warp floats – Page 2 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – East and West 2…The West Side Story

EAST AND WEST 2 – THE WEST SIDE STORY….

THE HIGHLIGHTS.

This is what happens when you don’t blog for a while! You have to drop the details and limit yourself to the highlights. Since the conclusion of the “West Side Story’ on this trip, I have finished yet another chapter entitled: “Hooray Santa Fe!”. So, as I sit in Miami airport waiting for my flight back to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, I will attempt to capture some of the flavor of just my west coast adventures in this post.

The West Side Story started at the ANWG Conference in Bellingham, Washington.

It was followed by a stay at my friend Betty’s (author, weaver, traveler, trekking and textiles tour leader, mountain climber, tree farmer, blueberry farmer……!!) home in Washington state. There I got to meet up with one of Betty’s friends, Judith, whom I had met at the Tinkuy in Peru in 2010, as well as with Bobbie who is in the Ravelry group.

This chapter finished in San Francisco after having spent about ten days at my backstrap weaving friend Janet’s farm in Humboldt County California. Janet arranged two get-togethers with weavers I had met last spring.

This trip has been about many things, one of which was meeting new people and putting faces to online acquaintances…

Here are some of the members of the ANWG Organizing Committee and ANWG instructors at a pre conference get-together. The group includes Marilyn and Linda who took my classes, Sheri, my Bellingham host and my wonderfu roommate, Marie. I am sure that you will recognize some familiar faces amongst the teachers. Here is where I got to meet the ladies with whom I had been corresponding all those months while the conference was being prepared. It was great to meet Holly, Jane, Patrice, Paula ad Marilyn at last. — Here are some of the members of the ANWG Organizing Committee at a pre-conference get-together. The group includes Marilyn and Linda, Sheri, with whom I stayed in Bellingham, and my wonderful roommate, Marie. I am sure that you will recognize some familiar faces amongst the teachers. It was great to meet Holly, Jane, Patrice, Paula and Marilyn at last.

This was a wonderful conference. Apart from being in one place with over five hundred enthusiastic weavers, I loved the venue, the dorms, the food, our fourth floor weaving room with the view of Bellingham Bay, and all the fun details that the committee had gone to so much trouble to include. I can’t imagine that these events can get any better than this one!

I loved the handwoven conference logos on the crocheted backgrounds which were hung on windows to mark the rooms which were designated classrooms. My roommate, Marie, was part of the team responsible for the handwoven pouch and name tag combo. That little pouch was such a cool idea. It conveniently held keys and meal card. Backstrap weavers found it handy for parking their sword/beater. The fabric was so very pretty. Imagine having to make over 500 of these for all the participants.

And of course, there are one or two special people amongst all those that you get to meet and chat with at such events with whom you have a particularly strong connection.

Marilyn was one of them.

She wove with me on several days, was a committee member, taught four classes and was a whirl of energy. She seems to have an endless collection of beautiful ethnic textiles to wear and I looked forward to seeing what she would be wearing each day.

At the final banquet, we were asked to wear something handwoven. So, there you see Marilyn in a gorgeous Guatemalan huipil. I simply draped the Bhutan-inspired scarf that I wove around my shoulders.

(And guess who I bumped into in the plaza in downtown Santa Fe last week as I stopped to buy a fajita?)

The West Side Story is also about meeting some of my online friends from the various backstrap weaving groups as well as reconnecting with weavers from past visits.

Ravelry member Cindy weaving a nawi awapa band in my class. — Ravelry member Cindy weaving a nawi awapa band..

Cindy was also responsible for my spending in the ANWG Vendor Hall. She unearthed some Guatemalan natural dyed cotton at the Mayan Hands booth (on sale) and refrained from buying all of it! She and I bought bags of two colors and swapped. I wonder what she is planning to do with hers.

My backstrap weaving friends from Humboldt County got together in a couple of sessions...Janet, Gina, Autumn, Aceand Linda. We tensioned our warps on poles, floor looms, toes and inkle looms. — My backstrap weaving friends from Humboldt County got together too…Janet, Gina, Autumn, Ace, Pam, Buffy and Linda. We tensioned our warps on poles, the beams of floor looms, toes and inkle looms.

It was about playing with WOOL, something that is not so accessible in my home in the lowlands of Bolivia. And, of course, when I am with Janet and her friends, it is about lots of spinning and plying.

That's Ace at the wheel and below you can see the heavy grey yarn that he spun semi-worsted for his luxury backstrap...a lovely thick, cushy strap. You can see Janet working on a pebble weave band using her own handpsun and a pattern from my second book. And, on the right, there's the wee spindle whorl from coastal Ecuador that I gave Janet last spring. She has mounted it on a knitting needle and has been sponning with it. — That’s Ace at the wheel and below you can see the heavy grey yarn that he spun semi-worsted for his luxury backstrap…it made a lovely thick, cushy strap. You can see Janet working on a pebble weave band using her own handspsun worsted and a pattern from my second book. And, on the right, there’s the wee spindle whorl from coastal Ecuador that I gave Janet last spring. She has mounted it on a knitting needle and has been spinning with it.

Ace is new to backstrap weaving but not to spinning and I gave him a hand with that grey wool project. I have to admit it looked hairy and scary at first! but, it was a breeze to weave with. Who knew that it would weave up so well on a backstrap loom and in a warp-faced fabric? It all comes from the expert hands of the spinner and his/her preparation of the material.

I got so carried away with weaving and the enjoyment of working with that lovely thick and even handspun that I wove almost to the end forgetting that Ace would want several inches of unwoven warp ends from which to make braids for his backstrap. Once off the loom he braided the ends and braided a separate cord, from his handspun of course, for the straps.

Some of Janet's beautiful naturally dyed handspun yarn which was destined for warp-faced weaving. — Some of Janet’s beautiful naturally dyed handspun yarn which was destined for warp-faced weaving….no overspin, no kinking!

It was about SUMMER, glorious summer…ripening grapes and berries, fireworks in the night sky, outdoor music, beaches and sunsets.

The view from my bed in Betty's studio looking out on her tree farm and ripening blueberries — The view while lying in bed in Betty’s studio looking out on her tree farm and bushes with ripening blueberries.

