Vietnamese weaving – Page 4 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Different “tribes”, different customs.

Different places, different customs…are you one for grits, biscuits and sweet tea or bagels, lox and giant mugs of coffee for breakfast? I love seeing all these different things when I am traveling. Different “tribes”, different places, different customs…

Christmas, Hanukkah or Festivus?

I had fun the weekend after Thanksgiving helping to decorate the tree in Claudia’s home and then we ran into this Festivus sign (for the Seinfeld fans out there) in Poolesville. Maybe the Festivus pole will make its appearance soon.

I am enjoying the cold weather here in the US getting wrapped up in scarves and gloves. It makes me nostalgic for my skiing days. I have been invited to spend a week in colonial Williamsburg with Claudia and friends and I hope it snows.

In the meantime, I have more to show and tell about the time I spent with the Montagnard weavers in North Carolina. They are all grouped under the general French title of “Montagnard” but Ngach, a Jarai women, tells me that the hill area of Vietnam is home to over sixty different tribes with their many similarities and differences in customs, textiles and weaving styles. I was able to meet people from the Jarai, Rhade , Bunong and Koho tribes during my stay.

My twining classes were with Ngach from the Jarai tribe and Ju who is Rhade. I ended up spending more time with Ngach who seems to have had more experience with the kteh technique and whose eyesight is better able to deal with the fine threads that are used.

We twined this small border design on a child’s skirt as that is all that time would allow. Normally this would be followed by a large central design three to four times the width of this one and then finished with the same border. Ngach was a wonderful teacher, as I said last week, with a quick eye for catching my mistakes and a lot of attention to detail.

She would start a row and work it to the midway point and then let me take over and finish copying the design while she went back and started the next row. So, pretty much the entire left side of the work is Ngach’s and the right side is mine. You can certainly tell the difference between the two halves.

She asked me a lot of questions about Bolivia and was pleased and surprised by the similarities in climate, vegetation and food between the hills of Vietnam and lowland Bolivia. I showed her pictures of llamas from the highlands, weavers and weavings of Peru and Bolivia and told her about the custom of chewing coca leaves. She would ask me again and again to repeat the words in English so that she could tell, I imagine, all the stories to her husband when she got home.

She then shared a story with me about how she had learned the kteh technique at the age of ten.

She was visiting her sister-in-law in her village who happened to be doing kteh that day and immediately fell in love with the designs and insisted on being allowed to sit and watch and try it. She stayed all morning instead of going home to prepare the rice for lunch as was her duty.

Eventually, angry messages and threats of slaps, in Ngach’s words, started arriving from her mother who had come home to find that lunch preparations were not underway. Both Ngach and her sister-in-law decided that it would be better for her stay on and pratice the kteh in the hope, I suspect, that her mother’s anger would pass. I don’t know what happened when she got home but Ngach soon became the one to whom other weavers would bring their finished loin cloths and other woven pieces so that she could make the intricate twined patterns. she would be paid with a leg or pork or sometimes cash.

She told me of one time that she stayed awake all night thinking about and planning her design and then got up in the morning to go straight to the store to buy her thread so she could get to work.

I think I really lucked out having Ngach as my teacher!

And she softened and finally agreed to sell me two of her lovely cement bobbins. She also has wooden ones from Vietnam but I have not seen her use those. The cement ones are a little heavier and feel really nice in the hands although they can be a bit rough on the thread.

And here is the design finished with only the border stripes to go…that’s the easy part.

final twining session — Dear Ngach working at the kteh and then the two of us celebrating the end of the design.

Betsy Renfrew, who is working with the Montagnard weavers and who made all this possible for me, has several books on the textiles of the hill tribe weavers of Vietnam. I had just been admiring a particularly beautiful piece, which was labeled as Maa in one of the books and which unfortunately was not detailed enough to allow me to see the technique, when in came Rah and her daughter Sel who are of the Bunong tribe (Betsy has found many variations of the spelling of this name), armed with a woven basket full of Bunong textiles. There was a piece with the very same technique that I had been squinting at in the book.

Above you can see the work on the central panel of Rah’s gorgeous skirt.

Rah understands English quite well but has difficulty expressing herself.

I don’t think she had any problem understanding my excitement over this piece and my desire to learn how to do the patterning technique.

However, her fourteen year old daughter Sel told me that, although her mom would love to teach me, unfortunately she had not woven this particular piece nor had she ever learned this kind of patterning.

It had been sent over from Vietnam. Sel was happy to show off the baby carrier that her mother had made for her – a piece for which she has an obvious strong attachment and affection. Her blouse was woven by her mom too.

There are examples of Bunong skirts on the Tribal Trappings website where the structure is described as “a soumak-like technique”. As I am now the happy owner of Marla Mallett’s wonderful book on woven structures, I am hoping to perhaps be able to pin it down from her pictures and descriptions. It could be countered soumak but I need to look at this more closely. Any thoughts from my readers would be very much welcomed.

In many ways the patterns resemble those that are created using one of the warp wrapping techniques I learned in Guatemala. The main difference is that the Guatemalan style is worked in a shed on a warp faced ground weave and does not show on the back of the piece. The Bunong piece has a balanced ground weave.

rah with skirt — Rah wearing her traditional Bunong skirt. Betsy tells me that Bunong textiles generally stand out from those of other tribes for the use of green in the designs.

Here is the beautiful “backpack” ‘basket in which some of the textiles had been brought to Betsy’s home…

Rah enjoyed watching videos that Betsy has made of Montagnard weaver Ju Nie at work at her loom. Sel said that Rah had had a loom at one stage here in North Carolina but also said that some of the loom parts had been confiscated by airline security when they had attempted to bring them over from Vietnam. We are hoping that she may feel inclined to take it up weaving again and that even Sel may decide that she would like to learn.

One more look at that gorgeous skirt piece, this time showing some of the other float patterns…

I loved this next piece too – a bag that Rah and Sel brought to show with all-over supplementary weft pattering on the body and supplementary weft patterned figures on the flap…

As I mentioned earlier, I was happy to be able to swap my Andean Pebble Weave book for the first edition of Marla Mallett’s book with someone who had recently purchased the second edition although I must say I am itching to find out what I am missing from the updated version!

