drop spindle – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Bye-bye Traddy

And so continues the journey of my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel….and I never once took a photo of it 🙁 I got it in the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) back in the 90s and had it in my home in southern Chile. I wished I’d asked how it had made its way to the Falklands in the first place…directly from the manufacturer in New Zealand or perhaps via the UK or perhaps by some other more exotic and convoluted route?

Whie living in Chile and before I got the wheel, I had brought some alpaca back from my first trip to Peru to spin with a drop spindle that I’d also bought there. My inexperience meant that I made a mess of it and so, discouraged, I put spinning aside for a while!

Later, I turned to sheep. There were sheep galore down there in Patagonia and I was given a fleece. So, I got experience washing and carding it and my first project was knitting! I can hardy believe it as I can barely knit. But I designed a pattern, based on the shape of a cotton vest that I owned, and fumbled my way through knitting the front of a vest using wool that I had spun on the spindle.

By this time, I’d acquired the Traddy and I wove the back panel using my first wheel-spun yarn which I dyed brown in a balanced plain weave on my Navajo-style vertical loom…without a reed. I probably didn’t even know that reeds existed back then (you can just get a glimpse of the brown back on the far right in the photo above). Spinning yarn that worked well for this knitting and weaving was a complete fluke. I really had very little idea about what I was doing. The vest is edged with a triple cross-knit-looping stitch that I’d learned both from my sling-braiding teacher in Peru and one of my weaving teachers in Bolivia. And I also used a band I’d woven as an edging.

I used left-over scraps of that wheel-spun wool along with some of the wool I used for my Navajo-style weaving in natural dye experiments in Chile. They were wrapped around rolls of paper and coiled into what you see here which I used as the lid for a basket.

And that was all the action the poor Traddy got to see in my hands. I brought it up to Bolivia with me and it gathered dust in a corner for a while before I eventually dismantled it (my cat was finding it way too interesting) and it sat in the closet while I continued to spin on drop spindles. Now it’s gone to the Brazilian owners of my local yarn store. Maybe it will make a trip to Brazil one day.

Bye-bye Traddy. Enjoy your world travels. The rest of this post on spinning includes some sections that I’ve posted before and so you may find some parts familiar.

I am a “cheap spindler” in much the same way as I am a cheap drunk…it doesn’t take much to make me happy! Don’t waste the good wine on me. I do not have a refined palate. So, it is little wonder that I am content to use my humble Cusco drop spindle when I get the urge to spin. I just don’t have a refined palate for spinning tools.

The Cusco spindle was the second one I ever got, the first being from San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile. The Cusco one that I got in 1996, being more robust, became my constant travel companion. It was practical. Although I have collected many more spindles on my weaving safaris since then, this Cusco one is the one I always use while the others hang on the wall behind the sofa as souvenirs of places I have been and people I have met.

**Some of the whorls from the spindles on the wall fell down behind the sofa only to be retrieved later when a friend helped me move it. Here are three that I found there among the cat toys.** **It’s so interesting seeing the various styles of whorl.**

The very first spinning that I did for weaving on my backstrap loom was with some extremely dry, brittle, and filthy llama fiber that I had bought from a farmer while wandering about the back roads of Uyuni in the Bolivian highlands. I cleaned and prepared it. The dust and dirt would have me wheezing and my skin would crawl and eyes run every time I opened the bags to get more. It made for good spinning training. I gave the fiber a tremendous amount of twist because at that time I believed that this was the only way hand-spun yarn could possibly stand up to the abrasion of warp-faced weaving. I have since learned that this is not so. That kind of yarn produces durable, hard wearing cloth and in a tight warp-faced weave can make a garment highly water-resistant. Of course, that isn’t always the kind of cloth I want.

**The natural colors of the llama I spun. I was always amazed at how nice it looked when woven. Warp-faced structures are very forgiving in that way.**

When I was given a large bag of spearmint leaves by a friend, I decided to use it it to dye some of the llama yarn. One batch gave me a nice neutral taupe color. The second lot my friend gave me produced green. I also had some cochineal for red.

