Bolivia – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Highland Holiday

I’ve been up to the highlands and am now back again in the hot tropical lowlands. Yes, I’m still in Bolivia. Australia is there waiting for me and I’ll get there event-u-a-lly…..

I meant to write a blog post yesterday but once I got into sorting and editing the photos, I found myself completely overwhelmed. Lest that happens again today, I’ve decided to make this just an overview. Anything that doesn’t make it into this post will probably show up now and then in future ones as well as in my Facebook and Instagram accounts.

So, on this ten-day visit to Independencia , Cochabamba where my weaving teachers live and where Dorinda was also vacationing, here’s a run down of some of the things I did…..

I took the five-hour minivan route to Independencia from Cochabamba instead of the eight-hour one by coach. I’m guessing that the minivan is capable of traveling on roads that are perhaps unsuitable for the larger bus and that the bus remains in service because it’s required to service many tiny communities that are scattered along its longer path. The minivan route is no less scenic than the one I traveled last time by bus. In fact it may be even more so.

From the town of Quillacollo just outside Cochabamba city we head straight for the mountains and in under an hour we had zig-zagged our way up to around 3700m leaving the city of Cochabamba a mere blur in the distance on the valley floor.

From there it’s a journey along slopes of deep narrow valleys high above lively rivers (it’s wet season). Water cascades down the slopes above, crosses the dirt road ahead of us and continues tumbling its way down to the green valley floor. Then we go up over passes to continue along the next valley, up again and so on. I was sitting in the second last row and it was like riding a bucking bronco back there with every descent from the passes. I gave up trying to take photos and instead just tried to imprint the scene on my brain.

And then we stopped so that the driver could negotiate the carrying of some freight for a couple who had flagged us down and it was one of those perfect moments for getting a nice shot. We happened to be on a relatively flat and open area with the setting sun casting a golden glow on the hillsides and I was able to hold my phone steady for a change and get a photo of the peaceful scene. I thought that if I just get one nice photo from the five-hour trip, I’ll be happy.

So much for this just being an “overview”. I’ve already spent too much time just on the van trip! Back into overview mode….

On the surface, the town didn’t seem to have changed much since my last visit….

**How such a wickedly steep street can look so mild in this photo is beyond me!**

**These rocky streets in town become slippery with mud after rain but dry up miraculously quickly.**

However, some things had changed….Maxima was now living in a house of her own with a lovely view and even had wifi.

*Charqui* (jerky) on the washing line in the patio in front of a nice view across the valley.

With Dorinda, my teacher Maxima, (long time followers of my blog will know them), her daughter, Vilma and the grandbabes, we dyed a bunch of skeins of handspun yarn with indigo in a banana-based vat.

**I mashed overripe bananas with Maxima and little Mayra for the indigo dye bath.**

I think this was only the third time that Maxima was attempting to dye with indigo. The second time had apparently failed and so I spent a lot of time wondering…are we doing this right? Will it work this time? Well, it did and I got to keep one of the skeins. I can’t wait to use it in a project on my backstrap loom. The skeins are made up of the ladies’ doubled handspun wool singles. Once dyed, the doubled threads are then tightly plied. I’ll get to ply my own skein which pleases me because I’m not fond of weaving with the high amount of twist that these weavers typically put into their yarn.

Maxima and daughter, Vilma, showing off the *aguayo* (carrying cloth) Maxima wove for a custom order from the USA. Indigo-dyed yarn from the first attempt can be seen in the stripes. This cloth is gorgeous! The colors are so rich and Maxima has included a stunning variety of figures. It’s all Maxima’s work except for the tubular edging.

**A close-up view of a small section of the center of the aguayo where you can see some of the indigo-dyed yarn in the decorative joining stitch.**

We made skeins. I’d never made skeins just on my hands before and was happy not to have mine end up in a tangled mess. The singles yarn immediately kinks back on itself when not under tension and can make things difficult to control.

**Immersing skeins in the indigo dye pot with Dorinda, granddaughter Emily and little Mayra always there in the mix. We wore gloves but still managed to get the dye on places where it didn’t belong.**

**First results once again against that lovely backdrop. One of those skeins became mine 🙂**

**On the following days, Maxima continued experimenting on her own and tried over-dyeing some naturally-dyed yellow to produce that pretty green.**

**And yet more on another day. This time over-dyeing a cochineal-dyed skein.**

So, I came home with this (below). The mug is for scale more than anything else because those balls of yarn I bought are huge! I bought those two balls from one of the weavers from the outlying community of Huancarani that I visited on my last trip up here. The ladies from Huancarani come into town on the weekend to sell their produce in the market. We attempted a trip to Huancarani on the preceding Thursday for a weaving get together much as I had done on my last visit but it had rained heavily all through the night and a landslide had shut the road.

**Plying all this yarn will keep me busy for a while. As if I need even more stuff to lug back to Australia but who in their right mind could resist?**

Here’s a flashback to that Huancarani trip and the fun day we’d had all weaving together…

When not dyeing, I would visit with Max and weave with her as she had asked me to teach her some new patterns in the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave.

When I was walking in the market street on the Saturday, I was stopped by one of the Huancarani ladies who asked “Where’s Berna?” That’s the name they know me by. No one calls me Laverne in Bolivia. Bs and Vs are pronounced virtually the same and they don’t recognise that the La is part of my name as La is often placed before any woman’s name when referring to her as a third person. So, here in the lowlands I’m Verny and up there I’ll always be Berna/Verna. The Huancarani ladies had been expecting my visit on the Thursday and so now that they were in town, they were looking for me. Of course they didn’t recognise me as the lady with long dark hair that had been to their community to teach patterns seven years ago!

Back in 2017 I went to Huancarani and can be seen here with that long dark hair guiding Maxima’s sister Narciza through the steps to weaving a pattern from my More Adventures with warp-faced Pick-up Patterns book. It’s a motif from a Central Asian textile that I had adapted to the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave. It had caught Narciza’s eye and she was keen to learn it and not let me go until she had conquered one repeat.

**We just managed to get through one repeat before it was time to leave and I left wondering if she would ever use the pattern. I did leave behind a woven sample just in case.**

You can see the unique way weavers in these communities in this part of Bolivia manage their warps. They don’t attach them to their bodies with a string or backstrap. Instead, they have the warp suspended between an index finger and a toe. Together with the middle finger they form a picking cross of the two “pebble” sheds and then do all the pick-up and loom operation with just the one free hand. It’s amazing to see! I did this with Maxima back in 2011 when I visited her in Cochabamba. Even though the structure is the same as the one with which I am thoroughly familiar, this method of weaving it was completely foreign to me and it took me some time to get used to it.

So….back to the lady in the street market who stopped me. Once I told her that this white-haired person was indeed Berna, she pulled out a couple of bands to show me, one of which is pictured at left. Sadly, Narciza hadn’t been able to come to town that weekend as she has a herd to attend to but it seems that Narciza spread knowledge of the new pattern to other ladies in the community. How happy that made me!