Sunset over the mountains in faraway Canada on the final evening of ANWG in Bellingham. The cool and enticing raspberry jungle at Janet's place. My poor, but kind- of -interesting, attempt at photographing the fireworks during my first 4th of July in the US. Beautiful patterns in light and dark sands on the beach at Shelter Cove near Janet's place....Humboldt County...sigh! — Sunset over the mountains in faraway Canada on the final evening of ANWG in Bellingham. The cool and enticing raspberry jungle at Janet’s place. My poor, but kind- of -interesting, attempt at photographing the fireworks during my first 4th of July in the US. Beautiful patterns in light and dark sands on the beach at Shelter Cove near Janet’s place….Humboldt County…sigh!

Music under the big ol’ white oak…the annual”Strawberry Jam” at Janet’s place. I hooked up a warp to my toe, wove and enjoyed the music.

And there were textiles!! I was lucky that my visit with Betty coincided with a visit from Betty’s good friend Judith.She had come down from Canada to take a spinning class from Judith MacKenzie McCuin and stopped for a day to visit. She had brought with her the most exquisite textiles from a trip she had taken to Indonesia.

Judith lays out the textiles under the supervision of Trouble the cat.

Woven on a backstrap loom, this piece has both the warp and weft patterned ij the ikat technique. On top of that, the cotton thread was handspun. Judith tels me that this is known as "Magic Cloth" and comes the Tenganan Bali Agai Community in Bali, Indonesia. — Woven on a backstrap loom, this piece has both the warp and weft threads patterned using the ikat technique. The cotton thread is handspun. Judith tells me that this is known as “Magic Cloth” and comes from the Tenganan Bali Aga Community in Bali, Indonesia.

And, speaking of warp and weft ikat, I have to show you the jacket that Linda LaMay enetered in the juried show at ANWG. Linda wove with me over several days. She happened to be in the Gallery on my visit and allowed me to photograph her with her piece that was given the Complex Weavers Award. Her piece also won 1st prize for being the best representation of the conference theme: Crossing Threads, Crossing Borders.

Linda had bought a pre-tied and dyed ikat or, jaspe, warp in Guatemala...one which had been designed for warp faced fabric. Linda, however, wove it as a balanced weave, a twill and, in order to do this, had to dye the weft herself and then carefully place it to match the dyed pattern in the warp....she painstakingly transformed it into warp and weft ikat...amazing. — Linda had bought a pre-tied and dyed ikat or, jaspe, warp in Guatemala…one which had been designed for warp faced fabric. Linda, however, wove it as a twill exposing both warp and weft and, in order to do this, had to dye the weft herself and then carefully place it to match the dyed pattern in the warp….she painstakingly transformed it into warp and weft ikat…amazing.

Another textile in Judith's collection, this one from Sumba, Indonesia...all the stuff I love!...weft twining along the bottom, simple warp floats to create creatures that are mirrored in the central ikat section. — Another textile in Judith’s collection, this one from Sumba, Indonesia…all the elements that I love!…weft twining along the bottom and simple warp floats to create creatures that are mirrored in the central ikat section.

And, speaking of twining, let me show you the ravenstail work that John Beard showed in the Instructors’ Exhibit at ANWG. He kindly gave me permission to show it here….spectacular.

And, speaking of the warp floats in the Sumba textile, let me show you a textile that ANWG instructor and fellow Australian Kay Faulkner collected in her SE Asian travels. She brought this to ANWG to inform and inspire her students in her workshop entitled “East Meets West”.

We had fun comparing and contrasting spotty pebble-like structures and she came over to my classroom on the last day with Bhakti Ziek so that we could have even more "pebbly" conversation. If you look very carefully at the piece Kay brought you will see that there are weft floats amongst the warp floats. — Both faces of this textile have warp float patterns . Kay and I had fun comparing and contrasting spotty pebble-like structures and she came over on the last day with Bhakti Ziek so that we could have even more “pebbly” conversation.

I just gaze and gaze at this Selendang shoulder scarf of Batuisi, W Sulawesi from Judith’s collection. The colors all come from natural sources. The yarn used was heavier than that used in other Indonesian ikat pieces that I have seen. I really liked the feel of this piece.

There are more of Judith’s textiles to show but I think I will save them for another post. Let’s look at the miniature backstrap loom that she got in Indonesia instead. I am always intrigued by new-to-me pieces of equipment that the various backstrap weavers aroud the world use and this loom included such a piece which may hold one of the many secrets of how backstrap weavers go about keeping the ikat-patterned warp threads reasonably aligned.

What a sweet little loom with its circular ikat warp in place. It was a great opportunity for me to take a close look at one of the Indonesain backstrap set-ups. — What a sweet little loom with its circular ikat warp in place. It was a great opportunity for me to take a close look at one of the Indonesian backstrap set-ups. The miniature wooden backstrap is so cute!

I love the carved pieces that serve to clamp the circular warp. Beyond the heddles and shed rod, the warps that had been tied and dyed were clamped between two sticks and wrapped. The wrappings seemed to separate the warps nto the sections that had been wrapped. I am wondering if the wraps also serve to squeeze the warp threads into groups and therefore help stop the from moving excessivley.and blurring the design too much. — I love the carved pieces that serve to clamp the circular warp. Beyond the heddles and shed rod, the warps that had been tied and dyed were separated along a stick which was wrapped. The wrappings seemed to separate the warps into the sections that had been tied for dyeing. I am wondering if the wraps also serve to squeeze the warp threads into groups and therefore help stop the from moving excessively and blurring the design too much.

And, while on the subject of simple looms from far away places, let me show you a loom that a lady in Arcata, CA showed us when our weaving get-together group went to the Farmers Market. A friend had brought it back from Africa for her with accompanying postcards that showed how it was set up. The postcards said Upper Volta and were written in French. This, according to Wiki is today’s Burkina Faso and it seems that the people who use these looms are called the Mossi. The loom pictured at left is from this page.

It has some beautiful parts which include bone foot toggles for operating the shafts and a fine reed framed with what could be wood and horn. The carved wooden pulley system and shuttle were lovely as was the indigo-dyed cloth strips that had been sewn together. I used this as background for one of the pictures. It’s for sale…tempting!

Back at Janet’s I enjoyed a chance to do some weaving of my own.

I got to work on the two warps that I had brought with me.

I have to say that I was happy to get this one off the loom as I do not care for it at all! I am going to use it to practice and learn some new sewing skills. Maybe I can shape it into some kind of interesting bag.

This is the warp that I wove while visiting at the Mannings’s annual Spinning Seminar last month. The pattern is one that I have woven many a time and observers’ reactions while I was weaving it inspired an addition to my FAQ pages…this new one being about following and ceasing to follow pattern charts.