I simply haven’t had time to take a close look at it but one thing I did notice is that the cross knit looping ”stitch” which is often used by the Montagnard weavers to join their blanket and skirt panels or edge bags is a well known stitch in the world of embroidery known as the “Van Dyke stitch”. After seeing Ju’s blanket panels so effectively joined with this stitch I used it myself to join two of my woven pieces to make a tool bag.

A closer view…

For those of you who would like to try this on your own work, I found a great video tutorial on Van Dyke stitch and I particularly like the way she starts the stitch which is not at all like the way I was taught by the weavers in Bolivia.

Marla Mallett shows an example of it on a south Persian bag. It’s amazing how these techniques show up across the globe. The Bunong weavers use it too and Rah’s bags were edged with it.

My visit with Betsy also included an afternoon at the Seniors Center where a group of Bhutanese ladies and gents, recently brought here from refugee camps in Nepal, have English classes with teacher Mary Ellen. Betsy had organized to give a weaving demonstration during their class and so we took along the loom on which Betsy has been learning from Ju and a narrow double weave piece still on the loom that I have been working on while on the road. Again, Betsy is hoping to find weavers in this group who may like to take up weaving in their new home here in the US.

The demonstration certainly aroused a lot of interest and chatter with two ladies in particular very keen to help Betsy manage her loom. Betsy is learning to weave a narrow band on a very large loom which is not at all suited to this size of weaving. The loom, therefore, is very unwieldy. Ju weaves two bands at once side by side on these large looms to help overcome this problem.

One of Betsy’s helpers indicated with gestures that she weaves much wider pieces in Bhutan and showed the way she throws the shuttle across the warp. She patiently sat by while Betsy explained that she was just learning and still having problems opening the sheds until, finally, the urge to lend a hand became too great.

Above Ranmaya and Bhimaya Gurung are helping Betsy to open that nasty heddle shed.

Poshupati (I am guessing the spelling) came along to act as translator.

He told me that he used to be the director of an artisan training center in the refugee camp that taught weaving and leather work amongst other skills.

Once most of the class members had returned to continue their lesson of “family” vocabulary with Mary Ellen, we were left alone with Ranmaya and Bhimaya and our looms and got along just fine without our translator.

I was surprised to find that I could remember a few words of Nepali from my two trips there in the eighties like the words for “finished”, “thank you” and “sister” which seemed to be a word used for any female companion.

One of the big problems with Betsy’s loom was the fact that the heddle stick kept falling out. This was not due to poor heddle making but rather to the fact that the loom bars are so wide that it is difficult to manipulate the sheds without tipping everything from side to side.

I told you all in a previous post about how Ju and Ngach set up their heddles during the warping process rather than later once the warp is on the loom. It is a tremendous time saver but I am far too fond of my string heddles with their extra hitch to adopt this method. I did, however, try it at home just to see if I understood how it is done.

Here is a short video clip that I made on my last visit with Ju in August in which you can see her winding the warp and making her heddles as she goes. The stick she is using ensures that the heddles are of equal lengths.

BACK IN MARYLAND…….

Claudia has been coming along well with her tubular woven bands to the point where she doesn’t need my help any more. I suspect she will have the directions memorized soon.

I made another trip to the Textile Museum so that I could revisit the Central Asian ikat exhibit with a guide and use the museum’s library. The tour was good, our guide enthusiastic, but I was disappointed not to find any information on what appeared to be warp twined bands on the edges of some of the garments. I seem to be twining mad at the moment.

In the library I got to see David Fraser’s work “A Guide to Weft Twining and Related Structures with Interacting Wefts” which, sadly, can’t be had for under $300 these days but, then again, there it was in the library for me to peruse for free. It was quite a coincidence to find a mail from a Weavolution member a couple of days after with a link to a site which gave a virtual version of the talk which David Fraser had given on the weft twining in what he calls plateau bags at the Textile Museum in August.

There is a great photo here on the same site which I really like of a woman twining a bag in much the same way as I have been doing at home with the piece simply held in her lap…no loom and no tools, except that she twines with the warps extending away from her.

Upstairs in the Education Room at the museum, the only place, the guide told me, where one can take photos, I was able to clear up my confusion about the different kinds of ikats.

This is weft ikat where horizontal resist dyed yarns are predominant in the fabric.

Both warp and weft yarns can be resist dyed separately and then used to create independent designs in a balanced weave fabric. This is called compound ikat.

In double ikat the weave structure is balanced and resist dyed warps and wefts meet to produce a single design.

I don’t think I had ever seen a piece of just weft ikat fabric until once again along came someone at Weavolution with a link to a gem of a video on traditional Laos weaver Bounxou Duoheuang and her inlay work. Wait until you see the piece of weft ikat that she prepares towards the end of the video.

I will finish off here by showing once again the wonders of the online Worldwide Weaving Guild which is, by the way, the way I first found out about Betsy’s work with the Montagnard weavers. This week I would like to show you what Tracy has been up on her backstrap loom in Qatar. Check this out!!

I was going to give you the whole story here but Tracy has covered it on her blog with lots of background and details so you can read about what it took to produce this gorgeous piece.

Above is a sneak peek at the work in progress but you really need to read the story of how this all came to be. Note the plastic tape that she uses for her heddles.

And here is the amazing backstrap that a friend gave her as she took her first steps in backstrap weaving. Does anyone have an idea about its possible place of origin?

Next there’s a balanced weave piece on the loom that I know is already off the loom and done.

I am saving a few more stories from the Montagnard weavers for next week’s writings from colonial Williamsburg. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

I have a million thanks for Betsy Renfrew and Andrew Young who hosted me during my stay in North Carolina and made all these encounters with the Montagnard people possible.

Backstrap Weaving – Weft twining with the Montagnard backstrap weavers.

But first a look at gorgeous rural Maryland where I am currently staying with friends on the first day when it has felt really cold out. There has been talk of snow on Friday…I hope so as we are putting up the Christmas decorations here that day! while Santa Cruz Bolivia in the meantime experiences a “cool” change with temperatures dipping below 30C (86F). Most of the leaves have fallen here and it’s interesting to see the turkey vultures perched in the gaunt leafless tree across the street every morning.

