Tag: double weave

Backstrap Weaving- Color and Weave Along with a new tutorial

COLOR!!

This showed up in my Inbox the other day – something Rodrick Owen says he stumbled upon in his home and was kind enough to photograph and send to me. I can never see enough of these double-woven belts from Potosi and this one has some new designs to add to my collection – some horse motifs which I have not seen before and I can’t wait to chart that particular version of the floral design which appears on a lot of these belts. The floral design rolls along and then suddenly a dog appears. This weaver had a sense of humor!

Its arrival is very timely as I decided this week to put the complete tutorial for one-weft double weave here on a new tutorial page on my blog. You can see it here and I hope you enjoy it.

Here is a reminder of some past projects I have shown here using this technique…

Another reason why I consider the appearance of the colorful Potosi belt well-timed, is that I have been thinking lately about being a bit more bold in my use of color in my weavings.

At left you can see a four-color pebble weave sash that I made way back in 1997. It didn’t seem any problem for me back then to dive into the yarn bag, pull out some colors and whack them all together.

Since then, there has been a drift toward the safe earthy colors –  a splash of red here and there – but nothing too daring.

So I have been trying to look at all my balls of yarn with new eyes, imagining new color combinations and going through the pictures in my ‘ideas” folder. While sorting through my stuff and trying to make room for the new things I had bought in the US, I found a tightly sealed and stuffed black plastic bag at the bottom of the closet. Yet another bag of dusty unspun llama fiber, I thought. However, a small cut in the bag had these contents springing forth…

Firstly I should point out that these yarns, which I bought in Guatemala in 2008, are all acrylic. It is hard not to get color crazy when you are in Guatemala. At first it is all a bit jarring but you get quickly used to it until you are completely addicted by the time you leave. You also quickly overcome any prejudices you may have had against acrylic.

These yarns are used as supplementary wefts for decorating cotton ground weaves.

Simple cotton for the ground weave warp and weft is sold at most markets in Guatemala. The most popular brand seems to be Mish, a local product. I love this ad for Mish painted on the crumbling shop wall.

I wove some pieces when I got back from Guatemala with some of these yarns to consolidate the techniques I had learned there. Then the bag of yarn was put away and forgotten. Now I am going to respin and ply these acrylics – they are very fine – so that I can use them as warp and weave something bright and cheery.

Some of the things that I have been looking at to inspire me in my new “color craze phase” have been these bags from Chincheros, Peru…

What I love is that they are made of natural fibers that have most likely been colored with natural dyes. Well, I have access to all the cochineal I could ever want here. Now I must get that instant indigo I was gifted and put it to work.

At far left you can see my handspun llama fiber colored with cochineal with different mordants and coca leaves – quite dull next to the naturally dyed piece from Calcha on the right.

A Weavolution companion has invited me to her home on my next visit to the US for a dyeing session in her studio. What an opportunity! I can’t wait to get my hands on some logwood.

So, until I can learn how to turn out richer colors in my dyepot and respin all that acrylic, I will play with color using the cottons that I have available here in Santa Cruz. My first project is a zippered pouch for my belt shuttles.

I have been a bit more adventurous here without getting too crazy. Ninety-nine percent of the time I weave a white or off-white motif on a base color. There is not one strand of white in this piece! This is the first part folded in half to show the size of the pouch and I probably have enough warp left to make another. I plan to make a tubular woven band to edge it as I was taught in Potosi. The tubular band I learned with my teacher Hilda is not as complex as the one shown on the blue Chincheros bag above.

I first wove a sample band using three small motifs in Andean pebble weave and decided I liked the green motif on the red background  and the orange one on blue. So I put that all together for my shuttle pouch.

The samples got made into keyfobs.

I was able to make three keyfobs from my sample band.