Next up was the piece on which I am weaving a Bhutanese design called “labyrinth”. I am weaving it using the two-heddle intermesh technique that I teach in my second book.

The pattern is from David K Barker’s first book of Bhutanese designs. Look at my RESOURCES page to see how you can download this free book. I never plan these ”traveling” warps to actually be anything knowing that my weaving on them is generally so interrupted and disjointed. However, I got to sit and weave on this quite a lot at Janet’s and had it set up in a very similar way to the way I usually like to weave. I lodged the far loom bar behind clamps on a low book shelf and moved the books and magazines around so I could extend my legs within. The angle was just right for me. With a pillow added on the floor, I was right at home.

Once the first large motif was complete and I could see that this could actually become something, I had to decide what would come next. Inspiration came in the form of a double-pocket saddle bag quite likely from Afghanistan. Janet bought it in a local shop of ethnic artefacts and it is gorgeous! It is woven with wool and largely patterned using weft substitution technique which results in floats on the back. However, the kinds of patterns used in this piece do not create overly long or unruly ones. There are all kinds of soumak and warp-wrapped patterns as well. The fabric is incredibly stiff and tight…made to last a long, long time, no doubt.

Those reds and blues…love them! The back of the bag, which would be against the animal’s back, was not patterned. Janet and I were both astounded when we realized that the plain cloth was not a separate backing but, rather, a continuation of the weaving in an extremely tight and very well balanced plain weave. I would bet that this bag is waterproof.

So, this is pretty much where I am at so far with this latest piece of weaving. I just started some vertical warp-wrapping for the back side which I haven’t photographed yet and I have chosen a motif for the center of the back…it’s going to be a bag (of course!)…black, white and red (of course!) and it is going to get seriously dressed up with tassels and trims. This will be something nice to dive right into when I get back home (that will be soon, I hope. I am writing this in Miami airport).

Next up on my blog…Santa Fe and the International Folk Art Market…it has been one of my dreams to see this. Visiting Santa Fe also gave me a chance to hang out with several weaving buddies that you will have already met here on my blog. I can’t imagine a better place to have gotten together with them and we are wondering how we can possibly top this!

Of course it inspired all of us but the funny thing is… one of my best ideas came from something I saw in the American Airlines inflight magazine on the way to Miami…funny how these things work! See you next time.

Backstrap Weaving – Hooked!

I was on the lookout for a simple pattern to continue my sampler of supplementary-weft patterns and the positive/negative space studies that I have been writing about these past two weeks.

After weaving some patterns based on Bolivian hatbands where the weft is used to fill the space surrounding the motif rather than the motif itself, as seen below, I wanted to weave a motif where the same shape appeared as both motif and background

Several of the classic warp-float designs found in the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands have this very characteristic. In the hook motif pictured at left, it makes no sense to talk about “motif” and “background” as the same hook shape flips and turns and dances along the band changing from red to white and back again. Is it a series of white hooks on a red background or vice versa or none of the aforementioned?

This was the kind of thing that I wanted to weave with supplementary wefts. So, I set about trying to adapt it to the structure with which I have been working.

As it turns out, it wasn’t that straightforward.

So, I spent a lot of time with paper and pencil and eraser (I still like the old fashioned way). The only way I could get the shapes to interlink well was to make several changes to the basic shape and, even then, the black version of the hook is not exactly the same as the gold one. The gold has an extra warp or two in a couple of places. There was a fair bit of weaving and unweaving involved too. But that’s what “sampling” is all about, right? I had to remind myself about that as I was starting to regret having set myself this challenge as I seemed to be spending more time planning out the design than actually sitting at my loom.

So, there it is. Two sets of gold hooks surround and expose black hooks in the ground weave. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out and hope to play a lot more with this hooky shape.

Where to go from there and how to best use all the work I put into figuring out those hooks? Chris Buckley writes about pattern building in traditional textiles in his article on warp-ikat weaving of SE Asia:

A further important feature of ikat, and indeed of most traditional textiles, is that weavers tend to use a narrow repertoire of simple shapes such as dashes, hooks and curls, in a ‘building block’ fashion to create their designs. This approach makes understanding and copying complex designs manageable for the weaver, and aids their transmission from generation to generation. Recognition of this repertoire of basic shapes (which I call primitives) is also of considerable help to the researcher with analyzing and comparing motifs between traditions,…..

So, I took one of my many discarded charts of the hook motif and used it as a “building block” for a new design, joining hooks together, reflecting them and flipping them upside down in the same way that many Andean weavers do with their warp-float motifs. The result is the band of red pattern above the gold in which there are four red hooks with just the hint of a black hook outline around them.

What had brought me, yet again, to Chris Buckley’s interesting article was a romp across the internet in search of hook patterns when my initial attempts at charting something suitable for supplementary-weft patterning were not working out. It is so interesting to see how the hooks show up in all sorts of woven structures and cultures. Of course, certain structures only allow a fairly limited repertoire of shapes to be produced and so, regardless of the culture, it is inevitable that a hook motif will appear if those particular structures are in use. Techniques like ikat, on the other hand, can be used to produce a limitless variety of shapes and patterns.

These pictures by Chris Buckley show hook motifs in various SE Asian warp-ikat textiles.

I have woven the hook motifs used in yurt bands of Central Asia…

I wove the pieces above and below using the same single-faced warp float structure as the yurt bands. You can see how the basic hook motif can be placed in different ways to create patterns and how dark and light hooks interlink so beautifully…

I have also woven patterns in pebble weave that are loosely based on Central Asian hook motifs…

as well as in supplementary-weft, double weave and supplementary-warp structures…

I enjoy the challenge of adapting a motif woven in one structure to others.

Chris Buckley writes that Indonesian ikat weavers sometimes copy designs, for example, from imported luxury textiles, particularly those from India…

When copying a design from a foreign source, weavers are likely to re-interpret the copied motif in terms of their own vocabulary of basic shapes rather than produce an exact copy. This is analogous to linguistic borrowing, where the pronunciation of a borrowed word may change from one language to another according to the repertoire of sounds available.

My own particular “weaving vocabulary” comprises the various structures that I am able to produce rather than a group of shapes. I have not dedicated myself completely to a study of the patterns of any one weaving region and so have not developed a vocabulary that is limited to certain shapes.

