Colombia – Backstrap Loom Weaving

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 – Picking, Dropping, Counting,Twisting….Pattern!

Did I mention last week that this latest piece I am working on is SLOW going? It’s a complementary warp pick-up technique, not one of those friendlier partly-loom controlled ones, and I have almost 600 ends in the pattern section. So, if I show you a picture of where I am at this week you can be excused for thinking that I have done nothing, or at least very little!

I had, in fact, progressed further but I un-wove a fair bit after discovering that the next pattern I had chosen wasn’t coming out anywhere near as big and bold as I had envisioned. I will need to re-chart it at twice its size. It is heartbreaking un-weaving after having picked all those threads but it is bound to be worth it in the end.

And as if the pick-up isn’t slow enough, I have decided to add some weft twining. What is slower than picking and dropping?…twisting and enclosing.

So far I have only added that one thin strip of twining which is one of the elements which will link all the hangings I am making in this series. I am thinking of adding yet another broad strip of patterned twining that will go from edge to edge. I shall think carefully about this as undoing twining is probably the worst kind of ripping out there is!

The Wayuu twine along the bottom of their si’ira belts but I am undecided about whether to use their technique or the one with which I am more familiar.

In the meantime my cat is determined to get as much of her hair as possible over the other two almost finished pieces.

This all had me thinking about this process of picking, dropping, twisting and enclosing to make patterns and why I love it so much. It occurred to me as I was writing the first few paragraphs here that I was making the process sound somewhat painful and frustrating when in actual fact it is both relaxing and stimulating.

I have been emphasizing the slowness of it all which may give some an impression of tedium…quite the opposite in fact.

What has made the work on this piece slower than it should be is the lack of planning on my part…it’s all my fault…thus the weaving and un-weaving and yes, that part can definitely be described as frustrating and tedious.

Take a look at this video of weavers in Bhutan (link provided by Toby from the Ravelry group) doing weft inlay patterning. Their tiny picking movements are graceful and delicate and rather than think “oh my gosh, how painfully slow and tedious that must be!” I think “how incredibly beautiful, skillful and relaxing. I want to do that too!” I wonder if I look quite so calm and peaceful as I work!

I do find that I need to stand up from this piece more frequently and take a walk around. I definitely don’t progress the four fingers width that weavers here in Bolivia have told me is the measure of a good day’s work. Sometimes I spend an entire day charting what I think will be the next part of the design only to abandon it! Lets see how far I get with it this coming week.

Fortunately not all the patterning techniques involve picking and dropping every single warp thread across the width of the loom. Many techniques can use pre-programmed patterning sheds and be partly loom-controlled.

Pebble weave is one such technique in which many of the designs can be woven with the aid of two sets of string heddles meaning that you only need to do pick-up in every other shed….pick-up warps by hand in one shed and then enjoy a free ride in the next by simply raising a string heddle and passing the weft.

The Moisy technique which my Guarani weaving teacher Angela uses is another one that rewards the hard work of a row of pick-up with a “free ride”, that is, a weft pass every other row through a heddle controlled shed.

And then there are those techniques which I have nick named “drop-down” rather than “pick-up” methods. Warp substitution is one of them. The weaver simply drops a warp thread out of the open shed in order to create the pattern rather than having to select and pick one up.

Basic supplementary weft inlay is also a technique that I would nick name “drop down”. The weaver drops certain warps out of a shed which creates gaps through which the colored inlaid weft can be exposed to form a pattern.

The simple warp float technique, in the way I was taught to do it, also falls into my invented “drop down” category. Warps are dropped out of the open shed. Those that are kept will float to form the design.

These are all nice ways to get used to counting and handling the warps, dropping, selecting, saving and picking them to form the patterns. Some people may find that one of my so-called “drop down” techniques is the one with which they feel most comfortable.

Others may find that they like the added challenge of selecting, picking and dropping the warps while also being able to enjoy that loom controlled “free ride”.

Yet others will become so enamored with the pick-up process and the patterns it enables them to create that they will be more than happy to sit for hours and be proud of their four fingers width progress each day. Check my tutorials page for links to the various instruction pages.