Other hand woven fabrics that I have at home which I am now seeing with new eyes are…

The piece on the left, from Chichicastenango market in Guatemala, is made from richly colored cottons. The piece on the right is the one that I worked on in Santa Catarina Palopo and has acrylic supplementary wefts on a cotton ground weave. My teacher would quite literally put her hand into the yarn basket without looking and pick up just any ball of yarn to form the little motifs. After a while I would do the same, handing the balls to her to measure and cut according to the motif.
Carolyn aka Seaphish sent me this photo of her curled up warp of respun yarn when she took it off the loom and then at right you can see it "tamed' and on the loom with a nice Andean pebble weave band in progress. I am grateful to her for taking the picture as, when this has happened to me before, I have been far too perplexed to stop and take a photo!

I will respin and ply all those acrylics on my drop spindle otherwise they will never stand up to being used as warp on my backstrap loom.

I aways tell people in the online groups to be careful when using respun yarn when they are removing their warp from the warping stakes. The warp will spring to life and curl up on itself due to the overspin and, if you are not prepared with safety strings in place, you might end up with a disaster!

One of the other things I have been working on is a test piece for the Coats Aunt Lydia’s number 10 mercerized crochet cotton. It seemed obvious to me right from the start that this was going to be a great yarn to work with. I had two balls, one of red and the other of white, and so I combined those colors with some of my black 8/2 mercerized cotton and am weaving a piece in Andean pebble weave technique on my backstrap loom. This is a longish warp and could be a tool bag for my longer cross sticks or a series of zippered coin purses for gifts.

There you have all the information - down to the store name and price! Too fine a yarn for first-ever projects but something to build up to as you gain more experience.

The inklette has been christened! I am still pondering ways to perhaps use the inkle loom’s shedding sytem for Andean pebble weave but I have not found an efficient way yet to do this for any but the very narrowest of bands. For me, the best way is to simply use the loom as a frame on which to place your warp and set it up as shown in my e-monograph. I am inclined to think that nylon heddles may be better when using the inkle loom in this manner.

I found myself last night sitting on the foor with one foot anchoring the tiny inklette as I pulled up on the pebble sheds. Not a problem as I spend a great deal of time on the floor. However, I decided today to try it out in a slightly more civilized fashion by clamping it to the breakfast counter. Look at my tiny shuttle - how cute is that! I have gone back to muted tones on this band I am afraid. According to the leaflet I have a 72" warp on this so I think I'll be getting a new belt with enough leftover for something else. I am using a fairly relaxed tension on this which makes opening the sheds easier and stops the motifs from appearing stretched out.

So, we have been weaving along with pebble weave at Weavolution using my e-monograph. Different people are at different stages…some are warping, some are making their string heddles while others have started weaving.

I think that some are still in the process of choosing their designs and planning their piece.

At left you can see Jennifer’s choice of warp colors. I showed you one of Jennifer’s bands last week. Now she is venturing on to a wider piece. She wasn’t sure if the colors were suited to a pre-Columbian bird motif.

I think it will look great.

A lot of pre-Columbian cotton pieces were woven in either natural brown and white or white and indigo.

Her warp looks beautifully made…nice and even. Wind a good warp and everything else, such as making string heddles and opening your sheds, will be that much easier.


From left to right...Tony's and Caroline's first bands on inkle looms, Jeanne's backstrap piece, Carolyn's band on the frame of her rigid heddle loom and Virag's warp set up for backstrap weaving.

It is all about baby steps. We weave narrow bands first to get the hang of the technique and, in some cases, the loom. Then some more samples will help us to know what to expect from certain yarns. After that we can launch into some more challenging projects. Here are some project ideas…

Keyfobs and hatbands look good even in heavy yarns. Bookmarks are better suited to fine ones. Wider warps with or without pick-up designs can be made into small zip purses for business cards, credit cards, coins and cosmetics.
Going wider, you can make small bags for a passport, iphone or other gadget.
What was originally intended as a cellphone pouch was turned into a cigarette pack holder. Long but narrow warps make nice belts.
Finally, here are my two current small projects. Going wide does not necessarily mean more pick-up. A narrow strip of pick-up can be placed on solid color. The piece at left is weaving up really fast.