I love it when I see the Bolivian highland design that I call “rolling river” woven by indigenous weavers in both complementary-warp-float and double weave structures. Perhaps a weaver saw and admired this pattern when she traveled to another region and returned home to interpret it in her own weaving vocabulary which, in this case, happened to be a completely different structure. I can only speculate.

I taught Juan to do pebble weave when I was studying in Salasaca, Ecuador. No one in the area was using this structure. It was part of the deal…I teach pebble weave and they teach me to weave their supplementary-warp patterned traditional belts. Eighteen months later when I returned, Juan showed me his finished pebble weave band. Until then, he had not known how to weave at all. His final motif is a rooster which he took from one of the traditional supplementary-warp belts of Salasaca and interpreted in the only weaving “language” he knew…pebble weave. I thought that was brilliant!

Back to the hooks…I like to think of the following motifs, that I copied from a belt of the Tarahumara people of Mexico, as a “swirling” hooks…

I had not become completely familiar with that swirly hook and made it a part of my vocabulary, as skilled Tarahumara weavers surely would have, before attempting this piece and, as a result, it was very tricky to weave! Just as I got a grip on the swirls going in one direction, they changed to the other direction. It was much easier to weave it using another structure in my weaving vocabulary…double weave…in which it is generally much easier to “read” the cloth. However, I don’t think the pattern is as pretty in double weave….maybe slightly more so in my handspun llama fiber on the right (spearmint leaf and cochineal dye).

And so I go playing with structures and shapes. Even as I sit and look at the last red supplementary-weft hook pattern that I wove on my most recent sampler, I see the motif on the very right hand edge and think…hmmm….wouldn’t that look good on a narrow double-weave band?

By the way, many of the patterns I have shown in this post are charted in my second book.

Here’s one final bit of lovely hookiness before I go. Julia has been using the tutorials in my second book on creating and charting one’s own or adapted patterns in pebble weave.

Here is one of her bands in which she has adapted a tablet weaving pattern to pebble weave and…yes…there are hooks!

Backstrap Weaving – Everywhere an Eye-Eye

Here an eye, there an eye….

I have been casting my eyes over Veronica Cereceda’s beautiful book on the weaving of the people of Tinkipaya, Bolivia marveling at the complexity of the patterns and the use of certain combinations of color to create light and shadow. According to Cereceda, the colors most used, and this is immediately evident from the many stunning photos in the book, are white, yellow, orange, black, light green, dark green, bright blue, bright pink, dark red and purple. I have yet to find any reference to the type of yarn used and whether it is bought in these colors or dyed by the weavers themselves, but as I said, I have only had the time to simply leaf through the book at this point.

I have to say that it is refreshing to find these bright, obviously synthetic colors in use in these gorgeous textiles.

The bright pinks, lime greens and strong yellows so often favored by the women of the highlands can quite often be jarring to our “Western” eyes.

When one sees the dry, bleak landscape of the high plains, it is easy to appreciate the desire to create brightly colored cloth.

However, I think that it is the certain placement of these colors on the cloth of Tinkipaya to create the bands of light and shade that make these textiles so attractive.

The piece above from Tinkpaya was most likely made for sale to tourists and may have been adapted slightly color-wise for this purpose. I don’t see anything with that particular shade of blue among the many pictures in Cereceda’s book and the colors generally are a little bit toned down compared to the pieces I see on the pages.

I can actually get a little tired of muted natural dye colors in the same way that I get tired of wandering from booth to booth of hand painted skeins at fiber festivals. I have always said that I am not a “yarny’ person. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the natural dye colors, but it is very nice now and then, just for a change, to see the brighter and more “acid’ colors used so nicely.

When I learned to weave in Potosi, the same province of Bolivia in which Tinkpaya is located, I had my teacher choose the colors for my second learning piece as I wanted to weave something that was to her taste. My teachers were not from Tinkipaya and the placement of the colors in the pieces I wove with them has nothing to do with the style of textile from Tinkipaya. Yet it is interesting to see the kinds of colors, pictured above, that they favor when we in the west are so drawn to the softer earthy tones achieved when using natural dyes.

The design that I wove with my teachers on the ch’uspa, the smaller of the two bags pictured above, is woven in Tinkipaya where it is known as ch’uritos, spirals. I have been told by other weavers that the pattern represents the swirling waters of a fast running river. It is normal in my experience to hear different interpretations of the same designs from different weavers.

The small “circles” on the Tinkipaya textile are very typical and are called ñawis, eyes, according to Cereceda. Weavers that I have met have generally told me the name in Spanish…ojitos. The zig zags on which the ñawis sit, known as kutinaku, are also very typical and are one of the principal identifying elements of textiles of Macha and Tinkipaya.

Here is Dona Maxima in her tiny store in Sucre in 1997 showing my friend Ulla and I a weaving from Macha with its kutinaku and ñawis.

I wanted to try weaving just a small slice of the eye design from one of the Tinkipaya textiles so that was one of my projects this week.

There it is on the purple pouch which has a nice lilac zip from the bag of assorted zips that were given to me by Sharon and Betty. I am always bound to find just the right color in that bag. And I added some more eyes in the form of a ñawi awapa to the perimeter of the bag and braided a zip pull.

And, as the Tour de Fleece is in full swing over on Ravelry (this is a spinning event run in conjunction with the Tour de France cycle race), I pulled out my handspun alpaca pouch with its spiraly eye-like Tarahumara design (now everything looks like eyes to me!) to remind myself that yes, I can and do spin and weave with my yarn and yes, I should contribute something to the Backstrap Weaving group’s Tour de Fleece team.

So far only Janet and Jennifer are doing their bit.

But I mainly got that alpaca pouch out as I found a nice button for it while I was away….bone with a cool etched design and so I wanted to sew that on and fasten some snap closures to the inside (I had been using velcro on the inside of the flap…urrrgh!)

It was a toss-up between the bone button and the sweet wooden one which was made by a gentleman in the town where my weaving teacher Maxima lives. The wooden one is a bit on the bulky side for such a small pouch but boy, does it smell good!
Then there is the wee black and orange bag-let also pictured above…another sample band that got turned into a pouch for guitar picks. My guitar-playing friend spotted it and came up with that idea.

So, a snap closure, braid, tassels and ring was added and off that goes to its new owner.

If you are wondering about the raw edge (I made three selvedges), I had enough band to turn to the inside and all the way to the bottom of the bag.

