braiding – Page 2 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Fingers and Toes

It’s a Ravelry.com thing. Paul suggested it and Joyful made it happen by designing a team badge. So, we have a team in the Ravelry Ravellenic Games which will run alongside the Winter Games at Sochi, Russia from February 7-23. The goal, as stated in the Ravelry rules, is to “Challenge yourself by starting and finishing one or more projects during the 2014 Winter Olympics” (and have fun). There is more to this…events, scores, finish line and medals. To be honest I have no clue as to what it all really entails but, as I weave everyday anyway, I thought, “Why not?”

I did very little weaving this week. Instead I did lots of twining and, unfortunately, un-twining and twining again along with a little braiding. The twining became tricky and I only did the braiding to get myself away from the loom before I started throwing things! Twining attempt three is currently underway. I enjoy on-loom twining. It’s all about fingers and thread…no shedding devices, beaters, swords, shuttles or bobbins…it looks like pure simplicity on the surface but I am here to tell you that sometimes it can get complicated.

LEFT; The very start of the Palma braid with the 4 sets of 6 srands used to make it. RIGHT: My had in the braiding position. Two opposing stes of strands are interchanged. The braid is then rotated so the other two sets can be worked. — LEFT; The very start of the Palma braid with the 4 sets of 6 strands used to make it. RIGHT: My hand in the braiding position. Two opposing sets of strands are interchanged. The braid is then rotated so the other two sets can be worked.

So, I took a break from twining and braided to make some keyfobs. This was great. Short lengths of yarn for a small item, only three colors, no tools except for fingers and fist. I got out odds and ends of wool that I have in a tub in the closet and played.

It was fun making the Palma braid again after not having done so for a long, long time. The last time I recall having done so, I was teaching it to a Mapuche lady that I met in Cusco. The keyfob on the right is woven rather than braided. It’s a tubular weaving with the ñawi pattern which, for me, is faster to execute than the braid. The weaving set up does not require string heddles, just a couple of sticks to hold the cross. You separate your feet and warp around your two big toes (only a very short warp is required for a keyfob!), secure the cross and you are ready to start weaving. Toes and thread. Fingers and thread. The weaving advances quickly compared to the braiding. I was able to use my new forked stick in the cross.

Yes, the stick is way too big for that tiny band warp but I sat on the floor with knees up and the forked stick rested on my legs while I did the picking up of the warp threads to form the pattern. So, my forked stick, gift from fr. Kyriakos in Australia was used for the first time. There was a thread on Ravelry where we were asked to name our favorite new tool of 2013 and I had no hesitation in choosing this forked stick as mine. Cut from a pussy willow tree and smoothed to perfection, carefully packed up and sent to me by mail, it’s a treasure!

Fr. Kyriakos with one of his projects. He has been learning to weave on a backstrap loom using my blog and books. Now he needs to make a forked stick for himself!

A forked stick or tanka is used by weavers of the ñawi awapa in the Cusco area of Peru. In other parts of Peru it is used to hold the cross and help with operating the string heddles. The weaver grasps the join of the fork and twists the sticks away. This serves to tighten the upper layer of threads. At the same time the weaver leans forward to relax tension on the lower layer of threads while pulling up on the heddle rod. This combination of moves makes the opening of the heddle shed smooth and efficient.

Instructions for the Palma braid can be found here on my blog. You will also find the Margarita braid there which I might use this coming week for more keyfobs.

On another break from the twining torment I created a warp with the wool that I talked about last week. This could well be a disaster. I don’t think I have ever tried to weave anything so large with wool that has such loose twist. This project will be treated as an experiment to see how the wool behaves. As such, I haven’t planned any particular pattern for the piece and will play it by ear. If it is a success, it just might become a slip case for a computer. I do love the colors so here’s hoping that I can at least salvage a piece of woven cloth if it ends up a sticky, pilly, broken mess.

I will put in the heddles and then leave it until I am done with the twining.

Jennifer’s hemp project is coming along beautifully. I remember it was a long time ago that Jennifer first told me that she would like to weave the loraypu pattern of Chinchero (the one in the center). She waited patiently for my second book to come out in which I have charted these designs. I can imagine how pleased she must be with the way this is turning out.

I came across a gem of a video on Facebook last week. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have English subtitles but I am sure that you will enjoy watching this piece on a weaving cooperative in Suljaa, Mexico where young Amuzga girls can take a chair, sticks and thread and receive free weaving lessons from the weaving masters of the community. It is a beautiful video!! The shots of those little toes sticking up make me smile so much. The pride with which the little girls show and explain their work bring tears to my eyes. I love seeing them on their bellies on the floor coloring designs. That’s how I like to chart.

http://vimeo.com/81069844

Other videos by the same producer can been seen here. All are worth seeing. I particularly like Serpiente de Colores which is an interesting film comprising a rapid succession of still shots accompanied by women speaking in the native language of the Amuzga (subtitled in Spanish).

It is always delightful to see the youngsters learning to weave and interesting to see the ways that different cultures approach it. The little girls of Suljaa, for example, are taught using quite wide warps using fine cotton thread. In the video they were learning to count the threads and make simple patterns with supplemental wefts. You could see that their instructors often had to help them open the sheds. My 17-year old teacher in Guatemala, had become an accomplished weaver long before she was considered skilled enough to warp and set up the loom on her own. Her mother would do the warping and heddle making and then hand over the loom to her.

In the Andes, children in the Cusco region, like the little boy above from Acopia, start out weaving many narrow woolen bands in order to perfect pick-up patterns which can later be combined on wider pieces. The bands are attached to their waists by string. I have seen pictures of small children in Nagaland weaving bands that look around 2″ wide with proper backstraps and with the loom bars lodged behind their tiny little toes. (see link at end of post)

A young girl from Pitumarca weaves a plain-weave tubular band while sewing it to the edge of a piece of woven cloth.

A community elder gives a set of tools toa young weaver at a ceremony at the Tinkuy de Tejedores in Urubamba 2010. — A young weaver proudly receives a set of tools from an elder of her community at a ceremony at the Tinkuy de Tejedores in Urubamba 2010.

The Weaving Communities of Practice site explains and names (in both Aymara and Quechua) the various stages of the learning process in the Andes starting at 3-5 years with spinning and continuing from the age of 5 up to 25 with various stages of braiding, weaving and warping.