Last week I was down in North Carolina where the weather was mild and the neighborhoods were still awash with red, gold, yellow and brown.

I was down there revisiting the Montagnard (Vietnamese hill tribe) weavers whom I had met on a visit last August about which I wrote in this previous post. I had discovered Betsy Renfrew’s videos and photos on her blog about the group of Montagnard people in her community and her project to help them integrate and find sources of income by teaching them English and making it possible for them to gather the materials and resources necessary to build looms, buy thread and practice their traditional weaving skills. Betsy was more than willing to extend an invitation to visit. She has also allowed me to use some of her photos in this blog post.

last visit — Betsy and weaver Ngach together on the left during my first visit. On the right a scene from my first visit with Lisa and Maurice in Betsy’s home with weavers Ngach, Ju Nie and her husband Thomas. It was a chaotic afternoon with lots of chatter, sharing and interaction which cleared away all language barriers. Backstrap looms and textiles covered the floor of Betsy’s front room and, as this was my very first encounter with these kinds of textiles, it was impossible to wade through and take it all in during our short visit and I left with many unanswered questions knowing that I would simply have to return one day.

JU and me last visit — We got to see Ju warping and setting up her loom and Lisa and I both got to try out her warping technique where she adds string heddles as she winds the warp as well as weave on her backstrap loom. I tried to photograph as many woven pieces as I could – skirts, blankets, baby carriers bags and belts so that I could figure out the woven structures when I got home. Ngach put on skirts for us and Ju modeled the baby carriers. Many of the structures I immediately recognized and it was fun to show Ju and Ngach pieces woven with the same techniques in South America. In fact that was the most fun part of the visit…comparing and sharing our different experiences with the textiles, patterns, tools and looms and seeing for what purpose the textiles were intended. I was able to study and figure out some of the other less recognizable techniques when I got home.

Some of the different patterning techniques which include simple warp floats, cross knit looping, supplementary warp and weft can be seen below…

I like the supplementary weft patterned piece on the right as it reminds me very much of some flower motifs that I recently wove using Guatemalan supplementary weft and warp wrapping techniques. The similarities in the designs across cultures are astounding.

If you have been following my blog, you will know that the technique which really grabbed my attention was the following one which both Ju and Ngach, who are from different tribes, call kteh.

Above you can see two pieces with the kteh weft twining technique that Ngach has worked around the warps on the edge of her woven blankets. The upper left picture is a loin cloth which Susan Stem showed me when I made inquiries about this technique on the Tribal Textiles forum. I think that Ngach’s pieces are every bit as fine as the example photographed by Susan.

So this was the technique that I really wanted to learn more about and I got to see even more amazing examples on this most recent visit.

When I got home I was keen to try weft twining and made examples in different colors using Montagnard designs that I had photographed and seen online. (at left)

I learned a twining technique from books on Maori Taaniko..You can read more about this here and here.

I was surprised on my visit last week to see the use of yellow in the main design in one of the pieces as, by coincidence, I had chosen it to use in my own experiments at home.

All the pieces I had seen on the previous visit as well as in books and online had been patterned in only red and white with only the stripes done in green and yellow.

In weft twining, strands of “weft” are twisted around warps. When weft strands of two colors are used, patterns can be formed by controling which of the two colors appears on the upper surface of the piece after each twist.

Here are some more examples of Ngach and Ju’s work in kteh technique.

The above piece of kteh adorns the edge of an extremely fine skirt which Ju wove and which H Ni Buonya modeled for me.

Instead of being wrapped and tucked as traditional skirts are, this skirt had hooks sewn into its waist band which held the folds in place.

The twining was flawless and the selvedges impeccable. I think this was the finest of all the pieces I saw.

Eventhough I was able to reproduce the designs in my bulky cotton thread, I couldn’t feel convinced that I was on the right track until I could compare the reverse of the kteh pieces to my own twined work.

Besty sent me a picture of the back of a piece and I was finally able to see for myself on my visit.

What I really wanted to do was learn how to do the twining alongside Ju and Ngach and Betsy was able to organize classes for me with both ladies. Ju and Ngach, as I said before, are from two different tribes, the Rhade and the Jarai and both Betsy and I thought that it would be interesting to see differences in the way the two ladies did their twining.

classes with Ngach and Ju — LEFT: Twining class with Nagch at Betsy’s house. At right, Ju shows me how she gathers the warps in groups and sizes them before twining.

I first met up with Ju at Betsy’s house where a collector was coming to see and possibly purchase one of Ju’s woven pieces. Ju, who I gather never likes to have idle hands, had brought along a finished piece of weaving that was to be sewn into a bag. She was busy twisting the fringe dragging the warps through a wad of sticky cooked rice that she carried in tissue and then rolling them on her leg to set the twist. She would select four warp ends, divide them into two pairs and then, with one quick movement, roll the two pairs away from her on her leg and then swiftly roll the two twisted strands back toward her to unite them.

She used this same kind of sizing to twist and group the warps ends together for twining which, as a beginner, I found very helpful . Ngach on the other hand does not size the warp ends.

The first class was with Ngach. After having seen pictures of Ngach warping outdoors on Betsy’s blog it was nice to see the enormous tree where she does it in her front yard right on the edge of a very busy street.

Here you can see the different set ups that both ladies use. Both fold and tack the woven cloth so that it can be suspended on a rod or bar with the weft ends, or fringe hanging down. Ju, at left, has a lovely stand built by her husband especially for twining. Ngach suspends her work on a metal rod which she has supported on two chairs. Ngach is twining the end of a child’s skirt while Ju is twining the ends of two small bags, something which she is only doing in order to be able to teach me on a small piece.

Here are pictures of Ngach twining on warmer and brighter days courtesy of Betsy. The pictures we took this time around tended to be somewhat darker unfortunately.

The wefts are stored and carried on bobbins. Ngach says that they are made of clay in Vietnam while Ju used to use wooden ones. Both ladies have had to improvise their bobbins in their new homes.

Ngach has lovely bobbins fashioned from cement.

Ju’s were heavier and made from wood. Her husband bought a pestle from a Laos store from which he carved them. I bought a pair from her. Both use Cebelia size 20 thread.