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I am putting together some video pieces for next week’s post to show you all how to open the sheds on your backstrap looms smoothly and efficiently. This is one problem I noticed when I visited and wove with some people on my recent trip to the US. Opening the sheds becomes a real struggle when you have a lot of pilling on the heddles. Sometimes it is a matter of a less-than- ideal yarn choice but usually the problem is caused by sliding the heddles around too much when attempting to open them. So, I will have those videos for you next week and NOT just on the dream warp with the perfect yarn! I will show you how to deal with some of those sticky warps as well as wide ones with fine yarns. Included will be tips for working with two heddles for Andean pebble weave.

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I put some photos together to answer a question on the Yahoo group, about using stretchers or tenter sticks on wide warps to help maintain an even width and I thought that I would share them here as well. I don’t use them as I have not woven anything wider than a table runner but I have used them with my teachers in Guatemala and coastal Ecuador.

You can see the upper surface of this Guatemalan weaving at left. The stretcher bar is a hollow piece of bamboo which sits under the weaving just below the weaving line. All those threads hanging out are the ends of the supplementary wefts which may be snipped off when the piece is finished. The stretcher bar is moved up every few inches.
A small nail pierces the upper surface of the weaving just below the weaving line and three or four warps in from both edges. The nails are then turned and inserted in the ends of the bamboo.
This weaver in coastal Ecuador uses a bamboo slat to help maintain an even width for her weaving. It sits on the front side of the textile. Her tenter stick is a bamboo slat made by breaking open a tube of giant bamboo. Weavers will have a collection of these sticks for the various widths that they usually weave. The ends are whittled down to points which pierce the edges of the weaving. I wove on this piece and it was a real struggle removing, moving and replacing the tenter stick, which is held very tightly in its position, as the weaving progressed. The stick doubles as a spacer when the weavers are making their string heddles. These are the cotton saddle bag weavers I spent time with on a research trip with anthropologist Kathleen Klumpp in 2007.

Come and join the Weave Along at Weavolution , or enjoy the tutorial on one-weft double weave here. Don’t forget to send me pictures of your projects!

Cookie has allowed me to show you a photo of her first ever backstrap weaving project – here is her woven cotton backstrap.

And here is my favorite – possibly the coolest backstrap photo I have ever been sent as so few people have photos taken of themselves at the loom. I love how she has the remote control in the photo as that is one of my essential weaving “tools” too! This is an excellent set up. Her far loom bar is completely stable tied like that and, as she progresses, her legs will just slide under the table. I envy her being able to sit on the wooden floor like that! Thanks for the pictures, Cookie!

Backstrap Weaving-balanced weave, double weave and balanced double weave

BALANCED WEAVE, DOUBLE WEAVE AND BALANCED DOUBLE WEAVE….

I made some New Year weaving resolutions. What about you? One is to weave at least one balanced weave on my backstrap loom per month. So I got one done in January which I’ll show you later and I am planning February’s project. You will see that I am all about process rather than product for this project as all I know is that I want to weave a shadow weave piece but I have no idea what I want the piece to be. I am counting on an idea developing as I go through my yarn bags.

Another resolution is to weave reproductions of the designs on some pre Columbian textile fragments that I have gathered over the years. How did I get hold of these tiny scraps and fragments? Well, some industrious Peruvian artisans have been recreating Chancay dolls and dressing them in bits and pieces of old textiles.

Sets of Chancay doll reproductions

The Chancay culture existed  on the Peruvian central coast from around AD 1000-1476. It is believed to have been conquered and incorporated into the Inca Empire in the mid to late 13th Century. The people of this culture were prolific weavers and, as the central coast of Peru is a particuarly dry area, many of their textiles have survived remarkably well preserved  and are kept in museums around the world.

I was dubious for a long time about the authenticity of the textile pieces. However, it just didn’t make sense that someone would weave structures, some of which are no longer woven in Peru, take all the trouble to stress the fabric in order to make it look old, tear it up, sew the pieces onto dolls and then sell them for very little in the street market.

A close look at a couple of the fragments with bird and bat motifs

I have yet to find a good image of an authentic Chancay doll to make a comparison but apparently the originals did not have embroidered faces. Rather, the facial features were woven into a piece of cloth which was wrapped around plant fiber to form the doll’s head. As with most things, I imagine these dolls started out as quite faithful reproductions of the originals and that the quality of the work has since deteriorated.