And Maxima had taken advantage of the copy of my book that I’d left behind with her on my last visit.

**Maxima and a group of weavers are seen here studying and discussing images in the book shortly after my visit.**

Maxima showed me what she had woven from the book….

**It’s a belt that she wove for daughter, Vilma, to wear on festival days. It’s woven in the bright tightly twisted acrylic yarn that the weavers here love to use.**

**The ladies love to be able to show off “new” patterns in items they use for special occasions.**

On our first morning weaving together, Maxima chose to use some of the crochet cotton that I’d brought. I think her unfamiliarity with the material left her a little frustrated. These weavers create a very tight weave, squeezing the weft into place with a tremendous amount of pressure. The cotton thread just wasn’t behaving the way her handspun wool or re-spun acrylic thread would. Those materials have a certain amount of stretch which the cotton simply doesn’t. While she was able to weave the little motif she had chosen correctly, it just didn’t look right with that tight, tight beat.

Maxima preparing a cotton warp for our first session together. The end of the warp is temporarily tucked into the waistband of her skirt while she uses two hands to make heddles, Later the end will be suspended on her index finger. Anything that happens to be lying close by such as this comb can be called into use to hold the cross.

**Starting with a little plain pebble weave.**

**Meanwhile Mayra and Ana who seem to see all forms of household chores as play, were happily washing their toys. At one point I saw them playing chop-the-head-off-the-chicken-for-the-pot with the cat!**

My second session with Maxima was completely different. She used her re-spun acrylic thread this time and the results were completely different. She confidently chose larger and more complicated patterns from my Complementary-warp Pattern Book (all the patterns therein are in the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave) and her joy at watching the figures appear and then reaching the stage where she could predict what was to come next, was apparent.

**Starting with a fresh warp of respun acrylic thread for wider, more complicated patterns.**

**The young ladies on this morning were on chicken duty…..that is, keeping the chickens from wandering from the yard into the kitchen.**

**One of the four running-horse patterns that creator Deanna Johnson calls Elmy’s Mustangs, is almost complete.**

Here’s a video clip of Maxima doing the last row of pick-up for the horse pattern….

She also selected the viscacha pattern from my book. I’d charted that pattern from a fragment of pre-columbian cloth that I’d seen online. I’d been able to track down the owner of the fragment and get him to send me close-ups so that I could decipher it.

The cat figure,also from pre-columbian textiles, that Maxima chose was not completely successful but I know it will be in her next attempt now that she has understood how to weave the eyes of the viscachas.

This is what I was doing in the evenings to entertain myself. I was using Alison Irwin’s idea for weaving letters in the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave to make a key fob for the lady who ran the hotel in which I was staying. *Inti* means sun in the Quechua language and *Wasi* means house.

I also wove a bunch of patterns to leave behind for Maxima to study and attempt in her own time after I left. When I showed Maxima the hotel key fob, she loved it and so I offered to make one with her name as well as for her daughter. Her husband then laughingly asked why I wasn’t offering to make one for him. I was happy to oblige. Dorinda took this photo of Maxima after I left as I wove the fob on the last night and wasn’t able to deliver it in person.

And then it was my turn to learn some new weaving thing. I noticed that the large aguayo that Maxima had woven was edged with a patterned tubular band that is known in some parts as nawi awapa. The weavers here call it chichilla or simply nawi (nawi meaning eye). Maxima handed that task off to another weaver as she has forgotten how to weave these patterned tubular bands. She generally edges her carrying cloths with crochet. The customer in the U.S however, wanted the more traditional patterned tube. What I noticed in this particular tube was that the color arrangement would flip back and forth along its length. The zig-zag would change colors every now and then as would the inner eye color and I was mad keen to meet a weaver who would show me how ro do it. Maxima’s sister Narciza knows how to do it but she hadn’t come into town.

So, on Saturday market day I visited with the Huancarani ladies in the street and asked if any one of them knew how to do it and if they would be willing to teach me. Of course no one just happened to be carrying colored yarn and besides, all except Justina said that they didn’t know how it was done. I invited them to come up to the hotel so that I could show them a nawi awapa band that I had started and also show them some other bits and pieces that I thought they might find interesting.

Squeezed onto the balcony of the hotel, I showed the ladies any woven thing that I happened to have. Here they’re examining my double weave belt with its Bedouin patterns which are completely foreign to them.

I brought out my cotton spinning bag and everyone fell in love with the tiny takli spindle and wanted to take it home. Only Justina was “brave” enough to try spinning cotton with it and she did a great job.

Justina examined my ñawi awapa warp which was set up in the way I had been shown in Chinchero, Peru. It turns out that while the results are exactly the same, the weavers in this part of Bolivia set up their warp for the ñawi awapa in a slightly different way. It’s slightly different but different enough to be confusing to Justina who said that she wouldn’t be able to teach me using this warp. I was a disappointed but interested to know exactly what the difference was. Time didn’t allow further exploration but Justina returned the next day and agreed to teach me if we created a new warp from scratch. I was thrilled!

Gathered the next day in Vilma’s sewing workshop with Justina deciding that she had enough time to teach me if I could bring some yarn. So, out came the crochet cotton again to the rescue…not ideal, but good enough for learning.

Creating a fresh *ñawi awapa* warp while Maxima went out to look for a forked twig to use. It holds the cross….more about that later. On the floor you can see another stick that is used to save one of the picked-up sheds for later use. The weavers here call this stick “*el muchacho*“.

Justina guiding me. Yes, I learned it! Maxima and Vilma looked on. I wonder if Maxima absorbed enough by watching to be able to do it on her own. Wouldn’t surprise me. I offered to let her sit in my place and try but she declined.

When I got home of course I had to weave one straight away. I still have lengths of fabric that I bought from the ladies back in 2019 and I used some of Verna’s cloth to make a little pouch that I could edge using the Huancarani set-up and color-changing method.

Justina told me that they call the forked stick illawa, which is the same word used for string heddles. Perhaps these weavers use the word for any device that enables them to create sheds. I do love the name for the other stick….el muchacho, which strangely is in Spanish rather than in Quechua.

A closer look. You can see that the color arrangement in the tube along the base of the pouch is different from that along the side. This is a much nicer photo of the beautiful natural dye colors used by the ladies in these textiles. I used commercial wool from my workshop stash for the edging.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this visit. On certain afternoons Dorinda and I would walk up and up and up above the town to get some exercise. I was suddenly very much aware of my calves. I was really pleased with the way I was dealing with the altitude.

One afternoon, Sandra, the hotel manager, took me down to her orchard. So that was a down, down, down walk with the harder part coming at the end of the day. I was happy to see custard apples growing for the first time and to be able to pick quinces which Dorinda later made into jam. We took back apples and Dorinda made a pie. How spoiled was I? The biggest thrill was seeing a hummingbird nest with two eggs in the orchard. The photo needs something for scale. The nest and eggs are tiny!

