complementary warp pick-up – Page 9 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Hands Full of Threads

The black neck wrap is done and I am already thinking about the next one.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with this fine Guatemalan cotton thread (you see how I have forgotten about all the woes in the beginning!). It was fun picking up threads with the delicate Guatemalan pick-up sticks and feeling the silk supplementary wefts slide through my fingers.

This will be the color scheme for the next one…

Maybe I will use some Guatemalan-inspired designs this time or perhaps I will invent some of my own.

I got the black piece off the loom and then I was faced with fringe twisting. Would you believe I have never done this before? I have left fringes on placemats and braided the ends of other pieces. I had read the grumblings about fringe twisting from those who regularly weave scarves in the weaving forums and seen pictures of the gadgets and gizmos that have been designed to make this task less tedious.

I even watched a video I had taken of my Montagnard weaving and twining teacher, Ju Nie (seen at left spinning cotton), twisting the ends of a piece she had recently taken off her backstrap loom. Ju had come to visit at friend Betsy’s house and, rather than sit idle while chatting in the living room, she pulled out a wad of stuff wrapped in paper and a woven piece of cloth and started working. The “stuff” turned out to be mushy, sticky over-cooked rice through which she drew the warp ends before rolling them on her leg and setting them in the twist.

Here is the video. Ju explains that doing it on her pants is “no good” and that it works much better on her bare leg. I am guessing that her bare shin makes the best rolling surface.

So, I twisted my fringe and it wasn’t as slow as I had thought…much faster than braiding, I can tell you! I added weft twining to the ends of the fabric before taking it off the loom. I think that made a nice finish. See the countered weft twining tutorial here.

And then I found that scarves are kind of hard to photograph…way too long and flat and lifeless to try and stretch out in one shot so I gathered it up and threw it down many times, fiddled about and I felt that this was the best “pose” in the end.

And another shot that shows my favorite central motif…

Although I was mad keen to get into the Guatemalan purple thread and warp up another scarf, (especially since I think that I already experienced, hopefully, all possible mishaps when weaving the black one), I decided that there was another project sitting in the closet that needed my attention…(plus I really need to ponder and plan the patterns I want to use on the purple scarf before rushing in and weaving it)…

Remember this guy? I had just started the large main motif when I decided that I would not touch this until I was sure I would have enough time to stick with it and finish it. When doing pick-up, I think it is best to do a pattern all in one go rather than leave it sitting while I travel. If I leave a piece for a long period of time, I can almost see the place where I left off and picked up again. Perhaps I sit a little differently, apply a little bit more or less tension, beat differently…I don’t know…something changes. So, now is the time to get down and finish this piece.

I welcome the opportunity to have my hands in there and full of threads again. I am not a pick-up stick kind of gal, unless a particular technique or yarn really demands it. I like to hold and pick and drop threads with my hands. Perhaps it’s because that is the way my first Peruvian teachers showed me. I have been shown and I have willingly tried other ways but I always come back to just using my hands.

Here is a weaver creating a belt patterned with supplementary warps. It is a narrow piece and so it is easy for her to simply insert her hand between the warp layers to do the pick-up.

I was finally successful in uploading the video of this weaver at work. You can see how she does her pick-up as well as see the two-stick method she uses for opening the heddle shed. She has a forked stick in the warp….one prong is her shed rod and the other prong holds a second cross. Grasping and twisting the fork, while leaning forward to relax tension, helps her to smoothly open the heddle shed.

These are the kinds of textiles she produces…

I watched a gentleman from Chahuaytire also weaving supplementary-warp patterns into a much wider piece of cloth. He uses a pick-up stick to hold all the threads in both the pattern and plain-weave sections as he works his way across the cloth…

This is his weaving…

Both weavers work equally fast, don’t you think?

So, on I go with hands full of threads. This is the third piece in my red-white-and-black wall hanging series. This one has patterns which have been inspired by the si’ira belts woven by the Wayuu people of Colombia and Venezuela. Since starting this project, I got to go to Holland and meet Mirja Wark who spent years studying, collecting and cataloging these belts as well as writing a book describing the weaving, braiding and twining techniques used.