Two more pieces with bird and snake motifs

The original Chancay dolls have been  found in tombs and were possibly funerary offerings. Recently I found an article online which, not only confirms the authenticity of the ancient textile fragments used to dress and decorate the dolls, but also gives information abut the Chancay culture and speculates about the dolls’ purpose. It just gives me chills looking at and touching these pieces-something the museums won’t let you do! and wondering about the weavers, their looms and their lives.

Snake motif in pebble weave

I have been weaving the designs I have seen in photos of museum pieces for years. The two pieces above  center and right were made by me in the 90s. Imagine the thrill when I found a fragment, on the left, with a very similar snake design some years later.

A piece in slit tapestry that I copied on my backstrap loom

I copied the slit tapestry piece at left on my backstrap loom without the slits and made it into a small sewing kit purse with a zip on three sides.

This little purse goes with me on all my weaving safaris. Some people tell me that the design looks like figures from a 1980’s video game!

This was a very slow and tedious weave using split embroidery floss for the weft. I was quite happy to see the end of this one!!

Bird motif in pebble weave

Again, I had woven this little 4-color bird motif many years before finding the little fragment almost completely in tatters on a doll at the Otavalo market. I had to work hard to hide my excitement while cooly bargaining with the vendor-bargaining at the Otavalo market is expected. Although my bird is a little different and was copied from a book, it is still thrilling to see a  similar original piece.

According to the aforementioned article, birds were highly esteemed in these cultures “because of their ability to cross between earth and sky” as well as due to ” their association with water…..and source of guano for fertilizing crops”.

Pre Columbian bird motifs

I love these birds and they find their way into a lot of my weavings.

Balanced double weave bird figures

Which brings me finally to balanced double weave and my weaving resolution for the year.  This structure is no longer woven here so there is no one around to teach it to me. I found out that the Huichol people in Mexico weave it and recently got Chloe Sayer’s Mexican Textile Techniques which has pictures of some examples. I had dismissed the instructions by Suzanne Baizerman in Double Woven Treasures of Old Peru as they were written for the treadle loom but recently returned to them to find, to my delight, that I understood them. So I set to and wove the above band using the pattern chart in the book which just happens to be the very same bird motif that I have on a doll fragment.  I used four sets of heddles for this weave and kept the cross sticks in to help spread the warps. This was just a narrow band.  Now I hope to make a large wall hanging incorporating bits and pieces from several of the fragments.

Something that is on the loom at the moment….supplementary weft patterning. You can see the tiny fragment from which I am copying the design on the right. This was another exciting find as, at least here in Bolivia, I have not seen this technique used for anything other than hat bands and on one old chuspa in a book. I would love to know the original use for this piece.

You can find the chart for this design here. I have also put the chart for the Abba Yohanni double weave design from last week’s post here.

This is just a small selection of my fragments. I am sure that more will show up in future blog posts as I strive to reproduce them. There is one technique that I as yet have not been able to identify.

Now what about those balanced weaves? I am still very much into my recently gifted rigid heddles and have been using them to make samples and a few useful pieces.

"Strawberries and cream" pinwheel mats

The rigid heddles arrived while I was in the middle of this “strawberries and cream” pinwheel piece. Rather than struggle on with my multiple stick spacers, I added the rigid heddle to the backstrap loom and finished it in no time.

Last month we had a WAL at Weavolution weaving rosepath motifs so I used my rigid heddle as a spacer and beater and used four sets of string heddles for the motifs.

Spring garden table runner
A small log cabin sample

Sometimes I just mess around and make samples trying to discover what is comfortably possible on my backstrap loom. The above log cabin piece was the first balanced weave I tried before my rigid heddles arrived. I thought the squareness of the design would look good as a notebook cover. I’ll take this little notebook along for my next weaving classes wherever that may be. It is nice to find a use for even the smallest of samples. You can see my test piece for the llama bookmark has been padded with foam and made into a pin cushion saddle cloth for the ceramic llama!