There was time first thing in the morning to hang out on the balcony with hotel cat, Garfield, and watch some young girls herding their flock of sheep onto the football field. Stray dogs would arrive to romp and freak out the sheep who would bolt out the gate and into town with the little girls running screaming behind them! It would happen pretty much every other day.

**Got my nose burned on day one in the high altitude sun and so did not go out hatless ever again after that.**

We got stuck in the mud on the way back to Cochabamba. The mud sucked the soles right off my sandals and I never saw them again. Then we got caught up in protest roadblocks as we neared Cochabamba and it was quite a saga getting from there to the airport. It involved walking with soleless sandals through shin deep water and taking the train that was packed to the gills. It was so difficult getting on and even more so getting off! If my flight had not been delayed, I might have just missed it. To be honest, if the road had been closed due to the landslides and I had been stuck in Independencia, I might have chosen to just stay on until Dorinda’s visit ends on the 10th. It was a glorious visit and I really had no need to leave when I did.

We all got filthy. The quiet sleepy group of passengers up to this point turned into a happy chatty group after successfully getting the van out of the mud and back on its way. How was I going to get on a plane with my feet in this filthy state? Never mind, there were flooded streets to walk through further along once we hit the outskirts of town and had to get out and walk due to the roadblocks. Feet were squeaky clean by the time I got to the airport.

And the scenery on the way back….could it get any better? Yes, it could. It was and had been raining a lot and in the red rock sections the waterfalls that had sprung up and started to flow down the other side of one of the valleys, were running bright pink! Mud and rain-streaked windows made decent photography impossible but I burned those images into my brain!

Back in Santa Cruz and once I’d woven and documented the color-changing nawi awapa, I turned to other projects. I’d taken some garabatá fiber to Independencia to toss into the indigo dyepot.

The top left bunch of thread was dyed in the indigo pot. At bottom right you can see a tiny pouch I made using the Dosapey pattern. That tiny bag holds a tiny booklet and mini pencil. Now to decide how to combine colors in a new project. Roció, my Ayoreo teacher, contacted me for a class while I was away. I’ll have to let her know that I’m back.

**This is the start of a larger Dosapey pattern that I finished just before traveling to Independencia. I dyed the black for this project.**

I just had enough garabatá thread to create one face of a pouch. I wove the other face in cotton and sewed the two together. This pouch held my passport, tickets and money purse and went with me on the trip. I used the edging stitch used by the Weenhayek artisans along the top.

And now I’m working on something a little unusual. An expat gentleman who runs wildlife tours here with a particular focus on the endangered jaguar asked me if it would be possible to weave a jaguar skin pattern. He would like to commission Guaraní weavers to produce small bags with the print to offer to his clients. He is and always has been keen on promoting the handwork of the artisans that live in this lowland part of Bolivia. He showed me a tapestry pattern that he’d found online and I took it as a challenge to try to reproduce it in one of the warp-faced structures that the Guaraní weavers use. With this I can show him how much pattern can fit into the dimensions he has in mind. He can sketch out his ideal pattern and then approach the weavers with a proposal. This way they won’t have to waste time and yarn sampling and experimenting. Besides, you know me….always looking for an excuse to weave.

**Using the Moisy technique which is one of the two pick-up patterning structures that the Guaraní weavers use. I set this up all ready to go before I left on the highland holiday.**

So, the overview grew somewhat as I settled into writing and felt less overwhelmed! I hope you’ve enjoyed these tales from the Highland Holiday.

Until next time…..

Backstrap Weaving – Star Gazing

Every night when no one is around I go up onto the terrace of my condo block and walk about star gazing for half an hour or so. It’s a peaceful, quite extensive space that covers the top of eight apartments. I don’t need to wear a mask up there and in spite of the light pollution from the inner city area in which I live, I can enjoy looking at some of the stars and planets while getting in some stretches and exercise. The air is fresh after a steamy summer’s day and I often wish that I could string up a hammock and sleep up there.

I remember one of the few times I was able to enjoy a night sky that was completely devoid of man-made light. It inspired me to weave stars into what I call my ‘Starry Night” wall hanging. I remember stepping outside my little room on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca in Peru to go to the bathroom on a clear and bitterly cold night and being stunned and almost knocked over by the brilliance and abundance of the stars in the black, black sky over that dark, silent island. Kurt Laitenberger wove this motif with tablets and and I asked his permission to transpose it into the Andean Pebble Weave structure.

It’s interesting that it was this very same motif that caught my teacher Maxima’s eye the last time I was with her up in the highlands. I had taken many woven samples to show the ladies in the weaving cooperative and Maxima had chosen this one. Her first attempt to copy it on her own was not successful. Actually, she had started out very well but suddenly got stumped and stopped. She asked if she could watch me weave it so that she could learn.

I wove one motif and that was enough. Maxima was then able to continue just by following my woven example.

Up on the terrace In these early months of 2022, it’s been nice greeting Orion on its return to the 8pm night sky on my side of the world and I am currently waiting on the Southern Cross to complete its circle low in the south and once more climb high enough to reveal itself above the light pollution and buildings.

An invitation in one of the online weaving groups to show-and-share star patterns prompted me to write this post. I actually wrote about this same topic about ten years ago but there has been quite a lot to add to it since then. Back then, I was able to share the Andean Pebble Weave strap on which I combined motifs woven by the Guaraní people here in the lowland part of Bolivia in which I live…

The Guaraní weavers use two types of complementary-warp structures in their cotton cloth. In the structure that they call Moisy, they represent all the natural beauty of their surroundings in large, bold renditions of trees, butterflies, birds, plants and flowers. However, in the pebble structure that I used above, they only ever weave two motifs – a snake and stars – and there are an endless number of versions of these two items. You can see one such version on the woven bag.

My teacher told me that it was a snake that came to the first weaver in her dreams to teach her the patterns. The Guaraní people who live along the Parapetí River here in Santa Cruz also use the snake motif to represent that life-giving water. The stars are important guides in their agricultural cycle.

I found a story translated from Guaraní to Spanish in a book published by Artecampo, which is a craft cooperative store here in Santa Cruz, about a legend behind the use of the star motifs in Guaraní weaving…..it says that…

One day the children were taken and placed like stars in the heavens and this is why women cry out about stars in their weaving. The stars not only speak of the sky but also about the richness of nature because one woman, in an attempt to stop her child from being taken, grabbed hold of a finger (or toe, it is not clear in the Spanish translation which). As she pulled on the finger, unfortunately, a piece broke off and this piece was buried. From the burial of this piece a corn plant sprouted. In this way, weaving symbolizes abundance which comes from the piece of the child. And this is why food crops are not only considered elements that feed and sustain men, they are part of Man himself just as the stars are part of Man and Society. Songs name those who are living in the sky and those that sing wear woven cloth to show that they are still with them even though they are distant.