Below you can see Ngach at work holding the warps under tension with her left hand while she twists the wefts on their bobbins with her right…one twist to change color in the pattern and two twists to continue with the same color.

Her movements are so fluid, graceful and rhythmical and she uses her one long thumb nail to separate each group of warps around which to twist the wefts. This was the part that really slowed me down…separating the warps into correct groups of three. What was nice was that Ngach and I could sit side by side and work together. I would struggle along trying to match her rhythm. We could both work simultaneously on different rows of pattern.

Here is a rather dark piece of video which will at least give you an idea of the movements. Ngach is making a pattern in red and white. Her movements are very graceful and I love the soft “clack clack” of the bobbins as she works. You will see her doing double twists when she wants to continue with the same color and a single when she wants to change colors. I have brighter but longer videos which need to be edited when I get home so I can upload in another post.

Above, Ju is twisting warps on a piece so that I can take it home and practice. I really think both my teachers enjoyed showing me this. Ju, even with her very limited English, was very talkative and eager to show me the entire process while Ngach was very keen to make sure that I learned it just right, constantly correcting and adjusting the way I was holding the warps and not letting me get away with anything. At one point when I had made a mistake and untwined to fix it, I asked her if she always undid her errors. She looked at me over the top of her glasses and said “no mistakes!”. I am not sure if that means that she doesn’t tolerate them or that she doesn’t make them but there was definitely a twinkle in her eye. I liked Ngach!

Results:

We finished a tiny design on Ju’s small piece but didn’t get as far on Ngach’s larger one. However, I enjoyed working more on Ngach’s piece for some reason. I think sitting and working alongside Ngach made all difference as I was able to watch closely and try to follow her movements and rhythm.

Each twined row always starts on the left and moves to the right. When the right edge is reached, the weft ends are knotted and cut leaving a small “fringe”. This was something I had been very curious about as the instructions in my Taaniko book indicated that one needed to ambidextrous and twine in both directions back and forth across the piece.

Ju’s enthusiasm for showing me all about the weaving arts from her home in the hills of Vietnam didn’t stop at twining. After I had become tired from twining and the concentration it required, she brought out a wonderful spinning wheel that she had had sent over from Vietnam.

What a sweet little spinning wheel this is. It is made from simple bamboo wood and wicker and all held together with hand carved wooden pins.

Ju set to spinning cotton, which had also been sent over from Vietnam, with her foot thrown over the beam of the spinning wheel to anchor it down. She really seemed to be enjoying showing this to us.

Once she had finished with her small quantity of prepared cotton, she brought out a funny little tool that looked much like an archer’s bow to prepare more. Below you can see this tool and Ju skeining on a niddy noddy.

The following video will show you how it works. I would love to show this to the cotton spinners that I stayed with in coastal Ecuador.

On another day, I got to see a bit more of Betsy’s work with the Montagnard ladies. A few weavers gathered with their looms in a local church. Its congregation has kindly allowed its space to be used for possible weaving demonstrations. The idea was to see what would be required to enable the weavers to set up their looms in those facilities . Not only would they need a strong and stable place to tie up their looms but also a way to set up the foot braces against which the weavers push to tension their warps as they weave.

Ju and H Ni attended and finally managed to get their looms set up and foot braces in place. While I find a foot brace nice to work with, I am glad that I am not dependent on one and, therefore, have more freedom to set up my loom easily in different places.

H Ni is weaving two bands at once on her loom which will be straps for shoulder bags. Weaving two straps at once helps balances out the very wide loom.

ha nies awkward set up — H Ni’s set up was a bit awkward. We had to improvise adding books and bits to her bamboo poles in order to have her foot brace within reach.

I am thinking that one of those wonderful ergonomic benches designed by Synergo Arts with its built in foot rest/brace would be a solution to this problem. I wonder if they break down in pieces for transport.

A close up of H Ni’s two straps.

Ju was weaving a narrow pick up patterned piece which will be a scarf – not one of her typical woven pieces but it has occured to her that scarves may be popular small items that visitors to her demonstrations may like to buy as opposed to skirts and blankets.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Ju and H Ni enjoyed seeing pictures of the designs from various Montagnard tribes in books that Betsy brought to the meeting.

The other purpose of the meeting was to give the weavers booklets which Betsy had put together with pictures and weaving vocabulary in English.

Khin attended the meeting to act as translator and it turns out that she too is a weaver. The problem is that many of the ladies in the community who have these weaving skills simply do not have the means to have looms made and buy thread to get started.

Betsy also made tapes for each weaver to go along with the booklets with the pronunciation of the English words for them to listen to and practice at home.

The idea is to have the weavers eventually feeling confident enough to be able to give presentations and demonstrations of their weaving to small groups in the future. I would love to return for the day when that happens and see these ladies enjoying sharing their skills with even more people with same good humor, generosity and enthusiasm that they showed me.

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Back to what I like to call the World Wide Cyber Weaving Guild….

It seems that the cold weather has brought on a flurry of weaving activity and so I am able to show you some finished projects from online friends who have visited my blog.

Anna (who is cycling from Alaska to Ushuaia and who is currently in Santiago Chile) sent me this picture of her latest pebble weave bands and Kim, whom I met at Convergence wove the pebble weave keyfob on the right. Both used the instructions from my Andean Pebble Weave book.

These are more of Kim’s bands on the left, again in pebble weave with one in simple warp floats in the middle, and Lavitaaj made this amazing supplementary weft sampler on the right using the pattern charts from my blog. There is also a section with a yurt band design in simple warp floats.

And finally, here is Marsha Knox’s band made with simple warp floats using two color combinations in the same piece while Helena in Brazil has taken the Bedouin patterning one step further with a large strip of diamond pattern bordered by the classic triangle motif. I will definitely add a tutorial on this technique to the blog soon.

UPDATE: Marsha uploaded a picture of her finished band. She reversed the scrolls and did them in brown. It looks super!

Last Sunday I got to quickly pass through the Central Asian ikat exhibit, which was stunning, at the Textile Museum in DC before attending Ann Rowe’s talk on ikat rebozos and ponchos in Latin America.