As the title of this post suggests, there is also some warp faced double weave to talk about. The last of my weaving resolutions is to design some nice letters to weave in double weave. I have been very much inspired by Linda Hendrickson’s beautiful book Please Weave Me a Message where she has designed alphabets to weave with tablets. You may have listened to Syne Mitchell’s recent interview with her at WeaveZine. I hope to come up with something like that for double weave. My stick alphabet above looks very humble next to her beauties.

Lastly, I would like to show off some work by one of my blog readers. Ann Littlewood wove a supplementary weft patterned  band using embroidery floss for her supplementary weft. It is a great way to “paint” in designs and play with colors. It absolutely makes my day when I hear from people who have  used my instructions. 🙂

I will leave you with a cheery little Otalavalena, below, at her brightly colored market stall at the enormous Saturday market. Otavalo is a town in Ecuador which has a lively and popular craft market every Saturday and is where I bought some of my dolls. Goods from near and far are sold there such as braids and beads from Peru, molas from Panama and Colombia and belts from Bolivia and Guatemala as well as an enormous variety of weavings and crafts from all over Ecuador. While the market largely caters to tourists, locals also shop there for clothes, footwear and beads.

Thank you for the nice comments last week. I am glad you found the videos useful. One of  the visitors from Argentina, who has a limited understanding of English, had one of those “aha!” moments when she watched the double weave video. I hope to be able to show you one of her weavings soon 🙂

A girl from Otalvalo in typical dress-embroidered blouse, "anku" secured by a woven belt, beads, woven hair wrap and alpargatas

Backstrap Weaving-Coca leaves, chuspas and more double weave

The coca leaf – I have enjoyed it brewed in tea, chewed it on hiking trips and used it to dye my handspun llama fiber above.  However, a  foreigner like myself can not even begin to understand the role that this humble leaf plays in Bolivian life and culture.

Lately there has been a lot more talk than usual about this piece of Bolivian cultural heritage as Bolivian President Evo Morales has recently announced plans to launch a new carbonated energy drink on the market which has the beloved coca leaf as one of its main ingredients. It should make an appearance in the next four months and will be called “Coca Colla” (the ‘olla’ in Colla being pronounced like the ‘oy’ in boy). “Colla” is the word commonly used to describe people from the altiplano of indigenous origins. This is President Morales’s attempt to erradicate coca’s unfortunate association with cocaine and drug trafficking, increase its cultivation and have it  recognized instead, as stated in the new Constitution, as  “cultural heritage, a natural and renewable resource of biodiversity in Bolivia and a factor of social cohesion”.

Coca is used to make tea, plays a part in religious rituals and is chewed in order to suppress hunger, thirst and fatigue as well as to alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness. I have chewed it myself on hiking trips and I have to tell you that there is knack to getting a wad of it tucked neatly away in your cheek and not all over your teeth thus completely ruining your smile for the day! Bags of coca leaves are sold with lejia-the gray colored bar seen at left, comprising compressed ash and other substances, which is chewed along with the leaves and acts as a catalyst.

A special woven bag called a chuspa is used to carry coca leaves but I have only seen these in use at festivals and other celebrations. On a normal day, it is more usual to see people taking their coca leaves directly from a regular plastic bag. My weaving teacher, Julia, at right, is taking a break from classes to enjoy some coca.

While Julia and her sister Hilda both know how to weave a chuspa, strangely neither of them actually owns one. When I expressed interest in learning to weave one, they had to consult with each other in order to remember how to wind the warp. What is special about warping for a chuspa is the fact that most chuspas include a small pocket which is designed to carry a piece of the lejia or perhaps a few coins and allowance must be made for this in the length of the warp.