These are belts that Mirja herself wove while studying. You can see the “cow’s nose” pattern at the bottom of the blue, pink and green belt that I used in my wall hanging. The large motif that I will use in the center has been very much adapted to fit my piece and uses just certain elements of the Wayuu patterns as inspiration. There are a lot of threads to pick and, until I things get rolling, I am very much clinging to my pattern chart. Thank you, Terri, for introducing me to removable highlighter tape which works like a dream!

So I will be parked in front of that piece for some time while taking breaks to re-spin the Malabrigo yarn, plan supplementary-weft patterns for the discontinuous-warp piece for which the Malabrigo is destined, ball up that large skein of Guatemalan purple cotton, sketch some patterns for the purple scarf project, plan piece number four in the wall hanging series…maybe ikat??…do I dare?

And I am folding this sampler piece this way and that to see if something useful can be made of it. It’s still on the loom and there is room for more pattern experiments.

Let me show you some things that Ravelry members and students and friends have made. It is a strange coincidence that three people decided to edge pieces of clothing with woven bands. Janet decorated a pair of felted slippers that she made, Laura edged gloves (and also made a camera strap and headbands) and Julia edged a couple of tiny shadow-weave kimonos with a pebble weave band. Three gorgeous projects! (I am in love with that shadow-weave cloth, by the way…it takes four shafts…I would like to try it).

I will leave you with the happy twin recipients of the wee kimonos…Julia’s grand nieces!

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Right before I was about to publish this post, a question was posted in the Ravelry group by a weaver who is trying supplementary-weft patterning for the first time and not getting the rich satin-like finish that she would like in her patterns. Instead, there are spaces and gaps between the rows of her design. I posted a reply in the group but am copying it here as I think that it may be useful for others who feel like trying this lovely technique…

There is no formula that will suit all weavers…that is, “x” number of strands of such-and-such a supp weft material will give sufficient coverage with such-and-such warp thread. All weavers are different in the way they handle their warps.

For example, some weavers put a lot more tension on their warp than others. This means that they have fewer picks per inch than others because the warps are pulled so tight that they can’t bend over and under the wefts as easily as they do for weavers who use less tension. This means that a certain amount of supplementary weft material won’t give the same amount of coverage for those weavers as it does for others who use less tension.

Another case…some people simply don’t beat hard enough when using supplementary wefts. I beat hard and really mash the weft into place…not “wham wham” beating…more like placing the beater right at the weaving line and pushing against the weft hard with a rocking motion.

Other people pull too tightly on the supplementary weft. It has to be fairly relaxed in the shed to allow it to spread and cover the surface. As an experiment, pull your supplementary weft tight once you have changed sheds and see what happens. It will flatten and narrow and not give good coverage. You have to find the balance between thread that is relaxed enough in the shed and bumps at the sides, where the weft turns, that are not too big and loose.

These are all things that come with trial and error and experience. It might be that you need to use more supp weft material or it could be one of the other factors I have mentioned here.

I often use thread that is similar to #3 and #10 crochet cotton. It is Brazilian cotton that I get here in Bolivia. I have used two strands of embroidery floss with the “#3” and one and a half with the “#10”. This gives people an idea of where to start and what to try but, as I said, every weaver is different.

Hope this helps.

ETA My first Guatemalan teacher combed the strands of her supp wefts with the point of her pick-up stick so that they lay next to rather than on top of each other. They didn’t move with handling…the floats are not long enough to cause that to happen. I did the same with the six strands of 60/2 silk on my current project.

Backstrap Weaving – A Swag of Yarn, Techniques, Patterns and Color

Sometimes I wonder who gets more out of my weaving get-togethers and online groups…my friends or me! I had a great trip away in the US and am now back in the loom in Bolivia. No official Thanksgiving Day celebration here but plenty to be thankful for all the same.

There was just enough room in my backpack at the end of this US trip to bring back all the stuff I had stashed with one of my weaving friends after my trip earlier this year. Time has passed and now I can’t even remember what some of it is but all I know is that I already have projects in mind for each and every bit of it.

Not all of it appears here in the picture! There are several large skeins of some kind of wool in natural colors for an experiment in weft substitution inspired by this Moroccan cloak which belongs to my friend Yonat….