I hope to return next Saturday to take the guided tour of the exhibit, use the library where I want to look at David Fraser’s book on weft twining, and maybe pick up a few more Textile Museum journals in the gift shop.

There is hardly a journal there that doesn’t have something of interest to me. I think that eventually I will own them all.

This week Claudia and I had skills exchange. I taught her to make the tubular woven bands that I learned at the tinkuy and she introduced me to the wonderful Weavette. Yep, this was the first time I had ever seen one of these little marvels and Claudia even has an old Jiffy Loom in its original box and a plastic Weave-It. My eye was immediately caught by the cool long weaving needles that come in the kit. Aha…just the thing for weaving in the wefts for my four-selvedge warp faced pieces and so I ordered some online.

These would be just the thing for making little amulet bags…love them!

And speaking of learning new skills, here is DY, still in Peru, picking up some new techniques – drop spindling and backstrap weaving. I think she has been taking Spanish classes too.

Finally, a very happy Thanksgiving to all. I spent it Claudia and family and friends…only the third Thanksgiving I have ever had. We watched the Macy’s parade this morning and I declare the sweet potato casserole with butter, brown sugar and pecan topping my favorite dish of the day.

Backstrap Weaving – Spreading the Obsession:warp faced and weft twined

SAM_0836 — Simple warp floats in red and black by Eladio Salas Torres

WARP FACED AND WEFT TWINED

Three things have influenced the weaving I have been doing this week and they are spread across three very different parts of the world:

– a new book in my collection of weaving books on Bedouin weaving which has taken me on a fascinating trip through Saudi Arabia and other lands inhabited by the Arabian Bedouin with their colorful woven tent dividers, bags and camel adornments;

– the intricate weft twined work that the Montagnard weavers of Vietnam, that I met in the US, incorporate on the edges of their warp faced textiles;

– the beautiful combination of red and black in the backstrap woven piece by Eladio Salas of Mexico that I showed you last week.

First I took a step backwards as I had decided that I didn’t like the weft twined piece that I was practicing on last week. Fortunately I discovered that un-twining is a lot easier and faster than un-weaving. It is just a sample piece for skills-building but I just was not happy with the colors and motifs I had chosen and it had to go! Half of it got pulled apart and I did some searching on the net to figure out how I would like to continue. So now I am continuing with a swirl design from a Jarai tribal textile and will finish it off with other Montagnard motifs.

Meanwhile the Bedouin designs were calling to me…fabulous red, white and black warp faced pieces interspersed with bands of weft twining. I noticed that there was a small three color band of design that was common to many of the pieces which Joy Totah Hilden identifies as al-‘uwairjan pick up patterning and so I decided to sample that before launching into a big project.

In Hilden’s book I see that Bedouin weavers use staked out horizontal ground looms with their heddle bar suspended on forked sticks, rested on top of oil cans, cement blocks or other such objects or tied to sticks driven into the ground. The weaving is suspended just a few inches above the ground. As the weaving progresses, the work is not rolled up. Instead, the weaver sits on the completed work and inches her way along the warp to stay close to the weaving line. Weaving is even done inside the home with the loom bars and warp held under tension in ingenious ways. One picture shows the loom bar tied to another bar which has been lodged behind a doorway.

Images of Bedouin textiles and looms can be seen here and here.

Here was my chance to put the reds and black together and learn some traditional Bedouin designs. The main panel of my weaving is done in a technique which I believe is called warp substitution. This pick up technique creates long floats on the back of the textile. I have never been a fan of long floats and much prefer double faced weaving but I wanted to use the technique employed by the Bedouin. To eliminate the floats I could have woven the very same designs in double weave.

The center panel of my piece is woven with the warp substitution technique called “shajarah” (tree) pick up patterning.

This weaving also gave me the opportunity to try weft twining on the loom. Many of the pieces shown in Hilden’s book have not only weft twined edges but also several bands of twining at various stages within the weaving. I have been enjoying my off-loom twining experiments and was looking forward to comparing them with twining on warps under tension on a loom.

I have kept these first attempts at on-loom weft twining narrow and simple.

I had to consider how many warps to use in a bundle around which to twine the wefts as well as the right thickness of weft yarn so that the warps didn’t get spread too much thus widening the piece. Should I twine loosely or tightly? It took a few attempts to get it right. The warps did get spread slightly and so I had to work to get them back into place so I could continue with the warp faced weaving.

I plan to leave the weft ends on as a decorative feature. This piece will be a wall hanging. I was thinking about using it as part of a pillow cover but my cat, no doubt, will chew those weft ends off.

Feeling a bit more confident, I did a slightly wider weft twined band at what will be the center of the piece and added in a little bit of chaining.

It is lovely doing the weft twining on the loom and the added control that one has by having the warps under uniform tension allowed me to use a much finer yarn than I have been using on the off-loom pieces. I expect with more practice I will eventually be able to do fine off-loom twining too….some time in the distant future!

The motifs in the warp substitution band have been copied from images in Hilden’s book and from those I have found online.

You can see the bands of al-‘uwairjan pick up on the sides.

I am now just over half way through this piece and hope to finish it with a wider and more complex piece of weft twining.

I will add to the weft ends that are hanging from the sides to balance both sides and perhaps add some tassels.

Hopefully it will be ready to show next week.

There are many beautiful weft twined camel adornments in gorgeous red, tan and mustard tones that I would like to use as inspiration in other pieces.

While we are in red-and-black mode….

I promised you last week some more information on the lettering used by the Montagnard weavers in their bag straps.

Anyone who knows how to do simple warp floats as detailed in my tutorial here will pick this up in no time. The lettering is done in simple warp float technique with some variation.

In simple warp float technique you are using a shed of each color, for example, all the red warps in one shed and all the whites in the other. You weave alternating red and white horizontal bars and then go floating one of the colors over the other to form your designs.

The difference in the Montagnard method is that they have one shed of red and another shed of alternating red and white which you can see at left (with a two-warp red border).

In the red and white shed, they drop all the whites which exposes their black weft – you can see black dots on the above lettered band. They use twenty-nine warps in each shed to weave their letters, that is, twenty-nine reds in one shed and fifteen whites alternating with fourteen reds in the other.