Three Bolivian chuspas, each woven with a different complementary warp technique. The one on the left was made by my weaving teacher in Candelaria and has a pocket. While the one in the middle was bought in Potosi,  I am not sure of its exact origin. It does not have a pocket. The one on the right with a pocket is the one I made in Potosi under Julia and Hilda’s instruction.
Julia and Hilda are preparing the warp for my chuspa. You can see the extended piece of warp on an extra stake which will become the pocket. We are using the brightly colored respun acrylic yarns that are very popular in this area. 
We are all at work here. I am working on my chuspa, Hilda is backstrap weaving a band while Julia, in the background, is cutting fleece to spin. My chuspa is a four-selvedge piece so I wove from one end, turned the piece around and wove from the other end and then had the usual agony of trying to squeeze weft into those last few rows to close the gap.
Hilda taught me to weave the ”rolling river”design into my chuspa. Once off the loom, the sides and pocket are joined using a variety of decorative techniques.We used triple crossed knit looping to edge and sew the sides of the pocket. This is a very pretty technique that not only binds the sides but also completely curls over and covers the edges.
You may be able to see the crossed knit looping more closely here on the edge of another bag that I wove. The brown sample shows how it would look worked flat rather than curled over an edge.
A tubular band was woven with the weft being used to sew it to the sides and base of the bag as it was woven.  A six-strand flat braid was made for the bag strap. The chuspas that I have seen being used in festivals are highly embellished with pom poms, tassels and multi colored fringes.
A small selection from the variety of braids, bands and tassels used to decorate Bolivian chuspas
The ”rolling river” design has since become a great favorite of mine and I have woven it into tool bags, sashes and key fobs on my backstrap loom.

In 1998, I spent some time with a weaver in the village of Candelaria near Tarabuco and learned the weaving technique that is used in their chuspas and carrying cloths.

A Tarabuco style chuspa made by my teacher Felicia . The pocket is so small it is hard to see it being of any real use. The other piece is a small purse which has been woven specifically to be sold to tourists. Note the cute strolling llamas along the bottom.

I returned to Candelaria last year. Felicia is no longer there but the first person I met as I entered the village was Felicia’s cousin-also called Felicia! who took me to her home and graciously allowed me to film her weaving on her oblique loom. The next day I went to the market in Tarabuco where there was a cultural festival and was able to capture a small piece of video of a weaver warping for a chuspa. She was constantly being interrupted by ladies asking her questions so the clip is very short.  I don’t know how well that warp could have turned out with all those pauses. When I warp, no one can speak to me!

So here is the short video (yippy! I have finally figured a way to get around my erratic internet service and upload heavier videos). The first part is the weaver warping for a chuspa with two colors around four stakes. You will see the extra stick she uses on which to warp the extra long part for the pocket.

The second piece is Felicia-keep an eye out for the kitty snuggled in her lap while she picks up those warps with lightning speed!

 

WHAT’S ON THE LOOM?-AN UPDATE

I have been working away on my Abba Yohanni inspired piece and have decided that I am going to make a table set to take as a gift on my next visit to Australia. So, the piece you saw last week will be a table runner. I have made some progress on that and have reversed the design and am just starting the final motif. In the meantime I couldn’t resist seeing how the motif would turn out in 12wpi cotton and so wove it into a (rather large) hot pad using one-weft double weave technique and then wove a small portion of the motif into a mug rug. I am thinking about weaving four placemats to go with the set with a piece of the motif woven with a supplementary weft in the center of each.

Abba Yohanni inspired set in progress

 

 

 

 

Backstrap Weaving-Hotpad and Heddles-more double weave

A Weavolution member recently introduced me to Teyacapan’s fabulous Flickr page which has hundreds of images of Mexican people with their crafts and weavings. Honestly, you can get lost in that site for hours! I was very much taken by a photo of a weaver doing gauze weave and hope to go to Mexico one day to study with the gauze weavers. Mexico is very high on my list of places to visit and, as I am planning to go to Guatemala again in March or April, it will be easy to duck over the border. If I can spend so long just looking at the images on Teyacapan’s site, imagine how long I will get caught up in Mexico!!

I am lucky to have some great books on Mexican weaving and have been inspired by the images in Joanne Hall’s marvellous book Mexican Tapestry Weaving, to make some more mug rugs with Mexican motifs. I was given this book by my Navajo weaving teacher back in 1995 and made a Navajo style tapestry based on one of the pictures. It is wonderful to see that all these years later, the images in the book are still fresh and inspiring.

