stones”. To the Yuin people, the boulders represent guardians of time that are interlinked with the well-being of the mountain and of the people. While the boulders are looked after by the Aboriginal custodians, the guardians will look after the mountain.

It was a place where I felt that I needed to talk in whispers and I lagged behind on my own for a bit. There was certainly something very spiritual and even eerie about it. I wasn’t the only one to find that I had pan-pipe music in my head as I wandered about the giant stones reminiscent of the soundtrack to the 1970’s Australian movie Picnic at Hanging Rock. Take a listen and you will find the hair on your arms standing on end! What weaving will come of this?

This was one area where the bush was open enough to give us views of the ocean below…

It was a fabulous day…thanks so much for making it possible, Mog, John, Sue, Bernadette and Richard. My calf muscles reminded me of the ascent and the scrambling for several days after when I got out of bed in the morning!

Visiting Canberra was lovely. My gosh, the weather has been kind to me! I have been seeing lots of activity from some of the ladies who wove with me in Canberra since my return to Sydney. I am so happy to be leaving behind enthusiastic backstrap weavers. It certainly isn’t absolutely everyone’s cup of tea and I am happy that people have followed their curiosity and have wanted to try it out.

Pam brought this lovely weaving still on the backstrap loom from the Piura province of Peru to show us. This is an area where cotton double-pocket saddle bags are typically woven. The weavers use a single-faced warp float pick-up technique and their work is unique in the way they use small pieces of supplemental weft to add splashes of color. I was once shown a completed saddle bag (at left) from this region when I was traveling in California.

The piece that Pam brought has been left on the loom and has been obviously made as a souvenir of the township of Catacaos. It is interesting that the weaver has used two sets of string heddles…one holding all the red threads and the other the white ones…rather than one set of heddles and a shed rod as backstrap loom weavers would most often do.

Kristy has been busy since the class checking her local yarn stores for suitable and yarn and weaving a backstrap. The yarn is Katia Bombay and it comes in a beautiful range of variegated colors…no solid colors that I could see on the website. This plain-weave backstrap has come out beautifully.

Jo has finished off two of the three sample bands we started together…

If I had had a wee bit more time in Canberra, I may have managed to visit the National Gallery and see this beauty…

Some pieces of literature say that The Bronze Weaver is from Indonesia while others say possibly Borneo. It was collected in Flores, Indonesia and dates to the 6th century. Isn’t it wonderful how she remains seated, being the loom, while she suckles her infant. I love the detail in her hair and backstrap in this view…

Here is an excerpt from the National Gallery of Australia’s description of the piece…

The woman, feeding a young baby who touchingly clutches her other breast, is clad only in a calf-length skirt, typical of everyday wear of the more remote regions of Indonesia, especially Borneo, until recent decades. In contrast her carefully braided hair and plait are most unusual. While her necklace is simple, the large bold earrings, probably plugged earlobes, strikingly frame her serene face. The figure is seated at a simple loom. The foot-braced body-tension loom depicted has not been observed in Flores in historical times although local looms, where the warp beam is braced by poles, are very closely related. Identical foot-braced looms, however, have survived in remote districts of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Taiwan, and Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The creator of this sculpture was obviously very familiar with loom technology as the apparatus and the loom patterning are accurately depicted. The circular warp, the cloth and warp beams, the shedstick, the weaving sword and the delicately rendered plaited back strap speak of an era when bronze casting and textile weaving were already prominent gender-specific arts.

You can read more here.

Cornelia made a trip to the National Gallery to buy me a postcard of The Bronze Weaver while I was weaving.

From there it was back up to Sydney, away from the loom for a bit and into the bush with my brother, sister-in-law and friend. I love the Blue Mountains. This will be where I settle the day I decide to come back to Australia.

This was yet another day of amazing colors and textures in trees and rock with wanderings through canyons and glow worm tunnels among enormous Rough Tree Ferns…

From the cool depths of canyons we looked up at a piercingly blue sky with the sunlight bouncing off sandstone walls…

We spotted a lyrebird…the first I have seen in the wild…look closely!

Here’s our view of a little piece of fern paradise from within the old railway tunnel which now houses hundreds of glow worms.

Many thanks to Wayne and Debbie for supplementing my photos and for making the trip possible.

I’ll be weaving this weekend with Sydney friends including Emerald with whom I always weave on my Sydney visits. She made a trip to her homeland, Myanmar earlier this year meeting up with U.S tablet-weaver and ply-split braider Linda Hendrickson. I am looking forward to hearing about it. I was lucky to be able to spend a morning with Linda on visit to the USA in May.

There will be more travels to follow….time at the loom with friends new and old and, hopefully, some more time for the beautiful Australian bush!