When they want to weave a letter, they…

-open the shed with the reds and whites and drop all the whites except the ones that they need to form the letter.

-pass the weft.

-save those whites and add them to the red shed.

-pass the weft.

–open the red and white shed again and keep the same whites from the previous weft pass along with the whites needed to form the next part of the letter.

-drop all the other whites.

-pass the weft.

-save only the whites needed for the next part of the letter and add them to the red shed.

– pass the weft.

AND SO ON……

This will be double dutch to those of you who have never done simple warp floats. Well what are you waiting for? Here’s the tutorial! Become familiar with the simple warp float technique first and then try the letters.

NOTE:

If you use a red weft instead of black you will create the impression of a smooth solid color background.
This is not a double faced technique.
This technique does not produce the stiff band typical of true warp faced weaves.

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There was a question in the Inkle Weaving group on Ravelry about doing one-weft double weave on an inkle loom and so I warped up my Ashford inklette and have added some pictures to the one-weft double weave tutorial for this. I only warped up to take the pictures and wove a triangle as a sample. This morning I had some time to play around with the warp…

This is very easy to do on the inkle loom. One-weft double weave produces a thick band with sharp motifs on a solid background. It is double faced.

Flipping the loom upside down, this is what you see…

This is the first time I have tried this on the inkle loom. Weavers in the Backstrap Group at Weavolution have tried it but warned me that it is a bit stressful on the loom. I wasn’t sure if my inklette would be able to take it but I actually don’t find it stresses the loom at all.

You will warp your loom normally except that you will be using doubled threads.

See the full tutorial with all the details and more pictures here.

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You may remember my blog post about Anna who came to visit and learn backstrap weaving with me here in Bolivia. She and boyfriend Alistair are on their way by bicycle to Ushuaia after having started in Alaska in May 2008.

Well they have just completed the Lagunas trail in the salt lake area of Bolivia and Chile and are currently luxuriating in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Anna described that riding section (which turned out to be more of a pushing section for the last five days…deep sand and a strong headwind) as one of the most physically demanding things she has ever undertaken.

Anna and Alistair teamed up with a couple of German cyclists for this part of the trip and Anna has been spreading the obsession by teaching new friend Carolin to backstrap weave. They are carrying printed pages from my Andean Pebble Weave download with them.

Here are some fun pictures of them weaving on the road…

2. uyuni, first weaving class — Anna on the left gave the first weaving class to Carolin in the town of Uyuni in Bolivia before heading off on the lagunas trip. The little table has been fashioned from "madera de cacto" (wood from the dead pillar cactus)

5. idem — Carolin with her tiny loom tied to her bike and weaving on the salt lake.

10 bike double weave back side — Anna designed a fitting motif with which to practice her newly acquired double weave skills.

13. idem — Anna warping in camp somewhere in the desert. She said her fingers nearly froze off! I recognize those pencils...

So nice to see my apprentice so enjoying her new skills! Apparently Carolin will be doing a long sailing trip after this bike journey so we can expect to see the backstrap loom being used in the middle of the ocean some time in the future!

Anna brought me some spindles and llama bone picks from Sucre.

I gave her very precise directions to the curandera stalls in the crazy campesino market which sell llama fiber, weaving tools and all kinds of home remedies.

She not only found the curandera area but I believe she bought the things at the very same stall at which I shopped when I was there.

I have sent some of the spindles to the Netherlands and the US and have one left if anyone is interested. I have a few llama bones left too.

Drop me a line if you are interested. 🙂

Backstrap Weaving – Building skills and resources.

BUILDING SKILLS AND RESOURCES

I have been busy behind the scenes building the resource pages on this blog. I am about three quarters of the way to finishing the “Frequently Asked Questions” pages which will deal with fifteen or so topics related to making your own backstrap loom and weaving on it.

You can access the index by clicking on the FAQ INDEX tab on the header image. There you will find links to the finished pages or you can go directly to each page by clicking on one of the topics on the sidebar.

The pages include explanations with photos, links and images. I hope that you find them useful and please feel free to ask any questions, add information from your own experience or suggest other topics by leaving me a comment here on the blog or the relevant FAQ page.

And….I will be translating all the tutorials to Spanish and putting those on new pages too. (Y….voy a traducir todos los tutoriales a español y los voy a poner en paginas nuevas también).

So, that was my keyboard activity for this week along with writing an article and getting some pages done for my next book!

As for 0n-the-loom activity, I was asked to weave some bookmarks for a friend. I was told what design to use but the colors were left to me. I got to use some more of the Turkish cotton that I bought recently and I can’t say enough about how beautiful it is to weave with. It is only for special projects, though, definitely not for sampling as it is a bit pricey. Details can be found on the FAQ 3 page which answers the question “What yarns are suitable for backstrap weaving?”

These have been woven in double weave. As the borders are plain weave I used two wefts. One weft wove the borders and upper layer of the double weave and the other wove the lower layer. Lettering is really easy to do in double weave and although these letters I invented are very basic, they can be very effective. I have charted them out for you all to use. Most of the letters are in the following two images and I am sure that you can invent the ones that are missing. You can, of course, weave the letters after following my tutorial for one weft double weave.

Other woven messages can be done in the Montagnard style lettering. I learned this warp float weave by studying a band I bought from some Montagnard weavers that I met in the US on a recent visit.

This is a “looser” weave and the resulting band is quite flexible unlike the double weave which is very firm.

Next week I will do a tutorial on this warp float lettering.

You have probably heard me mention before my love of the letters that Linda Hendrickson has charted in her book Please Weave a Message.

I got this book hoping that I would be able to use the charts for double weave but found that the “stitches” produced in card weaving sit one on top of the other as opposed to those in double weave that are staggered from left to right. This meant that I would have to adapt Linda’s charts for double weave. I did adapt many of the letters but they were seriously altered and just did not look as nice as Linda’s but now I have had an idea!

I realize now, after my recent experiments with weft twining, that weft twined “stitches” also sit one on the top of the other and that I should, therefore, be able to use Linda’s charts to twine letters and messages. I am not sure how much the slant on the weft twined stitches will affect the appearance of the letters but I can’t wait to try it out.