Nilda Callañaupa, in her book Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands Dreaming Patterns, Weaving Memories, includes a chapter on Learning Designs and Techniques in the Peruvian highlands stating that learning to weave usually begins when children are 6 to 10 years old. Ed and Christine Franquemont write in greater detail about the learning process in Chinchero, Peru in the Textile Museum Journal Vol. 26, 1987.

Maxima Cortez guides teen-aged Gaby from the Club de Chicas as she weaves a traditional pick-up pattern.

Of course, this process of learning and passing on skills is interrupted in so many ways and in so many places as youngsters leave their homes in rural communities to live near cities which provide higher levels of education and greater employment opportunities. In many places it has all together ceased to exist.

Dorinda Dutcher is one of several people who is working in rural communities to help, in Dorinda’s own words lead the local movement to rescue, preserve, and market their traditional weavings. PAZA has helped the weavers to revive natural dye techniques and provided technical support to improve the quality of the finished woven items for an external market.

Youth have been involved to address the preservation objective. PAZA began the Club de Chicas in December 2010 during school vacation to help bridge the rupture in the passing of weaving tradition from mother to daughter when families migrate from their farms to town.

Many families migrate to provide education for their children beyond 5th grade. The Club de Chicas activities combine modern and traditional skills. The spinning and weaving classes are taught by Doña Màxima Cortez, the PAZA Coordinator. Dorinda Dutcher, former Peace Corps volunteer, teaches baking, computer, and basic business classes.

Since the Club de Chicas was established in 2010 I have been ordering bands from the group which I use as samples for decorative sewing techniques. I know that several of the bands in this collection that I bought in 2012 were made by the teen-aged girls under Maxima’s guidance.

Dorinda’s PAZA Bolivia site is now up and running again (after having suffered a malware infection) and Dorinda has written several posts about Tinkuy 2013 which she and Maxima attended. I have not found many reports online about Tinkuy 2013 and have been eagerly awaiting Dorinda’s detailed and entertaining posts.

Dorinda's photo shows proud weavers from Chahuaytire at Tinkuy 2013 standing on front of their entry in the 2013 community weaving competition. — Dorinda’s photo shows proud weavers from Chahuaytire at Tinkuy 2013 standing in front of their entry in the 2013 community weaving competition.

I contacted Indian photographer Ajay Jain to ask his permission to include a set of wonderful pictures he took of children weaving in Nagaland. Unfortunately I haven’t heard back from him yet. In his images, the joy on the children’s little faces moves me and, once again, those wee toes holding onto loom bars make me smile and smile. Please do follow this link and take a look. It’s guaranteed to leave you with a smile too!

Until next week!

Backstrap Weaving – Encuentro de Tejedores de las Americas – Part Two – the cloth and the looms.

Read Part One of this story here.

ARE YOU GOING TO WEAVE TODAY?

I probably make a thorough nuisance of myself at weaving events like the Encuentro de Tejedores in Cusco Peru earlier this month. I have so many questions and want to be into everything and not miss a thing.

conference venue ETAM 2012 — Calm and serene despite being in the very heart of the city of Cusco, the venue for the conference was beautiful both by day and night. There were plenty of pillars to which looms could be attached for weaving displays and shaded areas under the arches where weavers could show their textiles.

Bright and early on day one, I registered along with other participants. The receptionists, looking smart in their uniforms with colored conference scarves and headbands, were efficient and clearly trained to be able to handle anything. The whole process was very slick and it was interesting to hear all the different Spanish accents and Quechua being spoken in the line-up of participants from all over Peru and South America. I recognized fondly the accent from Chile where I lived for five years as well as the song of the Argentinean-style of speaking used by my ex-boyfriend and the special way that Bolivian highlanders pronounce “rr”.

I then stepped outside to the courtyard to another world…a buzz of colorful activity… where I watched all the stands being assembled by weavers from all over Peru, Bolivia and Latin America, saw all the marvelous textiles emerging from travel sacks and being arranged and labeled, touched the fiber, tools and implements which were used to create the colorful cloth and spoke with the creators themselves. Some of them seemed somewhat overwhelmed by the high level of interest in and admiration for activities that are quite normal and commonplace, almost passing without remark, in the communities, villages and towns where they live.

Taquile Island and Tacabamba — Weavers and knitters from Taquile Island wearing and displaying their textiles and the creators of the wonderful ikat pañones of Tacabamba, Peru

The question that I really wanted to ask everyone right there and then is “Are you going to weave today?” Is today the day when we will get to sit by you and see how you created all these exquisite textiles? And all the while the excitement is building as I see more and more gorgeous textiles and looms being extracted and arranged. I had already seen at least ten things that I wanted to explore further after having passed just once quickly by each of the twenty-two half-erected stands.

Navajo Nation and San Ignacio de Loyola — Weavers and spinners from the Navajo Nation, my friend from the Tinkuy, DY, and TahNibaa and Albina from San Ignacio de Loyola showing the crocheted “chullos” and the belt loom full of sticks which is typical of her community.

Chol Chol foundation and Matsigenka — The Chol Chol Foundation of Chile was present bringing with them textiles made by the Mapuche weavers that they support including a spectacular ikat- patterned “manta cacique”. Lowland areas of Peru were also well represented with a group of Matsigenka cotton spinners and weavers from Echarate, Bajo Urubamba.

The looms!……

Looms of Taquile Island and Echarate — A horizontal loom with a broad belt patterned with double weave and complementary-warp pick-up patterns of Taquile Island and a backstrap loom with a cotton warp-float piece in progress from Echarate.

The simple backstrap loom of Tacabamba, Peru on which the indigo ikat-patterned “pañones” are woven. The process of creating a pañon is anything but simple. They are up to one-meter wide, covered with tiny motifs and have patterns knotted into their fringes.

ayacucho and tarabuco — A floor loom from Ayacucho, Peru with a tapestry in progress and the leaning vertical loom of Tarabuco, Bolivia.