When I showed the Bedouin bag on Facebook last week, someone said that I should use the brand name CLT (Cute Little Things). Yes, I do like things in miniature and while I still have the eyes for such work I like to go tiny sometimes…

The pebble weave band at left, pictured next to a dime, is made from sewing thread and features stars that were inspired by Bolivian lowland weavings placed within a highland design.

Poking around among my books is what unearthed the one on the textiles of Tinkipaya which has become a distraction from the other projects on which I have been working…a delightful distraction, I might add. I also came across some other forgotten gems squeezed in between the larger volumes.

I like trying to find locally published books when I am traveling and have a few of those from my collection that I would like to show you…

This is a book on natural dyes that I bought in Huancayo, Peru back in 1996. It is very simply made with very much a hand- made look about it and is full of plant and mordant samples in little plastic packages and dyed wool. The processes are explained with charming drawings making almost unnecessary the ability understand Spanish or even read for that matter. It’s a treasure. The style of drawings reminds me very much of the style of designs that you find etched on the gourds which are also sold in towns around Huancayo….

I bought the gourd, pictured below with its scenes of tropical lowland Peru, in a store in Quito, Ecuador and although I know it is from Peru, I can’t be sure that it is from the towns of Cochas Grande and Cochas Chico near Huancayo which are famous for this particular handcraft. But, in any case, I would like to show you the amazing complexity of the designs etched into its surface.

I think every time I pick this up I see something new in it. Today I noticed the thick snake winding its way among the tree limbs for the first time.

But, back to the book…Here is part of one page with plant samples, dyed wool samples, the local names for the plants and a glimpse of the instructional drawings.

The first book on the left is what I consider a gem of self publishing and was one of the books that most encouraged me to “just do it!”, that is, go ahead and self-publish my own book on the pebble weave structure that I learned in Huancayo. It describes the process of constructing and setting up the kind of backstrap loom used in northern Ecuador and it, too, is filled with hand drawings and even yarn samples.

The differences in the way that warps are wound and looms are set up throughout the South American highlands can be very different…the way heddles are made, the number of crosses that are used, the number of stakes used in warping. These differences are what makes this whole thing so intriguing and interesting to me. It would be ridiculous to think that there is only one proper way to do things.

I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with a poncho weaver and his daughter in San Roque, near Otavalo, Ecuador and see the process described so beautifully in Redwood’s booklet, in action. In the picture above the weaver is preparing to make string heddles. Ms. Redwood, wherever you are, I would love to meet you!

The book on the right is not about weaving but catalogs the designs on painted animal skins made by the Tehuelche people of southern Patagonia. This was given to me by a lady from one of the old British families who own many of the large sheep stations on the pampa of southern Argentina. She owned one of the skins described in the book and has donated it to a local museum. One thing is the thrill of looking at the books, another is remembering how I acquired them. There is a a whole rush of memories associated with the visit to that farm on the pampa.

Another wonderfully simple self-published book was given to me by an elderly gentleman in Huancayo who was simply thrilled by my interest in the textiles of his home. The pictures and diagrams are all hand-drawn, it has been written on a typewriter and the paper is grainy and rustic. It includes meticulous step-by-step instructions on the construction of a floor loom and spinning wheel as well as an overview of the weaving tradition in San Pedro de Cajas.

I remember effortlessly finding the book on the left in a store a couple of days after I arrived in Santa Cruz back in 1998. I thought that I must have arrived in a fiber and weaving paradise until I went to the market and had a hard time making people understand that I wanted to buy a spindle…no one knew what that was! That is the one and only book I have found on the topic and it was only after a few years had passed that I met my first Guaraní weaver from Isoso here in the city.

The other small book above, published in Argentina, is also available in English and can be bought online. It is a lovely miniature book with lots of great pictures of Mapuche textiles and woven items used by the Argentinian gaucho, belts and ponchos from the north and south…many of which I have not seen in other publications. It also includes lithographs and paintings from the colonial period and I love those.

And last of all, at least for this blog post, I want to show you some story books about children that I have collected that describe their daily lives in communities of weavers in South and Central America. One is from Bolivia, one from Ecuador and the other, Guatemala.

Dragging myself away from the book shelves, I will finish by showing you some work by Ravelry and other online weaving friends.

Karren was inspired by a Mexican rebozo to make her own black and white rebozo on her four-shaft floor loom in 8/2 tencel with a pattern in simple warp floats. The rebozo that inspired her had varying widths of pink and white stripes along with fine horizontal bars that accompany the simple warp float technique. The fringe, like those on many of these rebozos, is a mass of intricately knotted figures.

If you feel inspired to try something similar, the pattern chart for this particular design is here…and I am sure you know where to find the tutorial on my blog.

It is hard to believe it’s warp-faced with that beautiful drape. Karren’s project has inspired and encouraged me to use my tencel for warp-faced weaving. I have not been very brave and have only made a small supplementary-warp band with a celtic knot design using my tencel so far.

Jane, who has recently returned from a trip to Peru where she studied weaving at the CTTC in Cusco, showed us the band that she is weaving at home. It was warped for her by her weaving teacher using the wonderful handspun and naturally dyed wool yarn of Chinchero while she watched the process and she made the string heddles herself when she got home. She is using the two swords to create a temporary picking cross which will enable her to pick up the threads for the complementary-warp patterns.

On the right, Isabel sent me a picture of her warp set up to make a backstrap following the instructions in my article on WeaveZine. On the table you might be able to make out her first small pebble weave sample which she made using my book.

So, I am off now to get my favorite spindle and make a plan for spinning this weekend and put the books that I photographed back on the shelf while trying not to get sucked back into to book browsing land….I have way too many other things that need doing!

Backstrap Weaving – Adventures in the North West

I love traveling by train and I love traveling with a reserved seat. As I wasn’t in a real hurry to get anywhere, I took the opportunity of traveling the slow way on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight route from San Jose, California up north to Portland, Oregon.

I was disappointed that the train left at night and that I would miss what I imagined would be beautiful coastal and ocean scenes but couldn’t complain when I awoke the next morning to views like this!…

I was fortunate that the Portland and Seattle passengers were seated in the last car which meant that I could stand at the back door and watch the track roll away through these magical wintry scenes. The other passengers had very “been there, done that” attitudes but, for this gal who lives in tropical lowland Bolivia, it was an absolute treat! This meant that I could pretty much hog that back door view for the entire day. I was so tempted to press the door button to see if it would open especially when it started to snow and the glass got covered.