So, I am happy to say that I have woven a set of four Mexican themed mug rugs in double weave and have come up with a new double weave project-a hotpad.

hotpad and matching mug rugs

So, it was Mexican all the way for lunch yesterday with spicy beans and tortillas. I think that the hotpad is another perfect double weave project using 12 wpi cotton-it makes a good thick piece to protect your table from hot dishes and casseroles. I wove it on my backstrap loom and is a good project for those of you who are thinking about venturing  into wider pieces. Practice on a mug rug set first and then add your matching hotpad.

hotpad and mug rug designs

Although I am very happy with the hotpad design, I think I will make a few changes in the patterns I drew for the mug rugs. Perhaps I will break up some of the large red areas with a bit of black-what do you think? Once I have tweaked the designs and woven another set, I will post the pattern charts here on my blog for you all. In the meantime, here is the chart for the hotpad. I am only posting half of it as it is huge!

double weave pattern chart for the hotpad

If you would like to learn this double weave technique, you can use my free tutorials in the Backstrap Weaving Group on Weavolution. The tutorials have step-by-step photos and links to videos on my Flickr page. Remember that you will need to first join Weavolution and the Backstrap Group to obtain access to them.

Well, as much as I love Mexican food, I don’t think I could manage it every day (although, if I am planning that trip to Mexico……..). Anyway, here is another fun use I found  for my new hot pad. It fits perfectly on my breakfast tray where it stops my plate from sliding about and certainly “spices” things up a bit!

spicy breakfast!

I loved designing and weaving this hotpad and I have a bunch of designs in my head for others so you can certainly expect to see more of these in the future. 🙂

MAKING CONTINUOUS STRING HEDDLES………..

I warped up a couple of weeks ago for another set of South American themed mug rugs and used that warp to put together a tutorial on making continuous string heddles. This process is shown on the videos in my WeaveZine article but I have heard from many people on dial-up who have not been able to access the videos. I spend half my time on dial-up as my wifi connection is pretty erratic so I certainly know how it is. I kept all my photo files small  for this and I do hope that dial-up folks will be able to enjoy this photo sequence.

I learned this way of making continuous string heddles from my very first weaving teacher, Gladys Miller who taught me Navajo style weaving way back in 1995. I have seen many different ways since then while studying with my indigenous weaving teachers but none have convinced me to change my ways.

First I’d like to show you some pictures of a few weavers I have met and worked with here in South America and Guatemala and how they make their heddles.

Zapote, Ecuador. This weaver is using her flat tenter stick as a spacer around which to wind the heddle string. This helps her to make all the heddles the same length.The spacer will later be removed.
San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Guatemala. Here the weaver wraps the heddle loops around her hand before passing them to a stick.
Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Hammock weavers' warps are so wide that they can't use a heddle stick. They just leave the heddle loops loose and pull them in small groups across the width of the warp to open the shed.

THE TUTORIAL………

Larger and heavier versions of these tutorial photos can be seen here.


For double weave, your cross will look like this. Remember that in this technique you are using doubled warps. The all-black warps will form the black border. You have one white and one black warp in pairs in the area where you will weave your motif.
You will be putting each of the pairs of warps that are passing over stick B in a heddle. Open the shed and pass your heddle string through as shown.
Make a slip knot in the end of the heddle string and place it on you heddle stick. Leave a long tail as shown.
Reach down between warp pair 1 and 2 and pull up the heddle string as shown.
Put a twist in the loop.
Place the loop on the stick and anchor it with your left forefinger.
Put an extra twist in the heddle string forming a small loop.
Put the small loop on the stick and tighten it by pulling on the end of the heddle string.
You can now let go and see that your first warp pair is secured within its heddle.
Moving on.....heddles have been made around the 1st and 2nd warp pair and the heddle string is being pulled up to make the 3rd heddle.
Slip the loop on the heddle stick and adjust its length by pulling on the end of the heddle string. Once you have the length correctly adjusted, anchor the loop on the stick with your left forefinger before making your extra twist.
Continue like this, cut the heddle string and tie the start and end tails together. DONE!

I always use the same yarn that I am using for the warp for my string heddles.  A lot of my teachers use thin nylon thread or cord as it is less abrasive on the warps. I can’t stand using nylon but you should experiment and see which kind of heddle string suits you.