Dionicia added these stars to her pattern repertoire after my visit. She wove them into a bench cover that she sells locally. Being able to include a “novel” pattern gives her a little advantage over other weavers who might also be selling their woven bench covers.

The star patterns above are charted in my book More Andean Pebble Weave Patterns. And, speaking of the ladies up in the highlands, Dorinda has just written a new blog post on her most recent visit now that she is back home in the States. Dorinda had been away in the USA for going on two years and I can only imagine the happy reunion when she visited in November.

In the Bolivian highlands, stars are woven into cloth by the weavers of the community of Tinkipaya. According to Veronica Cereceda in her book which catalogs the designs on these textiles, these ch’askas, stars, are a representation of the world above known as janaq pacha.

The small band in cotton that I wove to test the pattern is pictured above with a couple of wooden tools I got in a market in Potosi, the province in which Tinkipaya is located. I was told that the tool on the left is used to push down the warps behind the heddle rod when the weaver is opening the heddle shed. I have never seen a weaver actually use one of these and I have never seen another one like it. The one I have has a red stain on it and I like to think that it might be cochineal from one day when its owner was preparing to dye. The other tool, of which you can only see the tip, is used for beating and strumming and I have seen tools like this in use in several places in Bolivia and Peru although they are more typically made from a llama leg bone.

The structure used in this piece is yet another style of complementary-warp. The warp floats that surround and fill the star motif are aligned and arranged in a certain way that distinguishes this style from others. Below you can see the same star motifs woven with my hand spun llama fiber into a band that I wear as a wrist cuff.

And here it appears yet again in wool on a little bag I made when one of the online groups held an “orange challenge” several years ago.

I published the chart for this pattern in my More Adventures with Warped Faced Pick-up Patterns book and Susan Torntore, one of my new Zoom weaving friends who refreshed her Andean Pebble Weave skills via a Zoom class with me, transposed it into the Andean Pebble Weave structure and then went on to create something like fifteen beautiful variations. Here are a couple of them. She plans to use this band as a bell pull.

The Andean Pebble Weave structure has the advantage of having two regularly repeating rows which can be produced automatically by enclosing those arrangements of threads in heddles. Some weavers choose to do that because motifs can be woven much faster this way. Others prefer not to fuss with heddles and weave the patterns using pick-up for every row. In the structure used for the traditional Tinkipaya pattern, there’s no choice. Each “row” is unique and the threads for each must be picked up manually.

Wikipedia tells me that the stars on the flag of the United States represent the fifty States in the Union. Well, I knew that. I was hoping to find out why exactly stars had been chosen as opposed to some other figure but I guess there doesn’t have to be a reason. I am sure that we could all come up with some kind of symbolic meaning for a star. I swear that some of the indigenous weavers with whom I have studied have made up things about the motifs they are using just to please or else have a bit of fun with me…I have seen the twinkle in their eyes and the way they look sideways at each other!

Gail wove this very patriotic collar for her dog on her inkle loom many years ago and I have seen this pattern and variations of it show up in the various online Inkle Loom groups many times over the years around the fourth of July. Gail was forever coming up with clever collar designs for what must have been the best-dressed dog in New York.

Speaking of flags and patriotic weaving, I assume that the next starry piece was made by someone who is proud to be Australian. I have this very cool cut-pile weaving of a representation of the design on the Australian flag…

The group of stars is the Southern Cross constellation which really is a sight to behold there in the southern sky. I am so happy to be able to see it low on the Bolivian horizon and it makes me feel somehow connected to Australia and the people I know and love so far away. It is little wonder we so love stars and choose to use them in our cloth.

The large single star, which should only have seven points, represents the Nation’s seven states and territories. This cut pile piece on its beautiful frame is gorgeously dense and I would love to meet its creator.

It was given to my brother as compensation from the Indian owner of a furniture store who went out of business before he could supply all the chairs for my brother’s dining room setting. My brother then gave it to me. One day I will track down this furniture maker and see if I can talk to him about this weaving technique.

I don’t know if the weaver intended to continue with the design. There is so little space at this point and the tension on the warp is so high I can hardly imagine being able to do so.

There are a lot of representations of stars in Andean weaving. I took one small motif and combined it with others to make the guitar strap below in colors reminiscent of the desert and canyons of the US southwest… a winding river, moon and stars. It took me back to clear, warm nights camping in the depths of Utah canyons with nothing between me and the stars. Moonlight bounced of red canyon walls and dozens of frogs singing away at the water’s edge. These were other precious occasions on which I could star gaze without man-made light pollution.

Combining several small motifs in this way is a nice stepping stone toward designing your own unique patterns. I teach the Andean Pebble Weave technique for those who use a standard inkle loom in my book Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms which you can buy as a PDF or as a spiral-bound book from Taproot Video.

And then there are many motifs that look like stars to our eyes but which and perhaps represent something else all together. Maybe one day I will find out what exactly they mean to the weaver. There’s what I believe to be an Andean ch’aska in Andean Pebble Weave on the left. In the center are the star-like motifs that I replicated from Central Asian yurt bands. A motif on a belt from Ecuador is on the right. Its star-like motif is woven using supplementary warp threads.

I chose a star motif for my first ever attempt at using 60/2 silk as warp on my backstrap loom. The motif did not have any symbolic significance to me. I simply needed to use something that was smooth-sided and symmetric. This was because I wanted to use a supplementary-weft technique in which the additional weft is not carried from selvedge to selvedge. I didn’t want the supplemental weft to thicken the cloth and so I used a technique in which the weft just travels back and forth from edge to edge of the motif itself. This only looks nice, in my opinion, when regular rather than irregular shapes are used. So, who knows why certain motifs ae chosen by weavers? It could be for what they symbolize or the choice could also just as easily be for purely practical reasons, as was the case in my silk piece.

There aren’t any stars on my current three-color Andean Pebble Weave piece. It’s all about flowers and hummingbirds. If you have been following me on Instagram (I go by my name: lavernewaddington there) you will have seen some of my progress. At some point I unconsciously stopped being concerned about my hand-spun wool being up to the challenge and have been simply enjoying how lovely it feels instead. But for now, I will stick with the Starry topic and wait to show you more of my three-color pebble in my next post here on this blog.

Let me finish by showing you some beautiful creations that were shared with me by another new Zoom weaving friend, Laurice Johnson. She has converted her pretty inkle-loom-woven bands into these gorgeous star ornaments by following online tutorials. There are several tutorials on Youtube for fabric stars that can be used for inkle bands. They are really stunning. My friend Jennifer Williams also has a tutorial on her blog for a different kind of star made from narrow bands.

I’ll be heading upstairs soon for another night of star gazing. See you next time.

Backstrap Weaving – Highland Fling Part 2

Here’s Part 2 of my post about my recent trip to the Bolivian highlands. Read Part 1 here.