Chiclayo and Santiago Atitlan — The cotton weavers of Chiclayo managed to preserve their native cotton despite the fact that its cultivation was banned for many years in Peru. The backstrap loom is used to weave their natural brown and white cotton into saddle bags, belts and table ware for their own use. The Guatemalan loom from Santiago Atitlan holds brocaded cotton cloth destined for the typical woman’s blouse or “huipil”. Panels are sewn together and the neckline embroidered with birds.

Wide warps, narrow warps and everything in between… A Tinkipaya weaver’s leaning vertical loom, holding fabric covered n complementary-warp pick-up patterns, rests on the ground. A weaver from Pitumarca speedily edges her finished woven lliclla with a tubular woven band using three sets of string heddles and a shed loop.

ayacucho and Tanta — A backstrap weaver from Ayacucho, Peru, creates a belt patterned with supplementary warps. She uses a forked stick to hold a secondary cross, the manipulation of which helps her to open the heddle shed quickly and efficiently. The wide backstrap loom parked against the pillar is from Tanta, Peru where handspun alpaca yarn is often combined with bright synthetic threads to make shawls, ponchos and blankets.

And then there was that tantalizing backstrap loom with its twenty-four heddle sticks…Señora Araceli, are you going to weave today?

making string heddles for faja sara — First Araceli has to make the twenty-four sets of heddles on this fresh warp. The pattern has already been picked up and saved on sticks.

Just before lunchtime one day when we were indoors listening to speakers, I got the uneasy feeling that I really needed to be somewhere. I got up and tip-toed out at the start of the morning’s final presentation by Manos del Uruguay to find Araceli seated and preparing her warp for an afternoon session of weaving.

Well, you know that I am fascinated by the entire process and so I was happy to be able to sit alone with her and watch her make her heddles. I was tickled to see that she makes her heddles with the extra security hitch just as I have chosen to do. I have seen and learned so many ways to make string heddles for backstrap and other kinds of weaving and this method is by far my current favorite. I always say “current” as who knows what cool new method I will find tomorrow.

Here is a short video clip of Araceli making her heddles. She certainly has a smooth and elegant way of doing so. I know some people don’t like making heddles and dread that part of the process…I like it!

And what about the woven cloth produced by these looms and the pieces produced by talented hands using knotting, braiding and crochet?

chullo and hatband — Head gear…Crocheted “chullo” from Peru and a woven hatband from Bolivia.

There are four countries represented here….cloth from Mapuche weavers in Chile, Salasaca, Ecuador, Taquile Island, Peru and Tinkipaya, Bolivia.

Cloth from different corners of Peru. The variety!

Of course, each piece has its story and it was those stories that we were told in the weavers’ own words in the seminar sessions that were held in the mornings and afternoons. The stories were very inspiring and educational, often with very personal touches which brought life and meaning to the fabric that simply could not be transmitted from the market stall or loom alone. All told of hope, perseverance, strengthening of ethnic identity and a revival of pride in oneself and culture and were often very moving.

The faja sara ( the one created with the twenty-four string heddles) has its own fascinating story. It is part of an unbroken weaving tradition that dates back at least 500 years to Incan times. The belt is described in the chronicles of Mercedarian Friar Martín de Murúa in 1590 A.D. and the knowledge of how to create one has been passed on ancestrally over all these years.

Lynn Meisch has written an article about her research on these belts here. We were told by the weavers that the name “sara’ comes from the verb ”sarear”, although I have never come across this verb before, which means to choose, or in a weaving context, to pick-up.

Interesting to me from a structural point of view is the rolled edge of the belts which is surprisingly easy to create. I am guessing that it serves the same purpose as the woven bands I have seen added to other textiles in that it strengthens the edge. When I was in Holland, Marijke van Epen and I followed Mirja Wark’s explanation of the rolled edge used by the Wayuu people of the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia and Venezuela and the way the weavers of the sara belts create theirs is equally as interesting and practical.

Here is Araceli in action with a band of spectators. When doubt was expressed by the onlookers about the quality of the cloth since Araceli does not use a ruki, the llama bone tool, to beat in her weft, Araceli immediately invited them all to feel the belt. They were all surprised and impressed by the firmness of the weave. It is a very dense piece of weaving.

The poncho shown above is from Catamarca Argentina and represents the recovery of the exquisitely fine work done with handspun vicuña fiber on floor looms which has the made the poncho Catamarqueño famous for centuries.

Two people weave the pieces side by side and have to coordinate the strength of their beat perfectly to maintain a consistent weave. With the fine vicuña thread a piece that measures 2 meters by 1.30 meters weighs only 320 grams and takes up to eight months to complete.

Fine vicuña shawls are also woven and embroidered using designs copied from old colonial textiles.

We had a chance one afternoon to handle and clean pieces of vicuna fiber and everyone was invited to try their hand at spinning it on the 25cm spindles.

More cloth…..

…. a bulsico , or cotton double-pocket saddle bag from San Ignacio de Loyola with beautiful patterns in simple warp floats worked in two colors. The weavers from Tarabuco and Potolo in Bolivia of course brought large fine examples of their textiles. I decided to show you here some very small and practical pieces that they also brought to sell. The tiny USB pouch is from Tarabuco and the cell phone pouch with its woven khuru figures is from Potolo.

The supplementary-warp patterned pieces in lovely pastel colors are from Ayacucho, Peru and the last shot is of an impromptu sling-braiding demonstration from one of the Peruvian presenters in the coffee break.

More lessons along the way…

Diana from Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala showed me how to wrap her hair and head with a woven hair sash. You can see that most of the band is plain red with just the last part, which will be seen on the outside, decorated with pattern. Albina’s husband showed me how married men wear the typical chullo of his home…with the flaps standing out sideways. A single man will wear his with the flaps pointing out front and back.

So, now you have seen a selection of the stands, looms and textiles and heard a few backgroud tidbits about some of the weavings and the people who produce them. You are probably dying now to see the weavers in action, right?

ARE YOU GOING TO WEAVE TODAY?

Sorry, but I am saving that segment for the next blog post as uploading the video will be so much easier for me when I am in the US.

In the meantime I am packed and ready to leave tomorrow and I did manage to finish the discontinuous warp piece that I started in the workshop on the last day of the Encuentro. Handling alpaca fiber is not a nice business in this heat with sweaty hands, I can tell you!