Here is some beautiful pick-up inspiration from weavers of Peru and Bolivia…

Last week’s mindless fun for my breaks from the loom was juggling. This week I played around online on a site which allows you to create your own mudcloth design. This link was provided by someone in one of the Yahoo groups and apart from a few minutes of fun, it also gave me some nice bold designs which, who knows, could form part of a future weaving.

Here is what I created…

And, thinking back to last week’s post and the crochet work and juggling balls, I see that Education and More are offering some unique crocheted Guatemalan juggling balls on their site.

The crocheted designs on the Wayuu susu bags I showed last week are still enticing. If you are contemplating getting out your hook and trying to make something similar here is Carol Ventura’s (author of Tapestry Crochet) video on a technique that can be used to create such designs. I can’t say for sure if this is in fact the technique used by the Wayuu to make their bags but you could certainly use their designs and colors as inspiration for something in tapestry crochet.

So, what will you be into this coming week…hooking, picking, dropping, twisting, juggling, or clicking the mouse and gathering resources?

Gathering resources?…I have posted more goodies to my RESOURCES page. Take a look 🙂

Backstrap Weaving – Juggling!

Juggling! Yes, here I am juggling…weaving my wall hanging project, warping, writing and taking pictures for my new book, putting together the translated versions of my first book, planning articles, answering online questions from new backstrap weavers. I have had to come up with some new routines to fit all this in.

Most people roll their eyes and sigh in dismay at the word “routine”…dull, boring repetitive. I, on the other hand, am all for it, that is, if it is a routine of my own making and not one that is imposed. Having a fixed routine is the most efficient way in which I can operate.

And I do take time out for a little mindless fun!

Juggling is both relaxing for the mind and a darn good work-out for the body…at least for an inexpert juggler as indeed I am….with lots of crawling around on the floor picking up dropped balls.

What prompted me to drag out the Guatemalan juggling balls from the depths of one of my woven storage bags?….They are crocheted and I wanted to take a look at how they had been made.

We talk about the simplicity of the backstrap loom and what can be achieved with a loom comprising just a few sticks, or sometimes no sticks at all.

What about the wonders that can be created with one small stick with a hook on the end?

And what led me to all this?… pictures in Mirja Wark’s book on the woven belts of the Wayuu people of northern Colombia and Venezuela. The designs on these belts are the inspiration for my latest wall hanging project. One picture shows a man wearing a belt with a small patterned bag at his side which Wark says is crocheted. She describes crocheted cotton bags that are used by both men and women. The women carry a medium-size bag called susu. Men have smaller crocheted money pouches called susuchon and other pouches which can hold tobacco, keys and amulets.

So it was off to Google and Youtube Land to learn more. I have decided to do without air conditioning and pay for a faster internet service instead so Youtube viewing does not make me want to tear out all my hair anymore! But, finding time to watch all those videos is yet another ball that must be added to the juggling mix.

These images of Wayuu susu, which are also sometimes referred to on these sites as mochilas, are from the online store of the Wayuu Taya Foundation.

I found that these traditional crocheted bags became very popular outside Colombia a couple of years ago and even prompted an article in the NY Times.

On many sites the bags are described as having been “woven”, “knitted” or “woven in crochet” but we have Mirja Wark who tells us that they are, in fact, crocheted. One article describes the straps as having been created on looms.

I love the big bold designs! The bag at left is from CordoBags.

The following is probably the nicest video I found in my alotted Youtube time showing the Wayuu people and their terribly harsh environment. A woman can be seen carrying her susu, there’s a little weaving showing those loose joined heddles that I talked about last week, some fast and efficient twining in progress (love that part!) and there are two brief segments showing the women crocheting bags.

So, here is my latest project which has been inspired by the work of the Wayuu people and the beautiful designs on their woven si’ira which I have been able to see in Mirja Wark’s book.

I have made a few adaptations of my own. The triangular “border” design is my own pattern as I wanted something bolder than those shown in the book. The larger design is one of many “block patterns” as Wark calls them and, as I charted this one myself, I cannot be absolutely sure that it is faithful to the traditional design. It falls into a group of patterns called schichirujuna paa which means “like the nose of a cow” in which there are eleven variations.