And there are skeins of Navajo warp that Sara dyed for me (the green and terracotta stuff) which are destined for my next adventure with discontinuous warps. It will be something along the lines of the piece I recently made in Cusco from alpaca yarn hand spun in Pitumarca…

The yarn I am re-spinning in the stash picture is Malabrigo lace-weight single which I plan to ply and also use for a ticlla (discontinuous warp) piece. The balls in the middle are hemp that Jennifer gave me when we got together last spring. I think that will be used for a pouch with an intermesh design. The cones were given to me by Susan and I have to confess that I have completely forgotten what kind of yarn it is. I hope to use it in an ikat project and will need to identify it in order to use the correct dye!

intermesh and ikat — Intermesh and ikat projects.

Here in Bolivia the yummy silk I brought back from the UK awaits me. So, there is plenty of new yarn to play with.

So, while my backpack was just big enough to stuff with yarn and some new tools, there was also just enough room left in my head to squeeze in all the inspiration, ideas and new skills. And the best part….months now stretch ahead during which I can play with all of this!

Those who spent time weaving with me during my spring and fall trips will recognize this warp that I cart around…

It never seems to grow, does it? Most of the time it sits there just to show the various parts of the basic loom and I never actually pick it up and weave on it. I bring it home and unroll it waiting for it to tell me what it wants to be.

During my trip I had more fun demonstrating on the Guatemalan looms that people brought to show me.

Two people in two different groups brought in looms from Guatemala all set up and ready to go. As it happens both were from San Antonio Aguas Calientes and both had been warped in red.

The backstrap weavers in that town decorate cloth with supplemental wefts using both single and double-faced techniques.. I had the chance to study there in 2008 and it was great to be able to sit in front of those warps and tinker with the familiar patterns and sticks.

Not only did we have looms to play with. People showed me gorgeous Guatemalan huipiles too and we got to examine just a few of the many ways that supplemental wefts are used to decorate cloth in Guatemala.

Red again! Are the weaving gods trying to tell me something?

I left Massachusetts with Guatemalan patterns swirling in my head and, if those colors weren’t bright enough, the next stop on my trip in Massachusetts (yes, of course, I made my first visit to WEBS while there!) had me sleeping in a guest bedroom with this on the wall….

This piece by Peruvian master tapestry weaver Maximo Laura, accompanied my dreams every night! The translation of its title is “Condors Wrapped in Sacred Cloaks”. I have admired Laura’s work in exhibits from afar…online, at the National Museum of the American Indian in DC and at Convergence 2010. This time I got to touch the piece and marvel at how textured it was. I hope these photos will give you a sense of its three-dimensional quality. The raised blue and gold lines, curves and spots on the condors’ cloaks give a lovely rippling effect and a sense of movement when the piece is viewed at certain angles.

Yes, I would love to dare to put all these gorgeously rich colors together in one backstrap-woven piece one day!

The reason for the trip to Northampton was an invitation to weave with a group of seven ladies. It was a lively, fun and chatty group. Most of the ladies already knew each other well. We did, however, manage a few moments of total silence as everyone concentrated on the business of pick-up weaving. We were, of course, all very envious of Kyla and her ability to sit cross-legged on her chair for hours. Kyla was the only novice weaver in the group. She is beginning her studies of floor loom weaving with Elisabeth Hill, the genius of deflected double weave, seated next to her in the picture. There was so much amazing weaving and dyeing talent in this group, I can’t even begin to tell you!!!

Colorful inspiration in one form or another was brought each day….

Ute brought along a piece still on the backstrap loom which was created by visiting Bhutanese weaver, Leki Wangmo. After appearing at the Santa Fe Folk Art Festival, she was brought to Massachusetts to demonstrate the way she warps, sets up the backstrap loom and weaves and decorates cloth with supplementary wefts. Warp and weft yarn and material for the supplementary weft patterns had to be found locally and warping stakes, loom parts and loom frame constructed to her specifications so that she could demonstrate the process from scratch. The above piece (yes, yet another piece in red!) is the result of the demonstration and, while this piece is breathtaking enough, you really need to see what she produces using the extremely fine thread and materials from her home in Bhutan…

Ute left these pieces with me over several nights to ponder and photograph. Maximo Laura and Leki Wangmo competed for space in my dreams!

So, now that I have been back home a couple of days, I am using a combination of patterning techniques I learned in Guatemala, a new skill I picked up from a video of Leki Wangmo at work and the colors and motifs on the Bhutanese textiles to start to decorate that blank canvas of weaving on my demo warp.