Here is my ticlla piece off the loom and all curled up…

The overspun alpaca yarn made the grey and black panels curl in and the other two panels curl under. You can see my finish line on the white panel. I ended up removing one weft as I had packed too many in. I really need to remove two as now I have two wefts in the same shed. The finish line isn’t as noticeable on the other panels. I am really pleased with this!

I wove and sewed on a tubular band to the edges….… in the same way as the Pitumarca weaver that I showed earlier in this post, using three sets of string heddles and a shed loop. See how nicely the piece lies flat now? I hemmed the sides before applying the tubular band because I didn’t like the way the warp stripe at the edge was interfering with the color of the tubular band.

Here’s a better look at the tubular band and that lovely dovetail join of colors…

Done! I am keen to try this all again!

See you next time from the US 🙂

Backstrap Weaving – Falling into Spring

Back home in Bolivia!

September is the first month of spring. Big rains extinguished all the fires that normally choke the skies with smoke at this time of the year, the green and white flag flies proudly and Santa Cruz celebrates its beginnings.

September 24 is the big day of celebrations and above you can see one of my English teaching colleagues, Lalenya, wearing the tipoy, the typical dress of Santa Cruz (only worn on such fiesta days) with some students from the instutute wearing the light white cotton outfits and sombrero de sao which complete the typical man’s costume for these days of celebration.

Lalenya’s tipoy is patterned with images of the patuju flower which is one of two Bolivian national flowers. One flower represents the lowlands where we live and another the highlands.

Next week the US will be celebrating Spinning and Weaving week (is this an international celebration?) and I will be spending the week in Cusco, Peru at a weavers’ gathering…yay!

I got to enjoy some wonderful late summer/early fall days in Europe. After what I am told was a wet and horrid summer, I was treated to day after day of sun and perfect temperatures in both Holland and the UK.

Here is part of the group that came to meet and weave with me in the Netherlands. Artist, author and tablet-weaver Marijke van Epen, is just behind me. In the chaos that typically accompanies packing up at the end of a weaving day, two people left before I remembered to get a posed group shot but here they all are weaving…

We wove in the workshop and exhibit area in Marijke’s lovely home, a beautiful light and airy space with walls covered in Marijke’s stunning tablet-woven art.

This rainbow piece covers an entire wall and comprises tablet-woven linen spiral bands with twisted paper weft. The slightest movement nearby will set the pieces in motion, gracefully turning. Standing by the green bands as they gently twirled reminded me of being in a forest with dappled light. I can imagine this hanging in a bedroom accompanied by the sound of a gurgling stream and breeze…how relaxing that would be!

Other walls were adorned with smaller tablet-woven pieces. Being behind glass, it wasn’t possible to photograph all of these well.

Yes, these have been woven with tablets!

One of my favorite pieces is Marijke’s reproduction of a tablet-woven band which belonged to Bathilde, Queen of the Franks (7th Century) which was found among other textile fragments in Chelles Abbey. Look at the little “pebbly” figures that run along the bottom edge of the band. They could be woven using the Andean Pebble Weave structure.

And then, upstairs in the loom room where I slept, I had these to keep me company…

This is just a handful of the bands that reflect Marijke’s love of ethnic textiles and motifs. She has dedicated a lot of time to figuring out how to reproduce the structure of pieces, which have been created with pick-up techniques on backstrap looms, using tablets instead. In this way she has been able to create multi-colored pebble weave bands instead of just limiting herself to two and three-colored bands as are most often seen in the Andes these days. At times she found that she couldn’t find an efficient way to reproduce a certain structure with tablets and so she would weave the piece doing pick-up with a backstrap loom. She is just as skilled at doing pick-up with her backstrap loom as she is with using tablets.

And, as you can see, she also loves to cover her woven pieces with finishes and embellishments…braids, pom poms, tassels, straps, edging bands. All her pieces are impeccably finished down to the very last detail. That is an inspiration for me as I sometimes don’t take as much care with finishing the inside of my pieces as I do with the outside. Above you can see Marijke practicing her ñawi awapa tubular band. She had learned how to make this beautiful band from the writings of Adele Cahlander and I was able to show her how I was taught to make it in Peru.

It was a lovely week in the small village of Gelselaar, village of geese, in eastern Holland. Much time was spent indoors with Marijke as we poured over weaving books, discovered the many similarities in our interests, peered at photos and tried to figure out structures. We wove the special rolled tubular edging used by the Wayuu weavers on their si’ira belts described by weaver and author Mirja Wark. Together we also figured out how to weave a new tubular band from Chahuaytire…what fun! And then there were evening strolls around the village…breakfasts of typical Dutch treats, Hagelslag – chocolate sprinkles which you have on toast rounds – and morning coffee break with stroopwafel, my favorite!

Two of Marijke’s friends offered to drive us north to spend the day with Mirja Wark. It was a lovely drive with lots of horizon to be seen! Mirja has her home in a remote area on a large piece of property on which she has her weaving school and studio. How tranquil and inviting is that? Students are invited to pitch their tents, if they like, in the orchard that lies on this side of the pool.

It was another glorious early fall day. We sat outside while Mirja brought us the si’ira belts which she collected and catalogued while living in Venezuela. We also saw three reproductions that she herself has made.

There is a whole lot involved with the creation of one of these belts. Firstly, there is all that pick-up to make the pattern (I know! I am in the midst of weaving a wall hanging using an adaptation of these designs), there is the special rolled hollow edging which you might be able to make out in the picture, there is a weft twined finish at both ends, loop braids and tassels….all of which are beautifully explained in Mirja’s book.

Mirja showed us how the belt is worn by men to secure their loin cloths. The pom poms sit right on the hips and jiggle about as the wearer walks. Below is one of the belts made by a Wayuu weaver. No one is weaving these any more and most of the belts that Mirja collected are quite old with many signs of wear, deterioration and multiple repairs.

Then we saw the typical embroidered cotton dress used by Wayuu women.

A belt concealed inside the dress allows the wearer to pull the dress in and around the front of her waist to give it some form. The back of the dress, however, hangs and flows freely. Mirja says that it is a lovely sight on the notoriously windy Guajira Peninsula to see the women with their dresses billowing behind as they walk.

Mirja was able to collect this young girl’s blouse and a chief’s ceremonial headdress. The patterned woven band of the headdress is almost completely obscured by the pink tassels.