Here’s hoping you have found this useful. Maybe you know some rigid heddlers too who will be interested in seeing how to make string heddles so they can add another shed to their looms. Pass it on!

© Laverne Waddington and backstrapweaving.wordpress.com, 2009-2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Laverne Waddington and backstrapweaving.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Backstrap Weaving: A Double Weave Project

I love double weave! I particularly like the clean solid designs this technique produces on a nice smooth background. The same design appears on the back of the textile with its colors reversed. There are, in fact, two layers being woven together.

The problem with double weave for beginners practicing with heavy yarns, is that it produces a thick textile. Now this is just what you want if you would like to make a belt or perhaps a strap for a bag or a  musical instrument.

A double woven strap for a Bolivian charango

But what about a small project for a beginner who would like to learn this technique? I always recommend that beginners start with heavier yarns and gradually work their way down to the finer ones as they gain more experience. So I have been trying to think of a useful small project made in a medium to heavy weight yarn (around 12 wpi) that a beginner could make once they have practiced the fundmentals of the technique on a sample band.

And this is what I came up with……………..MUG RUGS!!

South American and North African themed mug rugs

Woven in a 12wpi mercerized cotton, these are thick and firm-they really feel like mini rugs- and look great on the table. I guarantee that these will protect your good polished table from the hottest of mugs!

The black ones have adaptations of South American motifs from several countries. I got ideas for the designs on the  brown ones from a book on North African carpets that I have. I really had fun making these. With the 12 wpi yarn they weave up really fast. I have never been a fan of rolling up long warps as I find I get much better tension control on shorter ones so I wove  three mug rugs on a one-yard warp. I find warping for the backstrap loom a pleasure as there is no cutting or threading involved so making multiple warps for these two sets of mug rugs really wasn’t a problem for me.

Here they are as they come off the loom………..

I sewed over the last wefts and between the fringes with an ”invisible” nylon thread to finish these off while they were still under tension on the loom.

So, if you would like to learn how to make these you can find my tutorial for ONE-WEFT DOUBLE WEAVE in the Backstrap weaving Group at Weavolution. Weavolution is a free gathering place for handweavers. You will need to join Weavolution first and  then join the Backstrap Group so you can access the tutorial.

South American motif mug rugs on the loom

Here is a sample pattern chart for these mug rugs using forty-one warp pairs.

A South American motif pattern chart

Once you feel comfortable with this technique, you can move on to using finer yarns- on the right, 12 wpi; lower center, 35wpi; and upper center, plied sewing thread.

Double weave in various yarn weights

A LITTLE BACKGROUND……

I learned this technique in Potosi in Bolivia in 1996. I weave it now on my backstrap loom and, in terms of comfort, this is like flying First Class compared to the way I was taught this weave on a staked-out ground loom!

Weaving on the staked-out ground loom in Potosi

Julia and her sister Hilda allowed me to come to their home  to learn to weave crouched over the loom in their yard for six hours a day during three weeks. You can see from the bandaids that the bone tool that is used to beat the weft into place was taking a toll on my soft gringa hands! That was about ten years ago. I doubt I could maintain that position  for long now.  Here I am making a four-selvedge piece in the lively colors favored by my teachers which I later turned into a shoulder bag. The piece has bands of patterned double weave on plain weave.

This technique is put to many different uses in various regions here  in Bolivia. It is used to make the belts which form part of the typical woman’s outfit in the highland province of Potosi. Woven with several brightly colored stripes and covered with little figures, these belts are very sturdy and are woven just long enough to encircle the waist once. The weavers put a lot of effort into beating the weft in firmly and the quality of a finished piece and the skill of the weaver is judged by the belt’s stiffness.  I was surprised to see when I went to Ecuador that these belts are now much sought after and prized by women in Otavalo, who are themselves skilled weavers, and are being used by many together with their typical Otavalan costume.

Belts made in one-weft double weave technique in Potosi

I’ll leave you here as it is time for morning tea-there it is below! Remember, if you have any questions or if you just liked this post, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please leave a comment 🙂 Laverne.