I haven’t done so yet as I am still building my weft twining skills while working on another project this week with slightly finer yarn.

This time I am using three and sometimes four colors at a time and it is a little cumbersome but I do like the results. The design has been inspired by pieces in a book on Bedouin weaving. From a distance this looks pretty much like a piece of tapestry. Many things amuse me about this technique….firstly, it is something new, secondly, it helps me to better understand what the Montagnard weavers are doing at the edges of their warp-faced weavings and thirdly, it is an off loom technique that does not require tools apart from one’s own hands.

I am grateful to Bonnie Datta who told me that a chapter of Peter Collingwood’s book The Techniques of Rug Weaving is devoted to twining…both warp and weft. The book can be downloaded for free here. The opening line of the chapter reads….Twining is not weaving,… so that settles that debate!

It shows some ways to turn the wefts at the edges for rug making which I must try as that is something with which I am still battling. The piece that I am working on now is still a “skills builder” but, who knows, I might be able to make something useful out of it.

As far as lettering goes, my boyfriend’s mother asked me a long time ago to make something for her. She is from Cochabamba in the Bolivian highlands and, although she was raised speaking Spanish, both her mother and grandparents were bilingual, speaking both Spanish and Quechua. She told me that there are three lines that comprise the “Law of the Qechua” which go…

which translate to… Don’t steal; Don’t lie; Don’t be lazy. She would like me to weave these words into a wall hanging for her. Well, I might not weave them, I might twine them.

What I am really leading up to with my twining experiments is weaving a double weave piece on my backstrap loom with twined edges where the design on the twined edge matches the double weave motifs. There is much skill-building to be done before that point. Hmm…I am not sure if I am less adventurous now or wiser. I am sure that in years gone by I would have launched myself straight into this and not bothered with the “skill-building”!

In the meantime I have been admiring some ikat pieces from Sumba which I found online which have very broad twined edges. They leave the wefts tails hanging out at the sides as fringe. I am trying to hide the weft ends so I can have smooth neat edges, without much success, I might add!

This has led me to look at other twisty twined off loom techniques and especially one that is practiced right here in Santa Cruz where I live by the Ayoreo people. Actually, I have always wanted to learn about this but gave up some time ago trying to find a willing teacher. Maybe it is time to try again.

Information about the Ayoreo people is sketchy. Population estimates in different sources range from seventeen hundred to four thousand Ayoreo people, distributed amongst seven to ten clans living in the area known as the Chaco. They use off loom netting, twining and knotting techniques, sometimes with the aid of a needle, to make a type of shoulder bag called utebetai using a fiber called garabatá fino from the Bromelia Hieronymil plant. The fiber is twisted by rolling it on the thigh using ashes to take away some of its stickiness. It is plied and may be also dyed before use.

I have three of these bags but have opened them out to use as wall hangings.

According to a booklet put out by CANOB (Central Ayorea Nativa del Oriente Boliviano), the designs used in the pieces represent seven clans. The motifs include representations of the patterns on armadillo shells, clouds, snake skins and the eyes of a jaguar.

Miniature pieces are also made which are said to be used to carry talismans.

Even if I don’t make something like this myself, I would like to sit down with the ladies and watch the process and document it. Sometimes they are seen working with the fiber in the street but unfortunately I have not found them very open to my questioning or hanging about in the past.

The Ayoreo also use weft twining to make bags and carve beautifully simple bowls.

My friend Kathleen sent me pictures some time ago of bags called chácaras, which are said to be of Mayan origin, being made in Panama by the Ngöbe and Buglé people. The fiber is from the Aechmea magdalenae plant and is also twisted by rolling on the leg. The netting method appears to be the same although their color palette is quite different.

To finish this week I have some projects to show you from Marsha Knox who is in the Backstrap Weaving Group at Weavolution and Eladio Salas Torres who lives in Mexico and follows my blog.

Marsha used a tapestry loom to weave a band patterned with simple warp floats. I know that Marsha had a few false starts with this but she persevered and I thank her for showing us how warp faced bands can be woven on a tapestry loom.

Eladio has woven a wide piece incorporating three strips of simple warp floats using patterns from my blog. The red and black together look stunning!

He is using the double bird design from coastal Ecuador and a hook design that I adapted. He also sent me a picture of himself at his loom. I LOVE getting photos like this!

It looks like he is using a cardboard roll for his shed rod and maybe pvc pipe or wood for his loom bar and roll up stick. I wish I could sit cross legged like that! He has just bought my pebble weave book and I am sure we are going to be seeing pebble weave bands from him soon.

NEWS AND STUFF…

Here is the link to the most recent Synergo Arts newsletter about their latest progress with the ergonomic bench in Guatemala.

Backstrap Weaving – Weft twining: the learning process

WEFT TWINING: THE LEARNING PROCESS.

It has been a long time since I have learned something fiber related that it is completely new to me. As fun and interesting as it is, it has reminded me of just how much time is involved in practicing something so you can get to the stage where you are making something even half decent.

It is great finding weavings from different cultures online, finding that I know the technique and being able to chart and weave it like the Tarahumara band that I wove last week. When I visited the Montagnard weavers I saw a variation of a pick up technique that I already knew so it was not difficult to come home and weave it.

tara and viet — Tarahumara design band and Montagnard pick up patterned piece

However, I also saw that the Vietnamese ladies were working with weft twining, something that I had not tried nor seen worked before. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the process and so I needed to come home and dive into my books in order to learn something about it.

This is a technique that has interested me for a long time. I bought Cheryl Samuel’s gorgeous book on weft twined Chilkat blankets from that wonderful newspaper-like catalog that Unicorn books used to put out back in the 90s. It is a stunning piece of work with beautiful illustrations – a joy to look at even if you don’t actually use it to make anything. Making a Chilkat blanket was perhaps a little daunting and so later I got a book on the Taaniko weft twining practiced by the Maori people of New Zealand. This seemed a lot more manageable. The book has fabulously clear step-by-step drawings but the disappointing lack of a variety of traditional Maori designs left me uninspired to try the technique.

More recently, my friend Caroline in Australia sent me a monograph on weft twining by Virginia Harvey and Harriet Tidball which has proved to be very useful.