And then there were the susu, or mochilas, the crocheted bags which come in many sizes. Large ones are carried by the Wayuu women while small ones, which are used for coins, hang from the mens’ waists. A crocheter I am not. Well, I do know a few stitches (are they even called “stitches”?) and this in spite of owning Carol Ventura’s wonderful books on tapestry crochet. So, for all the crocheters out there, I have taken a close up shot of the structure so you can see what’s going on.

Mirja has one of the very tiny crochet hooks that the women use to make these bags but in all the excitement of the showing and examining and photographing I didn’t get to see it. However, I found this very short segment on Youtube of a Wayuu woman making a mochila.

Now let’s look at more of these gorgeous bags that Mirja has in her studio…

And for the ply-splitters out there, some of the straps of the bags are made in this technique.

The bottoms of the bags, which probably are not seen very often when the bags are being carried, are also beautifully patterned (I have read online that this is one of the features that distinguish a real Wayuu bag from inferior imitations).

Here is something for the loop-braiders…one of the tiny coin susu that men dangle at the hip….

There was so much to see! Mirja has also lived in the Middle East and there were many textiles that she has collected, studied and reproduced throughout her studio. I will refrain from posting everything as I need to get some of the details sorted…so much information. However, I will show you this woman’s camel bag (the woman’s version apparently has only one pocket) from Oman as we have seen these kinds of Bedouin textiles here on my blog before.

Recognize this style of weaving?…the warp-substitution shajarah and the checkerboard al’ouerjan patterns (both these techniques produce long warp floats on the back). I love the red on black patterns! There is plenty to look at on this piece…all those marvelous finishes and embellishments. What a treat to be able to handle a textile like this!

This next piece that Mirja bought on an island off the east coast of Oman is interesting in that the weavers have tied down the warp floats on the back of the piece.

In a previous discussion about this in the Ravelry group we had assumed that this was done simply to make a textile more attractive for tourists and was not a traditional practice. However, Mirja assured me that this piece was not intended for tourists. The island was the only place that she saw traditional textiles woven this way. In other places the long warp floats are often hidden under fabric, as shown below, or left exposed.

So, that was the Netherlands…and two fabulously talented and generous weavers, writers and teachers.

Back in the UK I had one more day with Sue on the farm…ah, the peace, the sunsets, the walks with the dogs, the gorgeous garden… and then I headed down with Sue to Weybridge where I stayed with a Braid Society friend, Norma.

On the way we stopped at the Handweavers Studio and Gallery. Owner Wendy Morris was away at Complex Weavers in the US so I didn’t get to meet her. I went a bit mad and bought a bunch of 60/2 silk with no project in mind. A little voice keeps telling me to “make do with what you can get in Bolivia!” and not to have longings for these other kinds of thread but I have an urge to weave some very fine things with something other than the cotton sewing thread that I get in Santa Cruz.

Sue bought some beautiful handspun and naturally dyed singles yarn form Ayacucho, Peru.

A flyer in the store told the story behind this yarn and it was funny recognizing archaeologist Barbara Wolff’s, name there. I met her at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year where she was promoting and selling weaving of Ayacucho – tapestries and pebble weave pieces. She has been organizing the spinners in the area to produce this yarn and Handweavers Studio is now one of the stores that carries it. Barbara tells me that they are in the process of preparing another shipment so I guess that it is all going very well.

Sue bought four colors with which to make ñawi awapa tubular bands. According to the swing tags and information in-store, the terracotta color comes from masacopa root, the yellow from the chilca bush, brown from nogal (walnut) and the green from tara pod.

Being a Braid Society member Norma is of course passionate about all kinds of narrow band weaving, ply splitting, tablet weaving, loop braiding, kumihimo etc…and I gave her some lessons in Andean pebble weave and tubular bands while I stayed with her in Weybridge. She showed me her collection of textiles including the gorgeous ply split camel girth above.

Norma’s family is from India as am I, and so, I had a week of authentic home-cooked delicious Indian meals…south Indian curries and sweets! We went to Southhall to an enormous Indian supermarket where Norma and her family helped me choose a few bits and pieces to take back to Bolivia. I am afraid that I cheat and use the prepared curry powders.

The following day Norma and I went to nearby Hampton Court Palace, residence of Henry VIII. My gosh, I have loads of pictures to show you from there…the Tudor and Baroque architecture, the interiors, the gardens, courtyards, squares, paintings, tapestries, furniture, chapel and kitchens. However, in an attempt to keep this post mostly textile-focused I will just show you one tapestry…two small segments of one of my favorites…

Such detail in this! It is entitled The Triumph of Fame over Death and hangs in the Great Watching Chamber.

Well, okay, just one more picture from the palace…I can’t resist. This is from the Apartments of William III….

Every inch of ceiling, wall and all that lies between is decorated.

My last day was spent very nicely with Norma on a visit to Rodrick Owen in his home in Oxford where we were able to sit and chat at ease after all the rushing about at the Braids conference. We saw some of his large works…interlaced wall hangings and even clothing!… and had the chance to examine some pieces in his South American study collection.

On the way back to the strain station, Rodrick led us on a short walking tour of Oxford. It was another gorgeous late afternoon with the rowers training on the Thames among the ducks and swans, youngsters playing rugby against a backdrop of the magnificent Oxford colleges with the sun casting a lovely golden glow over everything. It was a beautiful last day.

It was just cool enough to have us wearing light sweaters…fall is on its way over there while over here in Bolivia spring has taken its hold. However, I have to say that we don’t really have a spring….just two seasons really…hot-and-humid and warm-and-humid and “hot ” is definitely starting to push “warm” out of the way. Ah well, I will be heading to the highlands this Saturday and an overnight bus trip from La Paz to Cusco will certainly cool things down.

A couple of things to show before I go…

I am happy to have received the first woven feedback from my new book!

Bobbie in the US is weaving the first panel for a bag project using the knot work patterns that are charted on pages 43 and 44.

Camilla in Sweden is doing one of the things that I hope many people will do with my book, that is, she is using the designs charted in my book as inspiration for her own unique patterns. Camilla has allowed the hook design that is woven in various parts of the Andes to inspire her work arranging and placing them on both pebbled and twill backgrounds.