Huancarani! Whenever I have written about Huancarani on this blog and about Dorinda, her PAZA organization and the weavers in central Bolivia I have always had to go to Dorinda’s web page and check how to spell, and therefore pronounce, the name of this tiny highland settlement. It just wouldn’t stick. Quite often I would leave out the first letter ”n”. Now I have actually been there and spent an entire day weaving with all the ladies whose names had become so familiar to me. When I order woven bands from the group, the orders arrive with each piece labeled naming its weaver and Dorinda would send me a document with little stories about each one of them. I have often shared those stories on this blog. It was delightful to be able to meet the weavers and shake their hands at last. I know I will never forget how to spell Huancarani ever again. The community and the day I spent there have now become a very special part of my weaving experience.
Here’s a mini group photo taken at the end of the day taken in the same beautiful spot that Dorinda has shown on her website and which I had so often admired…so green and with those lovely hills in the background.

Unfortunately, a few of the weavers had gone home at this stage. Narciza, in the center with the blue skirt and spindle, had grabbed my attention right at the end of the day to have me help her weave a new pattern. Everyone was waiting to get together for the group photo but Narciza kept pleading ”unita mas!” (one more!)…that is, one more row of pattern, as she was so determined to weave a full repeat so that she could carry on and copy it on her own later. I totally get that kind of focus and obsession and was happy to oblige. Her joy at learning the new pattern was infectious. However, many of the weavers simply had to head home. There were animals to round up and herd, families to attend to and meals to be prepared. Special arrangements had been made by many to have a day off from chores to spend a whole day out on the ”green” outside the church to spin, weave, chat and have lunch together.

After the group photo, we separated and Dorinda, Maxima and I headed back to town an hour away. My hand was firmly shaken, I was given gifts of food and I was even hugged by some of the ladies. Maxima expressed surprise at that as it is not generally their custom to hug. I take orders from my backstrap weaving students for the bands that these ladies weave and they were expressing their appreciation for this much needed source of income. May I pass on their gratitude to all my students who have placed orders. Thank you!

After lunch, Narciza and Felicidad had wound a warp of 56 ends (that’s a whole lot of ends to be holding on just fingers!) determined to copy a pattern on one of the bands that I had brought to show. It just happened to be the pattern I was weaving on the backstrap loom that I had brought to demonstrate to the ladies. Narciza spotted the motif first thing in the morning, asked me for the thread count and set to work after lunch. In the morning she had learned a simpler pattern with me.

You might be able to make out my sample band sitting on the Felicidad’s skirt. Narciza and Felicidad were puzzling it out together with the suggestions of others peering over their shoulders from time to time. However, time was running out and so I was called over to help before I could take back my sample and leave. I talked her through one repeat but I ended up leaving the sample with her in any case after having had my arm very tightly twisted!

There’s the pattern taking shape. Some of you might recognize it from my second book. Narciza has enough information now to be able to continue weaving this motif.

It was an action-packed day with lots and lots of weaving going on. There hadn’t been any kind of plan for the visit, as far I had known. I was simply being taken to Huancarani so the weavers could meet me and Dorinda thought that they might like to see my backstrap loom and some of my weaving. The ladies had offered to provide lunch. Apparently I was known as ”La Laverna”…the lady who gave them orders for weavings from time to time. Maxima had wisely thrown all the cones of cotton that Dorinda had back at the house into her bag and brought them along. She must have known that everyone would want to weave and would most likely not have thought to bring any of their hand spun yarn. They had, of course, all brought their spindles!

They enjoyed looking at my samples. Maxima, who is currently working on a wide piece on her leaning vertical loom with strips of double weave patterning, enjoyed looking at my double weave sample and picked out bird motifs that she would like to copy.

The ladies arrived in a slow trickle, one by one. I set up my backstrap loom while Maxima took out the cotton and started winding a warp. I had taught Maxima one new pattern the day before and Adviana another. Maxima wanted me to teach her the pattern I had taught to Adviana and I was happy to do so. However, once the brightly colored cotton was out, everyone wanted to try some and there was a frenzy of activity as warps were prepared on fingers and toes everywhere I looked!

Who needs warping stakes when an index finer and big toe do nicely?

I love this wonderful teaching moment as one of the elders starts a warp for one of the younger ladies. Dorinda told me that she had never seen this young lady before and that she was not part of the weaving co-op. She has high hopes that she may now join. I sat with her and got her started on a pattern and got the impression that she was not an experienced weaver. She was having a difficult time working the sheds and asked for my help. Who knows…this may have been her first time actually weaving although she would have been exposed to it all her life..

I love seeing the various generations represented in this picture. The older lady isn’t wearing a hat as she had insisted on my wearing it. I was out in the sun with the first group of ladies to arrive while she very wisely sat in the shade.

I took my very first selfie so I could see how I looked in that hat. I like it!

Everyone wound a warp with the same number of ends as Maxima had and they all wanted to learn the same pattern! How was I to manage that? There was only one tiny sample in fine 20/2 wool to pass around and one pattern repeat was 25 picks! There wasn’t enough time for me to weave samples right there and then so that small groups could each have one to examine.

I asked Dorinda to copy the pattern chart I had made for Maxima. After working with one of the younger ladies, I could see that the youngsters quickly understood the chart and were able to weave on their own after I demonstrated just 4 or 5 rows. They still pleaded with me for ”unita mas!” but I left them to weave on with the chart and they got on just fine. Of course, the more experienced weavers would be able to sit, figure out and copy a woven sample with few, if any, problems but we only had one such sample to pass around. Above, you can see Eulalia. This lady blew my mind. I don’t know how many times she caught a glimpse of the tiny sample as it was being passed around but she sat and started weaving an almost perfect copy of it.

She soon gathered a fan club and I was the biggest admirer of all!

You can see Maxima in the center starting a warp for the lady seated next to her with pattern chart in hand. Narciza in the foreground has her own chart and is on her way. Narciza is a real ”go-getter”. I enjoyed meeting her a lot. And, that’s Eulalia in the background with her fan club. People learn in so many different ways. Of course, pattern charts are completely unknown and foreign to these weavers and it was interesting to see how eagerly the younger women took to them. If I had known that the ladies were going to be so keen and determined to use our time together to learn new motifs, I would have brought a dozen samples in heavy yarn for them to copy. I really hadn’t had any idea of what to expect.

My hat companion took my band of fish motifs and set about copying one of them on a band that she had brought with her. My fish are woven in heavy cotton and she could easily see the pattern to copy.

Some of the weavers had brought bands on which to work and the widest band had just enough ends to accommodate the fish motif.

It’s not fair to have favorites but I had mine. ..19-year old Maribel and her toddler, Daniel. Maribel was the first one to arrive and should have had top priority to learn the new pattern. However, she sat by patiently while some of the older ladies got started and then sweetly asked me to teach her. She then took herself off to a quiet spot away from everyone else so she could concentrate and happily wove her band. Dorinda is seated next to her making more pattern charts.

After lunch, she was happy to sit near one of the older ladies and talk her through the pattern in Quechua. She had me won over!