Slowly we rocked our way across mountains, passing through numerous tunnels, emerging to views of deep valleys sweeping away to the right…gorgeous!!

There were plenty of ‘fresh air” stops where we could get out and stretch and see “ice art” in the puddles. It’s probabaly all very “ho-hum” for north-west natives but it was all new and delightful to me.

After Eugene, the snow was over and soon we started to pass through ever increasing suburbia until finally rolling into Portland where I was met by Betty who was having me as her guest for the next couple of weeks in her home just over the river in Washington state.

While I loved looking at the snow, I was glad to be out of it and into the cool, shady green with hints of spring of Betty’s tree farm.

And this is where my faithful camera friend of the last three years decided to die :-(.

“Internal sensor failure” was the problem I was told…too expensive to make a repair worthwhile. This problem was giving a pinkish hue to my pictures when the camera was in a good mood and weird color-streaked images when it was not. Luckily I have a wee Casio point-and-shoot as a back-up camera but I have to learn its particular quirks and get used to using it…darn!

Those of you who follow my blog may remember that I stayed with Betty on my spring trip last year and showed pictures of many of the fabulous weavings that she has collected in her travels over the years. I would have to be here for months to be able to see and photograph them all. In fact, last time I looked at too many and was quite overwhelmed. You get to the point where you stop seeing the beauty of each individual piece and so it has been great to have this chance to go over the collection again.

Actually there are enough beautiful things hanging on her walls to keep me occupied without even thinking about going through the pieces that have been carefully stored away.

Here are just a few bits and pieces….

I love the simplicity of the striped incredibly fine cotton warp-faced piece on the left with the card-woven strap, which Betty bought in a Tibetan refugee center in India. It’s an apron that forms part of a Tibetan traditional costume with a card-woven waist band. It contrasts with the riot of color and intricate supplementary weft patterns on the Bhutanese bed cover on the right.

This is a small selection of textiles from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. This group includes an ikat shawl from Ecuador, a double weave belt from Taquile Island, Peru and a small striped poncho from Tarabuco, Bolivia among other things.

I just LOVE the piece from Bhutan above left which has supplementary wefts woven into a twill base…that technique is still on my to-do list along with the discontinuous-warp technique you can see in the piece from Pitumarca Peru on the right (the figure in the center is an adornment that was added by Betty). I have made a few experiments in discontinuous warp after seeing the fabulous work of the Pitumarca weavers at the Tinkuy in 2010…multi-paneled pieces covered in pick-up patterns but I find this simple plain-weave piece in Bettys’ collection particularly inspiring and this following one even more so….

Betty thinks that this piece may be one of those that were made when the Pitumarca weavers were first attempting to recover this ancient technique. It is warp dominant rather than warp faced…you can see the weft and see through the fabric when it is held up to the light. It is nothing like the sturdy heavily-beaten warp-faced cloth that is typically produced. It has been edged with a simple single-color plain-weave tubular band. The over-twisted handspun yarn is still causing the corners to curl.

You can see above left what I am guessing would be called the discontinuous weft where the panels join vertically. The brown weft which is being used in the panel below right turns around the grey weft on the left when the two wefts meet at the join. This means that the color of each panel can be solid. You can also see how the warps dovetail at the horizontal joins between panels.

Betty is not sure how many years ago she bought this piece, but this is the progress that the Pitumarca weavers have made in this technique since then….

This piece has four panels of discontinuous warps with supplementary warp patterning in each.

More treasures on the walls of the rooms and halls of Betty’s home…

Belts and sashes from the Andes and Guatemala and a reverse-applique Mola from Panama.

And then some fun stuff…

I loved this little hanging which is in the guest bathroom. It turns out that this is one of the first weavings that Betty ever made. Knowing the legendary status that Betty has achieved in the world of weaving, this was quite wonderful to see. The other piece is a dear little purse that has been woven from recycled plastic bags in Guatemala.

Between all the textile and fiber wanderings in Betty’s home and studio (I got to sleep in the studio again!), I had some organizing to do…not an easy thing among so much distraction! I was emptying bags and bags of yarn and warps on the floor much to the amusement (or perhaps indignation) of Trouble the cat who stood guard in case one of the balls decided to wander off.

Here are a couple of the ladies who came to weave…Sasha (who wants to learn backstrap weaving as it is part of her heritage…any guesses as to where her roots may lie?) and Emi who is interested in all aspects of primitive technologies.

It was great to meet Jenny on the left and Linda who are both members of the Ravelry Backstrap Weaving Group. That’s Judy next to them. All three are working on their second weft patterned bands.

Weaving away! Jenny pauses to figure her next move in her simple warp float pattern. Rona is checking the cross on her four-stake warp before removing it from the stakes. It is funny how people often unconsciously choose yarns that match their outfit.

On the way home from the weaving group, Mt Hood and Mt St Helens put on the most fabulous show for me. Both are heavily laden with snow and looked spectacular in the soft evening light. But there was no where to stop and photograph them! My back-up point-and-shoot camera does not have the zoom capacity to have done a worthy job in any case. I got to climb a rather different looking Mt Hood in the summer of 1992 as well as fly around Mt St Helens in a friend’s private plane but I much prefer the way these two beautiful peaks look in their winter coats.

Most of the people in this weaving group also promised to come to another the following weekend. I had a busy and fun time in the five days between.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had a visit from some other Ravelry pals. These are two Backstrap Weaving Group members who have been around since the early days.

Jennifer and Bobbie are strong and very active members, head cheerleaders, back-patters, welcoming committee and “commiserators” and I am so grateful for their continued support and participation. It really was a thrill to have them with me for those two days.

They brought a few of their backstrap woven pieces to show and we marveled at how far they have come since joining the group and that very first weave-along we did in January last year.

We wove patterned tubular bands on Tuesday and I know that they have been hard at it at home since then. Bobbie also brought along the beautiful wide Guatemalan piece with its super fine cotton yarn on which she has been working.

First, lets look at some of Jennifer and Bobbie’s woven work…

On the left is Bobbie’s Bedouin-style runner with al’ouerjan patterning. I think she may have warped this when we had an al’ouerjan warp-along weekend. Next to that is her plain-weave striped piece that I am guessing was part of the plain-weave weave-along we did in the fall of last year. She added some weft twining to that. Jennifer’s backstrap is a gorgeous combination of stripes and colors which was also influenced by Bedouin textiles that we have been looking at in the group. I am pretty sure that this also formed part of the plain-weave weave-along.