Now you see it, now you don’t! Yes, I have unwoven it all. The weaving above was my sample and now I will weave with a different color scheme, ( see below), and modified layout.

And as I write, I am getting ideas of how to use the fine silk I bought in the UK….and I think I bought a spool of red! But much practice is needed first. By the way, this white piece was giving me trouble with that pesky ridging. I know that a lot of you will know what I am talking about….that ugly corrugated look that often appears when using cotton for warp-faced textiles. I turned the loom around, wove an inch at the other end, turned the loom back around and started weaving again….ridging gone…yay!

Something else that grabbed me and demanded to be woven while still on the road, was this band of pebble weave fish.

Rob in the Ravelry group had asked me if I knew of any fish motifs for pebble weave. I did, but only the most basic kind…nothing more than a diamond with a triangle for a tail… which is on a weaving that I have from Taquile Island, Peru.

Then, I met Marsha who came to weave with me at Pam’s place. Marsha makes amazing tablet-woven bands. One of the many beautiful pieces she showed was a band of tablet-woven fish motifs which had been designed by Ursel Studemann.

Once I was with my friends in Maryland, I got to work on my fish band. It was very easy to convert the tablet-woven figures to pebble weave. Gosh, it is so hot and humid here now in Bolivia, I can barely stand to look at this picture…sweater and socks in front of a fire with my warp anchored by my foot.

One of the many things I love about the backstrap loom…so little loom waste. The band was started with a third selvedge and I wove to within inches of the end. Those are the warp end loops you see there and I was able to finish the fourth fish even with two sets of string heddles and the picking cross sticks between the weaving line and the end of the warp. So, Rob has a pattern for his fish project now.

While in Maryland, Claudia and I got to play with pebble weave using the frame of her Cricket rigid heddle loom to hold the band rather than using a backstrap set-up. What a nifty little loom! It was very comfortable weaving this way. When Claudia wasn’t at the loom I couldn’t resist messing around on it myself just for fun. I have never tried weaving letters in pebble weave but, with the few threads we were using, I was able to weave “Claudia”. I think I would need more threads to weave a decent “R” to weave my own name. Just a bit of fun. I know other structures that are better suited to lettering.

Terri of Magical Moons (maker of very nice swords for backstrap weavers) spent some time weaving with me too. We played with complementary-warp pick-up on narrow bands.

I have to tell you that Terri opened my eyes to the world of Nantucket basket makers. Did I mention that sometimes I think I get more from my weaving friends than they do from me?! Terri and her superb basket-making and wood-working skills and stories about Nantucket basket making are deserving of more space than this blog post will allow and so, I will tell you about all that in a future post. A wee teaser for now…

Some more backstrap weavers…On a day on our own, Laura is learning to make heddles for pebble weave. Diane and Kathie play with supplementary-weft patterning.

In another group, Leslie and Holly, who have woven with me before, set up the warp and weave pick-up patterns using the intermesh structure.

To finish, here are some pictures of projects from Ravelry group members and other online weaving friends…

Carol, in Nicaragua, sent me these pictures of bands she has woven using charts and instructions from my two books. The first band shows the “Rolling River” pattern which is charted in my second book. It is a complementary-warp structure. The second band, also a complementary-warp pick-up structure, which goes by the name of Andean pebble weave in my first book, has a pattern of my own creation.

Rob, who is in our Ravelry Backstrap Weaving Group, has moved on to weaving with his own hand spun. The band on the left is the first using his newly acquired spinning skills. And that’s one of Terri’s (Magical Moons) swords. On the right is one of Rob’s pebble weave bands using motifs from Andean Pebble Weave.

Isabel wove a very lovely cushy-looking backstrap using the instructions in my WeaveZine article. Marta in Argentina used motifs charted in Andean Pebble Weave to make this stunning runner (another fan of red, white an black!)

Well, it’s time to go and finish unpacking the swag, get all the ideas swimming in my head down on paper and attempt to get things back to ”normal”. It’s been quite an amazing year! Thank you everyone for making it so. My blogs should also be appearing more regularly now!

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 – Things I am Learning Along the Way

Manchester, England and Braids 2012…was that really only ten days ago?