I am looking forward to seeing more projects from people who are using the book.

Finally, CraftDesignOnline has put up what they are calling an Interactive Grid Designer on their website. They say that this is the first of a new range of design tools they are planning. It allows you to create patterns by filling in and coloring squares which can then be printed. This style of grid is perfect for warp-faced pick-up pattern structures that incorporate warp floats like Simple Warp-floats, Pebble Weave and other complementary-warp structures. Note that Double Weave, Warp Substitution or Supplementary-weft patterns are best done on charts in which the cells are staggered rather than stacked one above the other.

In my next post I will tell you about the Cusco event, hopefully while still in Cusco. Fingers crossed that my cheapo hostel has wifi service.

Backstrap Weaving – Braids 2012, Threads that Move

Braids 2012 is all over and all the British attendees must be back home now wondering what hit them. Many of the foreign visitors went off to families or packed their things into rented vans and hit the road leaving just Elizabeth Kolb of Canada, Ingrid Crickmore of the USA and myself, all of us more or less “homeless”, together here in the MMU dorms.

So, what did we do with our time alone here? Ingrid and I had a fun morning checking out the Costume Museum and the Ede festivities in a nearby park yesterday. Today we all caught up on some much needed sleep and laundry then of course, of course, what else?…we braided.

I spent this afternoon editing my pictures and wondering why I hadn’t taken a whole lot more.

This is the first big conference at which I have registered, signed up for classes and taught which meant that there really wasn’t much free time to just wander about, soak up the atmosphere and take pictures. It was up early every day to participate in a steady stream of activities. Coffee and meal breaks seemed to be spent waving the food about in the air in our hands while trying to explain a braiding or weaving move rather than actually consuming the stuff!

That is why I have decided to re-name this conference “Hands that Express”.

I was getting frustrated with my photos which had been taken indoors in low-light conditions with so much movement going on. My pictures always seemed to show two people in deep conversation with a blur of hands in front of their faces…hands that flitted and floated and turned gracefully in the air as they described their craft. Then I understood that my pictures with the blurred hands actually captured better than anything the spirit and essence of this event….expressive hands, conveying passion and ideas even when not putting threads into motion.

Too bad I only realized this after already having deleted many of the pictures!

And such interesting hands. Above we see the hands of Errol Pires Nelson of India with their built-in ply-splitting tools. He is starting off a ply-split braid for a new student in one of his many impromptu classes outside his scheduled teaching days. I, too, rely heavily on a long thumbnail as a handy tool for my backstrap weaving, especially for heddle making, but I am a bit shy to leave it long when I am out and about.

The city of Manchester was a wonderful place for this event with its fascinating role in British and world textile industry history. The MMU made a nice home for us all. I have always loved communal living and staying in the dorms took me back to my ski bum days except that we were all tucked up in bed early each night so we would have enough energy to face the full days of lectures, classes, conversation and all that hand-waving!

The little I saw of the city itself was impressive…all that brick and stone…old and new side by side with the gorgeous Palace Hotel, with its landmark clock tower pictured above, built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, standing majestically on the other side of the street from the Holiday Inn Express.

The old and new, the very old British structures and the newer items representing the British melting pot of cultures stand sometimes comfortably, sometimes clumsily and very often very colorfully side by side….the lovely old “Picture House” perched on top of the MacDonald’s…. But this is just the quick impression I got from the very little time I got to spend out and about before and after the conference.

Day one pre conference was spent settling and meeting my dorm-mates…the “naughty old British ladies” as they called themselves. We spent the first evening putting together “fill-the-gap” braiding kits which we were to use to teach braiding to visitors at the Museum of Science and Industry the following day. These humble “fill-the-gap” kits were responsible for providing a considerable part of the funding for the Braids 2012 event. Braid Society volunteers attended fiber events during the many years of planning, taught braiding and sold the little kits. Hundreds of people were introduced to this fun craft for a tiny fee which helped make Braids 2012 possible….impressive!

It was a lot of fun seeing Rosie and Sally in action at the museum. Of course they had no problem getting kids to try braiding. It was a little more difficult convincing some of the adults but Sally and Rosie obviously had a lot of experience with this and their cheeky sense of humor soon had entire families of all ages sitting and standing about completely absorbed in braiding. The kits were free at this event.

About 100 braiding kits later….we went directly to the conference opening and were welcomed by the Chairman of the Braid Society, Steve Pretty. Society President Jacqui Carey gave the keynote speech. We were then treated to a koto recital by Enokido Fuyuki who then invited us to come and try our hand at this traditional Japanese instrument. Steve Pretty is being given some playing tips below. It was a lovely way to open the event considering the large number of Japanese attendees and the many traditional Japanese braiding techniques that were being offered in the workshops.

Morning lectures included those offered by Carol James and Stacey Harvey-Brown, pictured above, on North American Braided Sashes and Northwest Archives for Research and Inspiration.

There are those expressive hands at work while Ingrid and Carol discuss techniques besides Carol’s display of beautiful finger-woven pieces.

I signed up for Anne Dyer’s class on a technique which she calls “snagging” on tablet-woven bands which has given me some cool ideas for plain-weave tubular bands that I make on my backstrap loom. I also took Robyn Spady’s class on handwoven decorative trim on an inkle loom. I was happy to have Susan Foulkes as my classmate and we were both rebels and wove on backstrap looms rather than on inkle looms. Susan used a rigid heddle and I used my usual string heddles and a shed loop.

Both instructors gave a us a run down of the technique and a multitude of inspiring samples and then let us run with it and create. It was fun to stop every now and then to take a spin about the room to see which direction the other students were taking. This was very interesting for me as the techniques I teach need to be built up in steps throughout the entire duration of the class leaving little class time for any free wheeling and experiments. Things need to be more structured. It is always so wonderful being a student again and especially in the hands of such great teachers. I get to evaluate the way my classmates and I react to the material, the pace of the instruction and the general learning atmosphere. I learn so much that I can then apply to my own teaching.

On Monday night we had the Braiders’ Bazaar. I bought nothing!

Happily, I was too busy demonstrating backstrap weaving and meeting various online weaving friends as well as talking about my first book Andean Pebble Weave. It was fun to tell an Italian attendant about the translation that has been made of the e-book to her language.