Trouble decided to nap on Bobbie’s pebble weave bag. This is the piece she made as part of the very first pebble weave weave-along in January last year. At left you can see her rolled up Guatemalan warp and here she is working on it….

She has a long tale of mishaps to tell of when she was trying to put this warp together but you would never know by looking at it now! She is doing a simple warp pattern which Jennifer showed us in the Ravelry group. She had seen and admired it on the Education and More website. It caught Bobbie’s eye and she asked for suggestions for how to set it up. As the same warps are always floated, she has them permanently stored on a pattern stick. Looking at the sticks in the above picture from bottom to top you see the stick that holds the second cross, the pattern stick, the shed rod, the heddle rod and then the sword.

Certain warps from the shed-rod shed are floated with the warps from the heddle shed. You can see the warps sitting on top of the pattern stick below.

Isn’t that a great looking warp?! Bobbie bought this naturally dyed cotton warp yarn from the Education and More site. Beware! It is very fine stuff. Bobbie shared some with Jennifer who has started a plain-weave piece with it and I believe that some has also gone off to Popsicletote (another Ravelry group member) and maybe we will see a project from her soon.

And just a few days after we all met up, Bobbie announced on Ravelry that she had finished her piece.

Woo hoo! Look at that! She posed a couple of her tubular band practice pieces on top of the finished piece.

Jennifer came alone the following day and we sorted out some questions she had on complementary-warp weaves. These guys have learned so much from just using my online tutorials and books but it is a real help to be able to see things being done in person and ask some more specific questions. It was good going over four-stake warping with them. And it was great just talking!!

On Friday I had a fun day with Emi. Emi joined in with all the weaving groups.

I will let Trouble the cat tell the story…

“Well, this is strange….just when I was getting my wee cat head around all this stick-and-string business, this gal comes along and throws her toes into the mix up.” (Of course this way of tensioning the warp is used in many South-East Asian weaving cultures but most often when using a circular warp).

“As nice as it is weaving here in Betty’s sun-drenched studio, you must realize that you are wasting a perfectly beautiful day out there. It ain’t raining and you know that that has been a kind of rare occurrence around here lately. Won’t you step outside?”

“Thank you but, ahem!…I was sort of hoping that I would get to go out too…”

“Ahhhh….now that’s more like it!”

We wove two-color simple alternating floats weaving designs like those I have copied from Krygyz yurt bands. Emi worked on trying to read the pattern directly from my woven belt rather than from a chart and she did a good job! Later on we did some braiding.

And finally, she went home having gotten some practice with handling a wide warp with fine threads. She wove quite a bit on my sample warp learning to operate the sheds smoothly and handle the fine yarn. I think that the two major obstacles that backstrap weavers in my online groups have are fear of finer yarns and wider warps. I am hoping that Emi will be able to pass that obstacle having had this experience with the wider warp.

Here she is using a nice technique to gently and cleanly open the heddle shed.

Before going home she treated me with a lesson in something from her Japanese heritage. I got a demonstration of the tying of the traditional furoshiki cloth and an explanation of what this cloth, and its use in wrapping items, means in Japanese culture.

She showed me one of the wrapping styles and then demonstrated how a Japanese person would present the wrapped goods to another person…beautiful!

And then she showed me how the same piece of cloth with a few clever twists and folds can be transformed into a shoulder bag.

Isn’t this the coolest thing! And just when I was thinking of the best way to weave a special wrapping cloth for myself, Emi showed up to the next weaving group and gave me my very own furoshiki cloth!

The one on the left is the piece that Emi gave me and Betty showed me one that a friend of hers in Japan had given her. I think we all need to have a furoshiki! I am sure that if I Google this I will find a book on 101 ways to fold and tie a furoshiki!

And then it was on to the pebble weave.

We had a beautiful sunny day once again with light streaming through the skylights and all of us wishing we were wearing shorts by mid afternoon.

Most of the first group returned and we also had Anita join us.

We dove right into two-heddle pebble weave and had two days of fun.

That’s Jenny, Sharon and Anita with Linda on the right. Linda took a break from weaving to try drawing designs onto charting paper directly from the sample textiles I had on hand. Emi settled into her warp on the floor and even Betty threw on a backstrap and wove.

Sasha, who wove super fast and found herself ahead of the rest of the group, decided to remake the heddles on her large warp. There is, of course, a story behind that warp which I will tell in a future blog post. She has promised me some pictures in the meantime to make the story more even more interesting.

And there were other gifts!

Sarah, pictured above, gave me an example of her weaving in a lovely lined pouch made with fabric that she wove with sixteen shafts. Anita brought me a fabulous sword/beater cut from South American marblewood…so smooth and glossy, it feels wonderful in my hands.

Last night Betty and I were invited for dinner at Carol and Jim’s home. We listened to their exciting travel stories and saw pieces created by Carol using her handspun yarn…all kinds of fiber from rabbit to camel. Carol and Jim have traveled the Silk Road from China through Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan…imagine how my ears pricked up at those names! I was even wearing the belt I wove based on the Kyrgyz yurt band. I got to see a fabulous felt piece that they bought there that has been edged with a band in the two-color simple warp float technique.

I try hard to keep up with happenings on the Ravelry group while I am on the road and there has been a bit of activity lately to report. Jentide has been weaving bands with Bedouin designs. She wove the shajarah motifs in double weave rather than in the traditional warp substitution technique.

Double weave creates a double faced band rather than one with long floats on the back which the latter method produces. She also wove a band with al’ouerjan patterning.

While snooping around her project page I found her double weave key fob woven on a backstrap loom using the sweet Bolivian flower motif that I have charted here in the tutorials.

The small band was woven on her backstrap loom and the longer one on an inkle loom.

Heidai continues to weave pretty scarves on her Scandinavian-style backstrap loom with its rigid heddle.

On the left is her scarf in alpaca and silk and on the right in noro silk garden.

Here’s one more in silk along with the backstrap loom set-up that she has been using…so simple!

A backstrap by backstrap…also by jentide.

Tracy finished her backstrap woven ikat piece for our current weave-along and Alison has just started out using my book for pebble weave and has made her first band on a loom on which she feels more comfortable…the inkle. She followed the instructions for setting up the warp and is using her inkle loom to tension it.