I have been scooting about the countryside around Cambridge staying with several members of the Peruvian Textiles Study Group, a group within the Cambridge Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers.

So many wonderful outings and gatherings had been arranged for my visit by the ladies in the Cambridge Guild that I had to remind myself that the real reason I was here was to talk about “Weaving on Simple Looms in South America” last Saturday which was followed on Sunday by a one-day backstrap weave-along.

In the meantime, this city girl got to stay on the farm of Sue and Robert in Perry Green, Much Hadham at the tail end of the wheat crop harvest and take part in, or at least watch, some of the day-to-day activities that surround the raising of sheep.

What things did I learn along the way?….number one: it is much nicer to wake up to a “MOO” rather than an alarm clock…Here is the view from my bedroom window.

I asked if I could go along and watch the sorting of the lambs and was relieved for my own sake to learn that lambs are way past that cute and adorable stage by the time they are ready to be shipped off to market. It was fun watching Wallace the border collie sheep dog at work.

I also learned that “classic” lamb-dotted English countryside can have some unexpected back drops…

Sue and Robert’s lambs get to hang out in a field along with a reclining figure created by English sculptor and artist Henry Moore.

A few days later I was off to Norwich and then the seaside to be the guest of Frankie and Nick. Frankie is the main contact of the Peruvian Study Group. She guided me around Norwich and Strangers’ Hall which dates back to 1320 to learn about the history of the city’s textile industry, the “Strangers” who were textile workers from the Spanish Netherlands invited in the mid 1500s to settle in Norwich and share their textile skills, the madder markets which were responsible for the particular shade of color used in many of the woven pieces known as “Norwich red” and the amazingly large and exquisite Norwich shawls.

So, there was much to be learned there. And what else did I learn?….pretty beaches don’t necessarily have to have golden sand…

This beach just down the road from Frankie’s home is covered with lovely round pebbles of flint, a material that has been used in the construction of local homes for centuries. The gentle evening scene pictured here turned into one of fury the very following evening after a storm blew through. Tremendous crashing waves and a howling wind made it impossible for me to photograph the scene. I simply could not hold my camera still against the strength of the wind.

Below you cam see how flint pebbles have been used in different ways to build local homes.

A sign of wealth was the ability to have one’s home built with “knapped flint”, that is, flint pebbles that have been cut and smoothed and shaped into squares.

Another thing I learned….bird watching, as I had suspected when I hung out with some bird enthusiasts on one of my trips to Antarctica in the 1990s, is fun!

I had thought at the time that I could probably get into this activity one day in the future and I got the opportunity to find out if it really is something I would enjoy when Frankie took me to Cley-on-the-sea which is a premier bird- watching site in the UK.

People either love or loathe this Norfolk scenery, Frankie told me.

It was a fairly bleak and chilly day but ever so interesting strolling about looking for birds and watching them through high powered binoculars discovering a whole other secret world of activity going on within the reeds.

We visited the lovely town of Holt for some shopping and then spent the evening in Norwich where we saw Diane Ashley-Smith’s exhibit of work for her Master of Fine Arts degree. Diane is yet another member of the Peruvian Textile Study Group and she and husband Jonathon hosted me in Cambridge before and during my activities with the guild over the weekend.

But, even before the weekend activities could start, I got a guided tour of Cambridge University with Frankie who has studied there.

I have to admit that although I knew that I was going to be taken around by Frankie, I did not do any reading about the university prior to this trip at all. I simply did not have time. Nevertheless, you can’t help but be completely blown away by the sheer majesty of the place. How much more it must all mean to someone who has taken the time to read about and absorb a bit about the background of the buildings and their history beforehand. Frankie was a wonderful guide and I tried hard to take it all in…overwhelming, astounding and mind-blowing! Above is a view along the stretch which takes you along “The Backs” of several colleges with the grassy areas that cover both banks of the river Cam with the punts and grazing longhorn cattle.

The river, the bridges, the arches, the courtyards, the cathedrals and chapels both inside and out, the fine architectural details. I will let the pictures speak for themselves…

I don’t have any special photo-shopping programs so, this is my very basic attempt at a panorama shot….

Of course, this is just a tiny selection of pictures…

What you might wonder when next I show you one of my backstrap woven pieces with large solid black-and-white stepped diamond motifs in perhaps double weave or warp ikat, is whether my inspiration came from a woven Mapuche poncho or from the floor of the chapel of Clare College at Cambridge….