And, she was excited to be able to copy some of the patterns in my book that require the same number of ends. I think she went home one very happy weaver.

Maxima and I were kept really busy helping everyone who wanted to learn. If only we could have taught everyone but there simply wasn’t time. I’ll be better prepared next time. I can’t wait for next time!

Maxima is starting the weaving for one of the ladies while she looks at the chart.

And then the student took over and you can see her pattern emerging. Once she has a full repeat woven, I know that she will be able to continue on her own simply copying what she has already woven.

Lunch was a”pot luck” of rice with chili sauce, potatoes, corn and sheep and goat cheese. Some ladies just kept weaving as everyone wanted their chance to learn.

After lunch it was even more fun as it started raining and we had to cram onto the church porch.

There’s Maribel weaving with Daniel between her legs. Dorinda is making yet more charts. Maribel is calling out the pick-up to the lady seated on the other side of Dorinda. There was lots of talk and laughter in Quechua. I loved listening to Maribel call out the moves in Quechua to other weavers. Every now and then I would hear a word in Spanish. As I had suspected, there is no word in Quechua for ”blue”. They use the Spanish ”azul” or ”celeste” for light blue.

I learned that if you leave the circle someone will quickly wriggle in to take your place!

There were many ladies who simply didn’t manage to spend enough time examining the sample or get one-on-one instruction. They sat and wove anyway, chatted and laughed with their friends. Dorinda said that these ladies never have time to do this kind of thing. Maxima says that in their youth they would go out herding their animals and look for their little friends and neighbors so that they could sit and weave together.

I had to stop every now and then and look around and take it all in. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was be able to spend this day with the weavers doing what we all love. Even just looking at all the different hats in this one tiny settlement was interesting. The one with the woven hatband is especially cool…

One lady wove a pretty hook pattern and was happy to show it off to me.

Her neighbor also admired it and I wonder if it was a new pattern for her. Perhaps she then tried to copy it.

This lady liked the pattern her neighbor said she had just invented and now she is setting out to copy it.

In the late afternoon weavings got put away and spindles came out as everyone prepared to stroll across the ”green” to the fabulous photo spot for the group photo. Narciza, reluctant to stop weaving, looked at me and said ”unita mas?!” How could I resist?

I told you in my last post that Narciza hitchhiked into town two days later on market day hoping I was still around so that she could learn more. She and her sister Maxima wove together at Dorinda’s place. I had left two woven sample bands with Maxima plus my book and I think they had fun with that. Maxima is showing off her new patterns in this photo that Dorinda sent me but I can’t quite make them out.

When I got back to Santa Cruz, I wrote emails to some my backstrap weaving friends and was able to deliver a new order of bands to Dorinda for the ladies.

Here they are warping for the very first one.The weavers from Huancarani come into town on Sundays to bring their produce to market. They often go to Dorinda’s place for tea and cake (Dorinda loves to bake!) before returning to Huancarani. They ask if there are any orders. She had good news for them last Sunday.

The area is so green and pretty now that the rains have come. Every night during my stay there was a downpour at around 4am. We would wake up to clean sparkling freshness and the delicious aromas of Dorinda’s lovely garden.

And, finally, a picture of dear Dorinda walking me to the bus stop on the day I left. I did try to take a selfie of the two of us in Huancarani but I apparently need more practice with selfies. Dorinda has worked so hard with the weavers over the years and has lots of stories to tell of the ups and downs during the establishment and development of the weaving co-op, the handcraft club, the girls club and her relationship with the weavers. There is plenty to read on her PAZA Bolivia website and an opportunity to donate if you would like to help.

Backstrap Weaving – Highland Fling Part 1

I am back from the highlands. I know I have told you in past posts about how wonderful it is when I receive my box of woven bands from the co-operative of weavers high in the mountains of Cochabamba. Each year they supply me with beautiful bands woven with their hand spun wool which is dyed with local plants and cochineal.

The box would arrive filled with the colors and aromas of the highlands which would then fill me with a longing to return to the places where my various highland weaving teachers live. This year, I managed to find time to give in to that yearning. I went up to the highlands, at Dorinda’s kind invitation, to collect my order in person and meet the weavers whose names have become so familiar to me over these years. Each band in the boxes I received would be labeled with the weaver’s name and I soon started to be able to recognize the characteristic style of certain weavers in the way they arranged their colors.

It was easy to see when a new weaver had joined the co-operative and was weaving bands for my orders. Her style would be just that little bit different to what I had become used to seeing.

Here is the latest order laid out in Dorinda’s yard in the highlands. Dorinda has been working for many years with the weavers helping them to recover lost natural dyeing techniques, encouraging youngsters to learn, helping them to design products that are attractive to foreign markets and to manage orders and accounting. I use these bands in my workshops when I teach tubular bands and finishing techniques and these workshops often generate more sales for the weavers. My students are always more than happy to buy more cloth for making pouches and practicing the finishing techniques they have learned. The fact that their purchases help support the weavers is an added bonus.

There I am with my teacher and friend Maxima who is the head of the association of weavers. Maxima and I first met at the first Tinkuy in Peru. She, Dorinda and I were roommates. I got together with her another time when she came into the city of Cochabamba and gave me some weaving lessons.

On this trip, Maxima and I spent three amazing days together hanging out and weaving. She normally teaches me but, on this trip I got to watch her teach three teenagers from the town and I also got take on the role of teacher and show her some new patterns. It was a blast. Dorinda and I spent 4 days together as we had met and traveled up from Cochabamba together on the bus. We left at 5am for the 7-hour trip and wound our way up from the valley floor to skirt the mountain tops on dirt roads up and over 14,000-foot passes to then descended to the lovely town of Independencia at 8,000 feet. It was a wet and muddy trip and we were delayed 2 1/2 hours when a truck that had gone off the road had to be winched out.Clouds spilled over the mountain tops and mist crept upwards from the valleys. There was not much that could be seen through all that on the way there but I was blessed with beautiful weather and gorgeous views on the way back. On the return journey, we stopped for llama crossings rather than fallen trucks.

We passed by tiny settlements and people flagged us down and joined us along the way…

Independencia is a lovely little town…one of those places with an altitude that allows it to enjoy eternal spring-like temperatures. Rainy season downpours in the very early morning hours left everything clean and fresh by sunrise. The hillsides were green and lush.

Here, it’s Sunday morning, 6:30am and the market is in full swing with ladies already making their slow way home up the steep cobbled street with their purchases.

Dorinda and I plodded up the hill to her home from the bus stop. I had my luggage and the altitude to deal with while Dorinda had all her purchases from her monthly visit to the city of Cochabamba. We stopped a few times along the way! That was some hill. I spent the first afternoon exploring her extensive garden, getting acquainted with the 11 cats that reside there (they belong to her landlady) and investigating her workshop areas and store rooms of yarn, sewing machines, looms and art supplies.