Seeing the fine designs worked by the Montagnard weavers into the edges of their woven blankets and shirts was the motivation I needed to finally get down and learn how to do weft twining. Being able to touch the textiles and meet the weavers made all the difference.

kteh twining — Susan Stem shared the image above left with me of a loin cloth with a red and white weft twined edge. The other two examples were made by Montagnard weaver Nach Rahlan.

I remember being amazed when Betsy Renfrew, who is working with the Montagnard weavers, told me that this weft twining called kteh is worked off the loom. However, after reading my books and searching online, I have found that this is more often the case than not. Now that I have tried the technique myself, I don’t see any need to have the warps stretched out taut and can just hold everything in my lap. Maori weavers apparently have the top of the piece stretched out between two vertical stakes with the warps hanging down loosely.

And how is this for wonderful timing… the book you see at left, which I had ordered online and which has information about weft twining, arrived today. I can’t wait to get into this! Author Joy Totah Hilden has a wonderful website on Beduin weaving (she chooses to use that spelling) with seven pages devoted to weft twining which include images and instructional diagrams on the technique. The roll of cotton string which you see on top of the book is what I used for my warp and the yellow ball is Sugar and Cream cotton which served as my weft.

In her book Joy Totah Hilden describes weft twining as “the oldest weaving technique known in the world”. She quotes Mary Atwater who says “Twined weaving is so ancient that it may be said to have no history”. There is a discussion in a forum online about whether it is , in fact, classified as weaving. In any case, the results are beautiful!

So after a considerable amount of reading and trying to visualize the process, I got my materials together and started. This is one of the lowest tech techniques ever! That roll of string, the ball of yarn and my hands is all that I needed…no needles, pins, stakes or hooks. Okay, you do need one more thing in abundance: patience, as this is a slow technique.

I would liken it to learning to knit or crochet. The basic moves are not difficult but you have to figure out how you are going to hold and tension everything and you need to practice it a lot to get into a rhythm and settle into your own personal tension. You are all thumbs at first, tension is all over the place and the results are not too pretty! Basically you are taking two wefts, generally in two different colors, from one edge of the warp to the other twisting them as you go so that they encircle each warp.The twist is single or double depending on which color you need on the upper surface of the piece to form the pattern.

I soon got bored with my first red and black piece with a small design from the Taaniko book. What I really wanted to make were some of the Montagnard designs. The good thing is that the designs are really easy to chart on basic squared paper. You can see the great variation in tension between the two red and white samples above as I slowly got used to doing the twining and settled into a consistent rhythm and tension.

The Taaniko book teaches you to first twine from left to right one row at a time tying off the yarn once the right hand edge is reached and then beginning again from the left side. This results in a series of knots down the right edge. This has you twisting the yarn with your right hand while holding the warps with the left. The idea is to eventually become ambidextrous in order to be able to reach the right edge, turn, and go back in the other direction twisting instead with the left hand.

Well I am sorry to say that I simply don’t have the patience for this part of the learning process and so I just flip the work over and return with the back side facing me twisting with my right hand all the way. You soon learn how to read the pattern equally well from the back side (this is a single faced technique).

As you can see above, the resulting “stitches” are slanted which means that diagonal lines in the design take on a different appearance depending on which way they are slanting. I thought at first that I must be doing something wrong but a close inspection of the Montagnard pieces showed that their designs have exactly the same appearance.

Getting increasingly adventurous I created a wider warp and charted one of the motifs from the photo that Susan Stem had given me. This is not a completely faithful reproduction as I could not see the details well enough in the picture. I chose some small border motifs from the Montagnard pieces, a Maori border and another main Montagnard motif and lumped them all together in the one piece.

Ideally, you would work with weft long enough to twine back and forward and finish the whole piece but this length of warp would be very difficult to handle. You eventually have to finish at one edge and knot the wefts there, take more weft and start again.

Now what to do with all those knots and tails? From what I have read, it is common practice to cover the knobbly knotted edges with braid or add a fringe or tassels along the entire edge. In the picture below, I added a fringe along one edge to see how that looked.

That doesn’t look too bad although you can see that the edge in general needs a lot of improvement. What I might do for the next piece is add a Navajo-style twining down the side.

My first weaving experience was with Navajo-style tapestry and this is one of my early pieces. I always loved the way this twining looked on the sides. I would like to see if this helps smooth out some of the lumps and bumps in the edges of my weft twined work.

So now I have an even better appreciation of the work that the Montagnard weavers are doing creating the weft twined edges on their weavings. Of course they are working with much much finer yarns and their warp is the fringe of their woven piece. They use several strands of their fine warp yarn as one warp for the twining.

Maybe I will get down to finer yarns eventually but for now I am content to continue with the chunky stuff and I would like to make some of the designs from my new book. I love the colors of these pieces..all those sun faded reds, blues and mustard yellows that work so well together. Now to start planning a piece that can be made into something useful. The result is very sturdy and would actually make a brilliant backstrap, belt or bookbag.

That was my week of practical work and then there was the charting. I have plans to reproduce the Huichol piece at left that I photographed at the National Museum of the American Indian. It has been woven in balanced double weave.

I have woven this technique only once before from a ready made chart but I don’t have enough experience with the structure to be able to chart it directly from a textile so there will be a lot of experimenting and sampling before this project gets off the ground.

Actually there are some charts in an old issue of Prairie Weave Companion which I should probably weave first to get my hand back in. One of the charts is of a Chinese lattice work design – gorgeous!

As usual I will leave you with some work done by members of the online backstrap groups on Weavolution and Ravelry.

Kimberly, whom I met at Convergence, has taken to Andean pebble weave in a big way following my book…

The band on the left is made with size 3 crochet cotton and the one on the right size 10 – Coats Royale – beautiful rich colors.

Carinefile in Belgium made a backstrap following my article in WeaveZine and Evelyn has been pebble weaving.

I see many more days of weft twining and charting Middle Eastern designs coming up hopefully with improvements in my technique. If all goes well, I will have a balanced double weave project underway too and there is a supplementary weft piece taking shape in my mind after having seen a yurt band online. Oh and there’s another Tarahumara piece that I would love to tackle….!