The next treat was the guild meeting and for me it was wonderful! I was given all the time in the world to talk! As it was not one of the regularly scheduled meetings, only those who had a very specific interest in the topic of my talk attended and so I was able to add a lot of material that I don’t normally show to more general audiences. I had a lot of fun with that. I also got to meet up once again with some familiar faces from Braids 2012 and meet some Weavolution and Online Guild members face to face.

And then came the weave-along…only one day…so, super intensive!

Frankie’s daughter Katie had learned some backstrap weaving techniques on a visit to Peru and so, although she is not a member of the Study Group, she joined the more experienced weavers in creating complementary-warp pick-up patterns on wide warps. We used a yarn which I knew would encourage and train the participants to practice good shed-opening techniques. I really feel that they will be able to confidently take on most kinds of yarn after their experience with the warp thread we used in class.

Things did not come together straight away and, of course, no one can expect them to. I was really amazed how a good lunch break recharged the batteries and it was such a joy to see how well everyone was working with their warp after the break. Beautiful patterns started to appear and I do hope that everyone will keep the momentum going and finish this piece soon.

Above you can see Frankie and Sue at work on their wide warps. We were lucky to have bars on the doors to which we could attach the looms which also provided a place with good natural lighting for doing the pick-up.

This was a group of mixed levels and here you can see Beth who a beginner alongside Diane, a more experienced backstrap loom weaver.

This was a rare chance to work with ladies who have been studying Peruvian textile techniques for the last few years. They have worked on gauze weaves, complementary-warp pick-up, cross knit looping and tubular bands. Four beginners weavers joined us that day too and so we had a nice group of ten of mixed abilities working pebble weave on narrow bands and other complementary-warp pick-up techniques on wider warps.

As I work with more and more beginners, I create the opportunity to one day be able to create groups of weavers who are ready for more advanced techniques using perhaps finer yarn and wider warps. It was wonderful seeing how the group of six more experienced backstrap weavers took to the wider warps and the pick-up methods that I showed them. The four beginners wove elements of Andean pebble weave patterns without the aid of the two sets of string heddles. By afternoon, their fingers were quite used to picking up and handling the threads and some were more than ready to start improvising their own designs using the basic pattern elements that we had been practicing and analyzing.

Now I am back with Sue and Robert on the farm. While I hear tractors rumble by and sheep baa-ing I am here tapping away at the computer on my last day in Hartfordshire. Tomorrow I am off to The Netherlands to weave in the studio of Marijke Van Epen.

Yesterday was a gorgeous English summer day and I learned a few more things…

I learned that Bolivians are not the only ones who like to use outdoor clay wood-burning ovens. Pat invited us over to make our own pizza in the oven she built herself and enjoy her home made icecream. I helped bake bread in the oven above left when I studied with a weaver in Candelaria in the central Bolivian highlands.

Other things I learned…

I learned that not all tomatoes are red. All these colored tomatoes come from Pat’s greenhouse. I learned yet again that people in England create the most beautiful and useful gardens. Above you can see Pat and Sue examining Pat’s flax crop for this year. Sue also grows flax and has woven a towel with the product of her own plants which she processed, spun and dyed. Pat also has an extremely lush-looking crop of Japanese indigo.

Lucky me, I will back with Sue to learn more after The Netherlands….you have to see her adorable finger puppets and other figures she has made with multi-color cross-knit looping.

One thing I hope to never learn is to tire of being completely charmed by the English houses and gardens. I suppose I will eventually stop wanting to photograph every single one of them. Here to finish are a couple of scenes of the main street of the village of Much Hadham…

On to Holland tomorrow…!

Backstrap Weaving – Waiting….

I can’t believe that two weeks from today I will be on my way to the UK. Needless to say, this next fortnight will be mayhem! I will be off to Braids 2012 in Manchester followed by a visit to Cambridge, a short spell in the Netherlands (first time!) and then a little time in London before heading back home.