The workshop room had this wonderful poster that Dorinda had created which records the natural dye plants the co-op has been using and the various tones that have resulted from the use of different mordants…

These lovely hand woven pillow covers were on my bed, a woven rug was on the floor and large hangings adorned the walls.
Outside my bedroom window, pieces of the leaning vertical looms that are typically used in this area were standing against the wall. I got such a rush seeing those… I was going to be with weavers soon…I couldn’t wait!

The first day was ”Club Day” and three of Maxima’s teen-aged students who are members of the ”Club de Chicas”came to learn to weave patterns on bands. Of course, the tendency these days is for youngsters not to learn to weave at all as all eyes look to the large towns and cities for higher education and work. Many men in the community associate weaving with poverty and do not want their wives and daughters involved with that. It is wonderful that Nelva, Abigail and Veronica had decided that weaving was precisely what they wanted to do during their summer school holidays.

First, the youngest, Nelva, was set-up to learn the ”linquito” pattern. Maxima would call out the color sequence to her as she picked up the threads to form the pattern. Then Maxima wove a new pattern and called out the color sequence to Veronica and Abigail row by row. They wrote it all down in their notebooks….two black, four white etc. This was Veronica and Abigail’s second band and they already know very well how to create sheds, form the picking crosses and select the threads. Weavers in this area use a technique where they form a cross, called the picking cross, using two fingers of one hand. They then select threads from this cross with their other hand to form their motifs. There are no sticks or swords or beaters involved.

The girls helped me write the words for numbers and colors in Quechua in my notebook even though they preferred to note everything down in Spanish. I remembered the words from the time I had spent in Potosí with my weaving teachers. Remembering those Quechua words came in very handy the next day when I went out to one of the outlying communities to weave with the ladies there.

With notebooks on knees and heads down, Veronica and Abigail settled down to weave and the race was on. I sensed a healthy competitiveness between them. They were very methodical and never lost their way in the instructions. We hardly heard a peep from them for the rest of the day!

Nelva’s ”linquito” pattern was coming along but her younger age and, perhaps the lack of a competitor, showed when she got easily distracted and often lost her way. Maxima was there to set her back on the right path.

Once the girls were up and running, I showed my backstrap loom and some woven samples I had brought to Maxima, Antonia (who also weaves bands for my orders) and Adviana. Adviana, now 21, had learned to weave at age 16 in the Club de Chicas. I think they all politely watched my backstrap loom demonstration but what really got them excited was not the loom, but, rather, the pattern I was weaving along with those on the samples I had brought. They liked the softness and smoothness of the cotton I use and the fineness of the wool samples I had. Adviana immediately wanted to learn a new pattern for a wrist cuff after seeing mine. Maxima chose a wider and more complicated pattern.We stopped and went our ways for lunch and Maxima returned with spindle in hand adding twist to some of her hand spun wool so that she could learn the new patterns.

When it was clear that adding twist to the three colors she needed was going to take too long, she went into the store room and brought out a bag of cones of perle cotton. I was surprised to see that. These had been donated by Cotton Clouds one time when Dorinda was in the USA at a WARP conference. No one had put them to use until now. There was a certain sense of urgency. Maxima knew that I had only a few days there and she wanted to learn everything she could in that time.

Adviana wound a warp for the wrist cuff and the new pattern she wanted to learn.No need for warping stakes. You just throw off a shoe and wind around your index finger and big toe. I love it!

I explained to Maxima that her pattern was much wider and that it would be very difficult for her to hold all those threads on two fingers.She would need to set this up on her leaning loom. I figured she would relent and decide to learn a narrower pattern instead. But, no, before I knew it, out came the leaning loom pieces and Antonia and Maxima were seated rolling the cones of cotton back and forth to each other creating the warp. Then it was my turn to get excited. I hadn’t expected to get to watch them warping.

Normally, they roll balls of yarn back and forth to each other and years of practice have them smoothly and efficiently launching the balls with just the right amount of force. Rolling the cones was a different story. They simply would not cooperate but things had certainly improved by the time they got almost to the end of rolling and winding.

Adviana finished first and made her heddles and I set about teaching her the new pattern that she liked. Her patience was put to the test when her youngest little boy wanted attention, swinging off her braids and throwing himself on her back at regular intervals.

I had spent the lunch break drawing out a pattern chart for her. That way I could demonstrate the first few rows, teach her to read and mark the chart and then move on to teach Maxima. There just wasn’t time to weave the full 24-row repeat of the pattern for her to copy and my wool sample was too fine to easily read. She really took to the charts and came two days later and happily sat and copied several pattern charts from my book. You can see her band taking shape above.

I had a hard time convincing Maxima, that, although I set up my backstrap loom very differently to the way she sets up her warps, (I use two sets of string heddles and one permanent picking cross while she uses one set of heddles and two temporary picking crosses), she could still weave the new pattern using her methods. We both weave the same structure but just use different ways to create it.

Because she lost confidence after her first attempts to copy the pattern from my cotton sample, she asked me to set her loom up the way I do and to weave one complete repeat so that she could watch me.

So, I did. After I had woven one half of the pattern, Maxima took over and finished it off, feeling more confident as she started to recognize familiar shapes.

She then wove another motif almost completely on her own and had just started a third when it was time to stop for the day. She is really motivated to weave a new aguayo, or carrying cloth, with this new motif. I left her my cotton sample which has three other new patterns. You can see Adviana in the background of the above picture, copying pattern charts into her notebook.

I could just stroll about at this stage with everyone happily engaged at their looms. Abigail and Nelva had gone home but Veronica was determined to finish her band that very day…

She was not able to weave with her leg extended any more. She could have just added some string to end of her band to extend it so she could continue weaving with a straight leg. Well, she’s 13 and supple and I don’t think she was experiencing any discomfort sitting like that. She was far too absorbed in finishing the band. My knee and hip ache just looking at her! She didn’t finish that day but showed up two days later to show it off with its ends nicely braided. She said that her grandmother was very proud of her and had shown her how to do the braiding.

Where will this young lady be headed next with her weaving?

Maxima and Adviana also came over on this day to learn even more patterns. These particular motifs are not unknown in this area and have, in fact, been used by some of the weavers on the bands that I ordered. But, not all the weavers know all the patterns and it seems to be that they are not in the habit of getting together to teach each other motifs once they are adults.

This is the band that Maxima wove with two new patterns that she wanted to learn from me. We continued using cotton as time was short and no one wanted to wait until yarn could spun. Plus, I think they really enjoyed trying out cotton for the first time.

That morning I had risen early to wind a warp and weave a narrow band with more tawa chinito, or 4-pair, samples that I could leave behind for Maxima. I pounded some stakes into the ground for that. You can just see the tip of it next to Maxima’s band above. I can’t wait to see if some of these motifs show up in my next order of bands.