I like how the herringbone design on the edges is similar to the weft-twined design I plan to do along the bottom edge.

This is slow work, I can tell you….lots of threads to count and pick up!! I was very unsure about this piece last week and was on the point of putting it aside for a while and working on something else to clear my head. But, I persevered and am now happy with the result.

And you may have noticed my new favorite addition to the toolbox at left…cable ties.

These are absolutely brilliant for lashing the warp on its piano wire to the loom bar and creating a third selvedge. I was getting really fed up with my lashing cords on this project working their way loose.

They always do and I usually just wedge thin dowels between then and the loom bar to tighten them up. This time for some reason, nothing I did was solving the problem.

In my recent home de-clutter mission I found a bag full of these cable ties in the junk drawer in the kitchen. They are perfect for lashing but, unfortunately, can only be used for one project as they will have to be cut in order to remove the finished weaving. I wouldn’t use them to lash right from the start as they are wide and space the warps. I would only use them once the weaving has progressed an inch or so to replace the lashing string, which has probably already started to work its way loose.

Now back to the crochet. No, I am not about to add this to the juggling act! But, who knows, the next time I am thinking about some on-the-road projects, maybe I will toss a hook in my bag. I know the very basics of crochet. When I went to Ecuador and visited the artisans who work with cabuya fiber, I stayed with a lady who taught me how to crochet this little pouch.

She was kind enough to say that it wasn’t too bad for a first attempt. The button is made from the tagua nut and the dye for the cabuya fiber comes from natural sources.

I was happy to learn how to do color changes and carry the thread. Whether this color change technique is what is known as tapestry crochet, I do not know. I noticed that there is a group for tapestry crochet on Ravelry and another for fair-isle crochet. I am guessing that indicates that there are differences in techniques.

I was given Carol Ventura’s second book on the tapestry crochet technique many years ago and, although I have enjoyed looking through it, I haven’t used it yet. There are some beautiful projects in there for those of us who like imagery and bold geometrics in our handwork.

Here is some of the beautiful crochet work that the cabuya fiber artisans from the Intag valley of Ecuador do…a round mat on my bedroom floor…

I wrote a post some time ago about the cabuya fiber and how it is processed if you would like to know more.

Last year we had a gathering of artisans here in Santa Cruz and Maritza came from Colombia to show us how to crochet with cabuya fiber. Weavers and craftspeople from Chinchero in the Peruvian highlands, coastal Ecuador, the highlands of northern Chile and lowland Bolivia as well as Santa Cruz locals joined in to learn.

I think the thing that has most gotten me all charged up about crochet this week is the beautiful crocheted scarf that Marit from Norway, aka yarnjungle on Ravelry, recently finished and posted.

There’s that black and red again! Doesn’t this make you want to grab your hook?

In Marits’s own words…I saw a picture of a crocheted men’s scarf from Sweden in a magazine about nordic folk costumes. It had a flower pattern in tapestry crochet technique, worked lengthwise, but with double crochet stitches instead of single. Made my own version by throwing together some antique cross stitch patterns.

I have come across images online of belts in Mexico woven with flower designs that are quite similar to this. I notice them as, to my eye, they look “un Mexican”, if you know what I mean (funny how we form this idea of what “Mexican” should look like). Again, I wonder, as I was wondering last week, about how patterns may travel and turn up in unexpected places or how they may just develop independently on opposite sides of the globe. Some of the motifs in Huichol weavings are so similar to traditional Scandinavian finnweave ones.

Well, I shall finish this week with some pictures of beautiful work that Sylvie in France has been doing combining her woven bands with leather to make a wallet and purse.

This bird motif in pebble weave is in my book and comes from the island of Taquile on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca. What a lovely job Sylvie has done.

This motif is also in the book and is one that I invented for a wall hanging. These are great projects and Sylvie definitely has the hang of pebble weave! As this motif is one of the last ones in my book, I expect that Sylvie may be wanting more….hold on, a second book is coming!

It seems that this is a shorter post than usual as I have finished early and so have a gap in my schedule…what shall I do? I think I’ll go and look for my crochet hooks and sit down and have a good read of Carol Ventura’s book. 🙂