Hopefully all the Olympic madness will be over. Maybe I can pick up a nice souvenir at a post-Olympic sale. I know that I will meet lots of weavers and fiber folks. There will be familiar faces…Rodrick Owen, Robyn Spady, Ingrid Crickmore who will be teaching but who is also one of my regular backstrap weaving students and Eileen Thompson with whom I stayed during my visit to Texas last spring. Despite that, this UK trip feels a bit on the scary side…don’t ask me why! I spent time in London in 1982. I was there right when the whole Falkland Islands, Las Islas Malvinas crisis erupted. It seems I was not as fond of taking pictures back then and one of the few I have is one of my very bedraggled self feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square on a drizzly day.

I will be back in September with time to think about a couple of other textile events….

This event will be held in Cusco in the first week of October. Right now it doesn’t look like I will be attending. For some reason there are no direct flights between La Paz, Bolivia and Cusco, Peru like there used to be and the only option via Lima costs more than ticket to the US! However, there is always a chance that something will come up between now and then so I will leave that up to the gods. One of the organizers of this event is a Peruvian anthropologist that I met at a similar gathering here in Santa Cruz last year. It was a very nice low key and intimate event. Somehow I think that this one in Cusco will be much larger.

And then, planning way ahead to 2013 there will be this….

Exciting! It seems so long to wait….but that is how I felt about Braids 2012 and here it is almost on top of me now.

As for my book, well, that’s a waiting game now. There is some technical stuff that I am simply not equipped to deal with and so I have had to hand over to some kind helpers and will wait and see what happens. Actually, I have to admit that it is nice NOT to be able to work on the book today as I am, quite frankly, exhausted from peering at the 10″ screen of this mini computer! However, it makes me all fidgety and I find myself shuffling through pattern charts and books when there really isn’t anything productive that can be done at this point.

What is the solution for that? WEAVE!

I just got an idea about what to do with the white demo warp that I carted about the US last spring. It is warp-faced plain weave and white…can’t get any simpler than that. I added some twining in red, blue and black and there it has sat waiting…..waiting for inspiration. Well, I think it has come in the form of this….

This is the back cover of a beautiful book on backstrap weaving in Bangladesh, Strong Backs, Magic Fingers. It shows an alam which is the traditional sampler that girls in the Chakma ethnic group are supposed to weave in order to master 210 designs and show their weaving skill.

Authors Manjulika Chakma and Niaz Zaman write that…

Most alam designs are drawn from nature: from flowers, trees, reptiles, birds, and animals. Some of the names suggest the source of the image; other designs are simply called by the number of lines of weft needed to make up the design.

The last part I found interesting as Maxima, one of my weaving teachers from Cochabamba, also gave some of designs in her pebble weave repertoire simple numerical names according to the number of pairs required to weave them. She had a set that she would refer to simply as tawa chinito meaning four pairs.

The older alams, according to the book, are woven in black, red and white yarn.

Those colors sound right up my alley, right? The ground cloth is a balanced weave.

I will take some of the 210 possible alam designs and use them as inspiration for my white warp-faced piece, creating patterns with red and dark blue supplementary wefts.

On the other hand, I just love this simple white with its intervals of basic twining and wonder if it is a mistake to add pattern…

Speaking of color and lack thereof, I had fun weaving samples for my book and put together this fun collage of colors that I would never dream in a million years of ever placing in the one piece….

It’s just two bands with both their faces photographed and put together. I think the result is very exotic! and can imagine pillows covered with fabric like this scattered about on the floor of a tent on the high plains of Central Asia…The pattern is indeed inspired by those I have seen on Central Asian textiles woven in various structures and I have adapted it to pebble weave. This is what one part of my book is about…adaptations of traditional textile designs from other far flung cultures to the pebble weave structure. I had a lot of fun with that. After a while you start seeing the potential for pebble weave in everything!

So, while I wait for my tech-wise friend to advise me on the next step in the process, I can show you the cover of the book. It is rather wordy, but, hopefully, will not leave you with any doubts about its contents…

A follow-up to Andean Pebble Weave, it says. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, this book does not stand alone as a how-to type of book. It builds on skills and know-how to which you will have been exposed in my first book and then goes beyond with instructions for other complementary-warp pick up weaves with lots of pattern charts.

So now I am going to step away from the computer with its book files, pictures and charts and head to the loom, stepping over all the charts and sketches on the floor, ignoring the tempting pile of books open on the table…time to dig out that supplementary weft yarn.