If I wind using four stakes rather than just two, I can eliminate one of the steps in the setting-up process as I can separate my two colors into two sides of the cross as I wind. When you use a finger and toe as your warping stakes you don’t have the opportunity to add two extra ”stakes” in the middle. I don’t live in a place where pounding stakes into the ground is possible and I welcomed this chance to get down and grass-rootsy at ground level.

I scouted about the garden and found a stick to break into pieces. Of course one of the resident cats had to come over to inspect the intrusion, approve it, and then claim it as its own.

At lunch time, I went up to Maxima’s place to see the latest piece she has on her leaning loom. It is one of the two panels that she will weave to make the new aguayo that she wants to use at the Tinkuy in Cusco, Peru this November. It has two strips of warp-faced double weave patterning along with two strips of pebble weave. That’s a lot of pick-up! I love feeling the firmness of the cloth which is the mark of a good weaver in these parts. She is using the brightly colored fine synthetic thread that is sold in the market and I was surprised to see the Cotton Clouds cotton being used for the heddles. She likes the way it behaves.

That evening, I discovered a supply of dyed hand spun wool in the store room that belongs to the co-op. This is sold to the weavers who have run out of certain colors and who would like to weave for one of the orders. Generally, each weaver has a stash of yarn that they take away from the communal dyeing days. Maxima allowed me to buy some and I am keen to weave something. I have woven with this tightly twisted yarn before but, this time, I would like to experiment with it by taking out some of the twist.

I have described our activities over two of the three days that I spent up in the mountains….the first and the third days. The second day was something else again when Dorinda, Maxima and I traveled about an hour away to the settlement of Huancarani and met with the weavers there for a ”weave-in”. That event will have to wait for my next post. There is so much to tell! Many thanks to Dorinda who supplied some of these pictures.

When not weaving, I had lovely peaceful times chatting with Dorinda sitting out on her ”stoop”, swapping travel tales, enjoying her garden and her fabulous home cooking. She makes do with so little…no fridge…everything is fresh, and she loves to bake! Morning break on Club Days is spent eating her freshly baked muffins and cookies. She always has something tasty ready for visitors from Huancarani who come into town on Sundays to sell their produce at the market. We took walks around the town in the evenings, greeting her neighbors and local shopkeepers. Everyone seems to know her by name and they show their warmth in their kind greetings.

I am already making plans for my return. I’ll continue the stories in the next post. Now, to get back to my silk weaving!

Backstrap Weaving – Colors

Gorgeous colors! Just what I need to lighten a dreary drizzly day in the tropics….warm colors of the highland countryside. This is one of the bands that I received recently from PAZA Bolivia. My weaving teacher, Maxima, heads the cooperative that weaves these bands on the traditional leaning vertical loom in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The weavers use their own handspun wool which has been colored with natural dyes.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will be used to seeing this annual event – the arrival of the Cochabamba fajas. You will have heard many times about my excitement at opening the box with its outpouring of colors and aromas of the Bolivian countryside.

I mentioned to my friend Dorinda, who works with the weavers and helps to manage their sales, that this latest batch of bands was lacking the rich chocolate browns of previous collections I had received. I was surprised when she told me that those darker colors were obtained from khesi misa, or soot.

What I wasn’t surprised to hear was that the ladies do not enjoy scraping off the build-up of soot on their kitchen walls to use in the dye pot. As you can imagine, it is mixed with grease from the hundreds of cooked meals and must be truly awful to work with. I don’t know what the cooking spaces look like in the communities where these weavers live but I can show you the kitchen of one of my teachers in another part of Bolivia to give you an idea. This is an old print from 1998.

Of course, it is so much nicer to be dyeing with leaves and flowers and cochineal bugs. Natural black can always provide the dark contrast and some of the greens that are obtained are quite dark too.

I have showed you pictures of Independencia and Huancarani where Maxima lives in other blog posts. At around 2600 meters above sea level (approx 8600 ft), it is very green and hilly. Pictures that Dorinda sends me or posts show the ladies working in pretty gardens amongst an abundance of plants and flowers.

The city of El Alto in La Paz, on the other hand, sits above 4000 meters (approx 13000 ft). It’s a different story up there on the Bolivian high plains – dry, flat and largely colorless. That’s why a recently finished project of several high apartment blocks in El Alto has attracted widespread attention. Bolivian artist Mamani Mamani, known for his use of color, (see an example of his work at left)was commissioned to design enormous murals for the walls of the buildings. I am hoping that the next time I fly to El Alto airport in La Paz, I will see these colorful images standing out against the dry and dusty plains. The following pictures of the project are from the webpage of Mistura Urbana…

More of Mamani Mamani’s work can be seen here.

In this next picture, you can really appreciate the bleak surroundings…

I became a little obsessed with the red, purple and gold that you can see in this last picture. Actually, the red-purple-gold ”thing” really started when I watched the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel for the second time last week. As it was a second viewing, my mind was freer to wander and take in more of the scenery and sets and the purple, red and gold kept calling to me…

This image released by Fox Searchlight shows Tom Wilkinson, Tony Revolori, center, and Owen Wilson, right, in "The Grand Budapest Hotel ." (AP Photo/Fox Searchlight) — This image released by Fox Searchlight shows Tom Wilkinson, Tony Revolori, center, and Owen Wilson, right, in “The Grand Budapest Hotel .” (AP Photo/Fox Searchlight)

It’s not like I haven’t used this combination before…

What looks rather blue in this picture is actually a dark purple. This is an amulet bag that I made many years ago when I was first practicing sewing and weaving tubular edgings. It was a cute little pouch with its cross-warp strap and pom poms. My friend DY has it hanging from the rear view mirror in her car.

Last week, I was about to start my next wool project and I had purple, gold and red wool…perfect. Well, not so much. The purple wasn’t deep enough, the gold was greenish and the red just wasn’t lipstick-y enough. I spent several days winding warp with these colors, adding and subtracting ends, re arranging ends, pulling things out and starting again before I gave up on trying to make the particular tones of red, purple and gold work. It was so hard for me to wipe that color combination from my mind and start anew.

So, this is what I have come up with. You can see that I really wanted to use the purple! It is one of two panels that will be connected with decorative stitching. I am creating the patterns with supplemental warp threads. There was one more thing that I wanted to change but I got to the point where I realized that this could go on forever! and so I just decided to get on with it and weave. The center stitching, which will run along the right hand edge, will be in the greenish gold and the edging around the two joined panels will be in purple. I hope that will balance it all out. And, I am very pleased that I remembered, despite all the warping chaos, to add a stripe at the inner edge to make placing the stitches easier.

In the meantime, my brown wool is on its way in the post so that I can create the outer edging for my first wool panel piece…

Something is going on with me and I am noticing color more. I am currently watching the series Parenthood for the first time on dvd. I see scenes with characters dressed in black seated on a butter-yellow couch in front of a dark green wall and all I can think of are the colors. Will we ever see a red-white-black piece from me again? Undoubtedly! I still have more hangings in that series that I want to create.

Now, it’s back to the loom for me and I will leave you with some final splashes of color…