I think that wraps it up for this week. This is what happens when I miss a post….stuff really starts to accumulate but I am so pleased to see the Ravelry guys weaving away and what a treat it has been to be able to weave with four of them right here in Oregon and Washington! Hopefully, some of the people who wove with me here who are, in fact, already Ravelry members, will join the Backstrap Group and become active participants…there’s always room for more cheers and encouragement. 🙂

I have had a couple of days free to blog, catch up on mail, and then I will be meeting with a basketry group on Thursday. I am looking forward to seeing their baskets. We have a small group of talented basket makers in the backstrap group too. I am not one of them!

I will see you soon with more backstrap weaving.

Backstrap Weaving – Travel Tidbits from Massachusetts

Well, I am here in Massachusetts with my friend Pam in her peaceful home in a lovely rural area. It was a rough trip with burning smells in the aircraft cabin forcing the flight to land in Orlando where swarms of Brazilian children clutching Mickey Mouse dolls were also stranded due to thunderstorms. This meant arriving in Boston in the wee hours of the morning where I probably caught about 90 minutes of sleep on the airport floor before the early flight check-ins brought in the excited hordes.

But…I am here and I have a few tidbits to share…some interesting things that I have seen in the day and a half I have been here so far.

Firstly, the skies cleared today and I got to go out and see Pam’s indigo crop. Hopefully we will harvest some leaves and do some dyeing during my stay. Pam has done it before with her own plants and so I am looking forward to learning a lot.

We pulled off a leaf today and scrunched it about and left it to see if there were any signs of blue as this is apparently a way to see if the leaves are ready for picking and, yep, a few hours later when we remembered to go look at it, the signs were there.

And this is what we are going to dye….silk! all the way from Uzbekistan.

Here is the silk with its coating of sericin. I had no idea that this is how it looks and feels…stiffish…before being scoured with washing soda in simmering water.

Fortunately Pam also has a lot of beautiful soft scoured silk all ready to be skeined for dyeing.

I spent the afternoon revisiting Pam’s collection of textiles from Uzbekistan. I posted them in a previous blog post but getting to see them again with fresh eyes is always welcome. Even though these pieces were all bought on the three trips that Pam has made to Uzbekistan, some of the textiles actually originated in Turkmenistan.

The rug and rug piece which has been sewn into a bag caught my eye as both have been made with the warp substitution technique. Who cares about long floats on the back when you have weaving in this beautiful handspun yarn and gorgeous color combinations.

This is one of several rugs on the floor of the office in which I am sleeping. I love the fact that the long floats on the back of the piece give me a chance to feel and closely inspect the yarn.

This is a piece of rug that has been made into a bag. You can see both faces of the fabric. I just love those washed-out reds and blues. The rug was cut and then a woven band was folded lengthwise and sewn to the raw edges to cover and protect them.

The strap is interesting. Doesn’t that look like finger weaving?

I am pretty sure that this motif was done in three-color warp substitution. You can just make out two colors in the motif along with the red background. Only by looking on the other side where the colors were still bright you could clearly see the orange and green warp threads that alternate in this design.

This bag is my favorite…

I am definitely going to cut a fancy flap and add some tassels to the next bag I make. I have just been getting confident with cutting and edging rounded flaps. Now look at this shape! This piece, which Pam says used to be part of a rug, is woven using the two-color alternating warp float method which I have been calling, for lack of a better name, “warp floats galore”. You may recognize the “S” motif from a belt, cell phone pouch and notebook cover that I made. The woven band has been sewn on beautifully and it all feels very secure.

Little “comb” patterns separate the warp float bands and a simple warp substitution design has been woven into the edging band.

The fabulous tassels…one has embroidery on the outside and the one on the right includes copper wire in its wrapping.

Here is a close-up of some of the warp float designs.

The bag strap has the same simple warp substitution design that appears on the edging. There is so much to be enjoyed in this one piece!

There is plenty more to show and tell from Pam’s lovely weaving space and home but I told you that this would just be about tidbits and so I will end with something that Pam’s friend Joan showed me on a quick visit to her home in Worcester. I stayed with Joan and her husband Attila last spring. Joan introduced me to Saori weaving and took me to see Dar Ku, a Burmese weaver now settled in the US.

Joan is involved with new settlers in her area coming from all parts of the world. She has recently made friends with a basket weaver from Burundi as well as with textile weavers from Bhutan. An Ethiopian lady showed her how she spins cotton and gave her a spindle, some of her spun thread and a piece of Ethiopian woven cloth…all gorgeous!

A close up of the end of the spindle and the woven cloth…I didn’t have the right conditions in which to photograph this well.

Unfortunately, lack of time won’t permit a return visit with Burmese weaver Dar Ku but I have posted a video I took last spring of Dar Ku at her backstrap loom weaving a supplementary weft design on warp-faced fabric.

I am so glad to be finally able to show this. It took forever to upload!

She weaves with the wrong side of the cloth facing her and carries her supplementary weft from place to place across the back to weave the parts of the pattern. She has a very soft beat and her tension seems to be quite relaxed.

I am told that these weavers usually weave with their legs braced against something and that this has been difficult to set up in their homes. For now they are just doing without the foot brace. I am sure it must feel weird for them weaving that way.

I wove once with Salasaca weavers in a shop rather than in their home where they have everything set up. They spent the whole time scrabbling about on the floor with their heels trying to get some purchase so that they could push and tension the warp more. Dar Ku on the other hand looks quite at home weaving with her feet crossed and not pushing against anything.

I love the way she opens the pattern heddles so delicately and smoothly. Everything just pops open so easily! It looks like the most relaxing effortless thing in the world. It is lovely to watch.

The Ravelry backstrap weavers and my other online weaving friends are hard at it turning out gorgeous projects…

How’s this for contrast…Jennifer is weaving a myriad of colored cotton stripes while Tracy just finished a pebble weave hanging with her handspun wool.

Verena has also been weaving pebble weave and hopes to sew this into a pouch.

Verena was my student here at Pam’s place last spring and has been getting on very well with her pebble weave since then.

And lastly, I have some charting paper to share.

Lately, I have been charting my double weave, warp substitution and supplementary weft patterns on paper with elongated ovals rather than diamonds.

I made a sheet of ovals on a drawing program that I have and have posted it on this page for you all to use.

I am so used to the diamonds but I think that these ovals may be easier to use. I have had people tell me that they go cross-eyed with the diamonds!

I hope that this new charting paper helps.

Here is what it looks like. The page with the full version is is linked above.

Back with more travel tidbits next week.