Happily, I was also able to show the front cover and also tell everyone about my follow-up book which had just gone up for sale the night before on Patternfish.com.

Later I heard about all the wonderful things that had been offered at the bazaar…books, tools, yarn and textiles including some amazing ply-split camel girths, which I did manage to photograph (see above). Ingrid and I were oblivious at our table where I was weaving a pebble weave band on my backstrap loom while she demonstrated how to do what would normally be a two-person/four-handed braid on one pair of hands.

Evenings had us gathered in our communal kitchens, showing what we had learned that day and sharing new techniques with the usual flurry of enthusiastic hand gestures….doing the techniques, talking the techniques, watching (although you weren’t allowed to get away with just watching for too long!), enjoying, discussing…it went on and on.

Many a warp was wound…all Carol needed was a chair and pair of chopsticks. With an ironing board and frying pan Helen sets about making a braided and felted scarf. All hands were occupied and, if you walked in without a craft, you would soon find yourself with strings dangling from your fingers as did the Japanese visitors above.

Kathleen has a ply-split scarf in progress on her knee and Sally, Rosie and Phyllis are knotting bracelets. Ruth found the coffee break a good time to teach silk spinning on one of her home made spindles to Mari Omura who lectured on Chinese and Korean loop braids. And if you run out of chairs, as often happened, just perch yourself on the window sill as Shirley did with her marudai. Carol is finger weaving with her work suspended from the kitchen cupboard while Steve and Elizabeth can do their ply-split braiding anywhere anytime without tools or supports.

A still moment for a photo op with Anne Dixon…two “warp-faced” ladies, an inkler and a backstrapper who love to weave pick-up patterns.

Every now and then we did manage to sneak out of our classrooms to peek into others and the teachers were all very welcoming. I was lucky to find a moment to pop into Rodrick Owens’s classroom and see his stunning display of Peruvian sling braids which has made us all the more enthusiastic about his up and coming book.

I didn’t get to see Jacqui Carey’s class on Chinese Braid Embroidery in progress but I heard so many wonderful things about it and did manage to see her display of Chinese braiding bobbins, a few of which are pictured above. We were also able to see her Chinese braid embroidery work called “Jo’s Jacket” which is breathtaking. I am sorry, but I have nothing to show you about that. All I can say is “just wait until you see it!”

On Wednesday we had what was called a “rest day” and were taken off to be fully immersed in the history of silk weaving in Maccelsfield with visits to the Heritage Center, Paradise Mill and Silk Industry Museum…a wonderful day out.

This, along with my weekend visit to the Museum of Science and Industry, gave me a glimpse into life at the peak of the cotton and silk weaving industries in Manchester and Maccelsfield….It really is all too much to go into here…life working in a mill, Sunday school and home life for the working children, the hardships of the mill workers, the cloth, the buttons, the costumes, the magnificent looms and machinery….it was a full day which left our heads spinning. I know that I am leaving you hanging here with a bunch of pictures with no description, but maybe I will be able to elaborate in another blog post some time in the future.

Ingrid and I were both slated to weave and braid on Thursday and Friday. Here’s Ingrid with Debbie Richardson, the amazing organizer of this brilliant event, on Thursday morning. I can see Ingrid’s enthusiasm shining in her eyes. I know that all the braiders were thrilled with her.

Errol was also ply-splitting those days and had already made himself a big favorite with his quiet presence and special dry sense of humor. He seemed to be able to just produce out of nowhere at any time one of his fabulous ply-split creations.

My goodness, I had a fabulous hard-working group! I suggested we not have tea break on day one and everyone was more than happy to stay in and continue working. We also started at 8am on day two rather than at 10am as scheduled. Why not squeeze as much out of this as we can?! It really was a pleasure to have such keen and tenacious weavers. Susan Foulkes joined us on day two for the Andean tubular band segment. Ruth MacGregor, who edited the conference proceedings (along with Shirley Berlin) was also there with Clare, Margot, Marge, Bridget, Janet and Mayako.

Thursday night was banquet night and a chance to congratulate and thank all involved with the organization of the conference before everyone started disappearing on Friday evening and Saturday. At the banquet it was announced that Braids 2016 will be in the hands of Robyn Spady and will be held in Seattle USA. It was a night for dressing up and our Japanese visitors did not disappoint!

And that brings me to my last night in Manchester. As I said, I am sitting here looking at the pictures and wondering where the week went and why there are so few pictures to tell this story. I hope I have been able to convey just a little of the fun we had and have you all thinking that maybe a trip to Braids 2016 in Seattle is something you should be planning.

Lucky Elizabeth and I got private braiding classes with Ingrid today. I am off to Cambridge tomorrow. I wonder if I will see Elizabeth again somewhere sometime. Ingrid always weaves with me when I am in California so we are bound to meet again soon. That kind of thought always makes the goodbyes easier.

Backstrap Weaving – Tools, Trinkets,Tinkipaya and Treasures from the Lowlands.

It’s been one of those computer weeks…chained to the keyboard…. that has left me with little time at the loom. Still, I discovered a new weaving tool, fell in love with yet another weaving style, made a couple of things from tiny samples and rediscovered some bits and pieces of Bolivian lowland handcrafts that I have had stashed here and there around the house.

First the new tool about which I am very happy…

I inherited this from the Santa Cruz Handweavers Guild and it used to belong to Nora Rogers. It was holding the end of a Hopi wedding sash in sprang technique that she was creating. I don’t know if it was bought or home made but it is heavy and solid and does one heck of a job clamping. The beauty of this for me is that I can weave a piece and then clamp this thing onto the warp, cut off the finished piece and continue to weave!

It isn’t just two flat pieces of wood clamped together. The two pieces are shaped so that one piece fits neatly into the other. It holds really well and there is no need to have knots on the end of the warp to stop it from slipping through. I love it!

So, I was able to cut the little Bedouin sample on which I was working last week and carry on weaving on the same warp.

I wanted to make the little Bedouin sample into a small amulet-type bag as a gift for someone and didn’t feel like waiting until the whole warp had been woven, nor did I want to cut off and just abandon the warp and waste the yarn.

I need more of these clamps in different lengths!

So, you may remember that I was experimenting with using double weave for the Bedouin shajarah patterns and that I was trying to handle the two wefts in a way that didn’t make the transition from double to plain weave too abrupt.

I finished the first sample, added a piece of cardboard to separate the start of the second one, wove a bit, applied the clamp and then cut off the first finished sample.

I was so pleased with it all…the finished piece, the double weave and the nifty new tool… that I had half sewn up the little bag when I realized that I hadn’t yet taken pictures of the inside to show the double weave and the lack of long floats So here is one not-wonderful photo of my trying to hold the thing open while taking a shot… but I think you get the idea.

I love these little amulet bags. What are they good for? I don’t know…they are just so cute! I have decided to call them “doorknob danglers”.

This one is for a friend but others will be dangled from doorknobs and will be used to stash those odd things that one finds on the floor and doesn’t know quite what to do with…like that strange button that doesn’t seem to belong to anything. I guess they could also be used to hold jewelry especially now that my pieces with Bedouin designs no longer have any floats on the inside and, therefore, nothing on which jewelry can get caught…yay!

And they give me an excuse to do the dressing up thing…you know, add braids and tubular bands, cross knit looped edgings etc..

I made a four-strand braid for this one and then sewed it to the edges. I added extra strands to make the tassels.

Here’s one I made along time ago and gave away. This was fun to decorate with a ñawi awapa, Bolivian pom poms and a crossed-warp strap.

Here is another band experiment that I decided to turn into a ridiculously tiny bag. I think that this one will hold my house key in my purse. I haven’t had time to dress it up yet and I will probably sew a snap closure to the inside and add a wrist strap.

I have already had a friend ask me to make her a tiny one like this for her guitar picks.

Now, what about this weaving style that I have fallen in love with….it’s Bolivian, it’s from Tinkipaya… and it’s “wow”.

I saw a weaver from Tinkipaya at work at the Tinkuy de Tejedores in Urubamba, Peru in 2010, have seen and admired lots of their work for years especially when I was in Potosi learning to weave, have a fabulous book on their designs by Veronica Cereceda and now, after all this time…suddenly it really grabs me.

What I think I loved most about seeing the lady from Tinkipaya weaving when I was in Peru was the reaction and intense interest displayed by the Peruvian weavers. I delighted in watching their stance and expressions while observing the Bolivian weaver at work. And some of the Peruvian weavers were just as intent on capturing the moment, whipping out their digital cameras.

But most times there wasn’t a chance to see as the weaver had a solid wall of admirers around and above her so I had to settle for enjoying watching the watchers and there was much to be enjoyed in that activity.

I enjoyed looking at the hats, the skirts, the footwear, the woven cloth as well as listening to the sound of the conversations in Quechua.

While the Tinkipaya weaver does her pick-up (amazing how she could even do it with all that attention focused on her!), one of the Peruvian ladies appears to be pointing out the picking cross that she is using …held on two cords high above the weaving line and beyond the heddle rod.

Meanwhile, these ladies ponder from above…

There is a wonderful museum in the Bolivian city of Sucre which is currently devoted to the work of the weavers from Tarabuco and Potolo but which I have heard is going to be expanded to include the weaving of two more Bolivian areas…those of Tinkipaya and Calcha.

I need to gather more pictures so I can show you to what I am referring and why I am so enthralled.

From Tinkipaya in the Bolivian highlands let’s drop down to the lowlands, where I live, so I can show you a few of the crafts of this area…bits and pieces that I have bought from a co-operative store called Artecampo just one block from my house…things which have gotten stashed away as my little home got filled with more and more books! When looking for something this week, I started discovering these things tucked away in corners and decided it would be nice to take a look at them here.

Artecampo sells crafts of the various groups of artisans in the Santa Cruz area which includes the Ayoreos, Chiquitanos, Guarayos, Izoceños and Criollos.

These sweet wooden boxes are painted by a group of boys and girls, the youngest of whom I am told is eleven, from the community of Guarayos de Urubichá. The idea for this craft was born when the Center for Research, Craft Design and Cooperative Marketing (CIDAC) made an experiment over twenty years ago in this community by giving the school children paper and colored pencils and asking them to draw scenes of life in their community. One youngster was selected to be trained in painting techniques in the city of Santa Cruz and then returned to his community to pass on his skills and knowledge to his young peers.

The boxes are posed on a woollen rug woven in Vallegrande in the foothills of the highlands. Maybe one day I will go there and get to buy some of this wool for my own weaving as there is certainly none to be found here in the city.

The people of Isoso are a unique mix of Guaraní and Chané cultures and produce woven cotton pieces on leaning vertical looms. Hammocks, table runners, placemats, bags and wall hanging are among the items sold at Artecampo.

Clay pieces from Guarayos de Urubichá and Cotoca…. The embroidered scene on the cloth in the background is typical of the color, and depictions of lush vegetation and animal and insect life present in many of the crafts.

I love these simple solid coiled baskets and must ask the folks at Artecampo to remind me of their origin.

My favorite things of all are the looped bags made by the Ayoreo craftswomen using a fiber called garabatá which is extracted from the leaves of a plant in the pineapple family and twisted by rolling on the thigh. As far as I can tell these are the most “genuine” articles that Artecampo sells. The bags have always been used on a daily basis by the Ayoreo people and have not been altered in any way for the tourist market.

I have opened out the bags and use the pieces as wall hangings. I love the colors and the smell and feel of the fiber. They are on the wall of my bedroom and now, would you believe, it has just occurred to me that these colors must have crept into my mind when I planned my most recent ikat experiment pictured above.

The other “genuine” piece that I treasure, especially since it is no longer being sold, is the wooden bowl/scoop below left, also made by the Ayoreo people. It is lovely to hold this piece in your hands and feel the cool smoothness of the wood.

Of course, this is just a fraction of the things that are sold at the co-operative store. The store does not allow pictures to be taken and from now on when I take visitors there I will have to make sure that I take pictures of the purchases as I won’t be buying any more things from there…no room! I wish I could show you more of the beautiful textiles they have, both woven and embroidered. I take a lot of pleasure from dropping in there from time to time and seeing what is new. They are quite used to having me come in an stroll around and not buy anything.

Well, time to put this blog post to bed and get back to the other keyboard stuff so that I can then do what I really want to be doing…weaving!