I was able to buy a lovely fine commercial yarn in Chile that was a blend of alpaca and wool and came in earthy colors. I would use my drop spindle to add extra twist as, again, I’d thought that yarn for warp-faced weaving simply must have that tightly spun characteristic. The green in this band I wove with this yarn is actually cotton.

The first time I was given prepared alpaca to spin by my friend Janet, I decided that I simply couldn’t put all that heavy amount of twist into that beautiful fiber. With a bit of extra care in the way I handled it on my backstrap loom, **it made lovely warp. The yarn was quite balanced and didn’t kink up on itself.**

**You can see that this alpaca yarn that I spun lies flat and relaxed when not under tension.**

You can see how my teacher Maxima’s handspun wool yarn behaves when not under tension. All the energy from the twist causes the warp lying on the ground to tightly spiral. The yarn will produce hard-wearing cloth.

After that experience with the alpaca, I never added extra twist to industrially-spun yarn again. Of course I had to choose yarn that had certain characteristics. I used the soft Knit Picks Palette straight out of the cake for this next piece. It was actually just a stash-busting exercise to use up odds and ends and I wasn’t convinced that it would work for warp-faced weaving in string heddles. It did with a little extra care. I wove this piece with four-selvedges and only had to be very careful when needle-weaving the end so as not to split the loose ply with the needle.

I really enjoy reading the online group forums about spinners and their spindles. The participants’ love and enthusiasm for their tools is wonderful….I totally get it but I just don’t share it. Some of the spindles they show are beautiful pieces of craftsmanship and I love seeing them. But when it comes down to it, I just want to get the job done. If you like your tools to be uniquely hand-carved pieces of art, take a look at Allen Berry’s work on Instagram (allenrberry). All his fiber tools are amazing.

It seems that when it comes to spinning I am totally product oriented which is kind of strange as it is quite the opposite when I weave. I just want to get this stuff done so I can go weave with it. In weaving I am all about enjoying the process. I probably would not have been willing to devote any great amount of time to spinning if not for the pandemic. The combination of needing to keep my hands busy during Zoom sessions as well as a dwindling stash had me happily spinning up all the wool I could find in my closet.

Weaving a small tubular band as a test for my handspun wool yarn to see if a) it would be suitable for my warp-faced weaving and b) if there was enough contrast between the three colors for use in a three-color pebble project.

It was strange that after all these years this would be my first time weaving on my backstrap loom with my own drop-spindle-spun sheep wool. Was I nervous about it? Yes!

**The warp for a three-color pebble project with my handspun “pandemic” wool in purple, pale yellow and a rust.**

And then I took on a new adventure…spinning cotton. As with my favored Cusco spindle for wool, I have taken the takli that Elizabeth gave me in Australia as my one and only tool for cotton. It is all I feel the need for right now. It makes for quiet, comfortable, and fuss-free Zoom spinning.

My first lot of Sea Island cotton and the gifted takli spindle. I was pleased with this first attempt but hadn’t known at the time that Sea Island cotton has a longer staple length than other varieties and is therefore easier to spin.

My collection of spindles that I have gathered in my travels includes a few that are used for cotton. Here are two from Guatemala and one that I bought from my Guaraní teacher here in Santa Cruz. The whorl on that one is a piece cut from the sole of a sandal.

**Two spindles from Guatemala flank the Guaraní one.**

I couldn’t believe my luck when one of the local museums here offered a workshop given by two Guaraní ladies on spinning cotton. We didn’t get to keep the spindles but the whorls on the ones we used were also made from pieces of rubber sole.

I love the way we are all so focused on our teacher’s demonstration. As it turned out, she is left-handed and we were all righties. She got us all started one by one turning the spindle in one direction and we then proceeded to unspin what she had started for us!

I came up with some unconventional ways of my own for handling the spinning and processing, like using this wooden mortar as the support for the takli. I like that I can grip its neck between my knees while I’m seated to spin. It works really well and the sound of the metal spindle tip against the wood is quieter than when I used to use a ceramic dish.

And I found these mesh pencil cups useful as a way to hold my singles under tension when they were being boiled to set the twist.

It was fun seeing how the colored cottons deepened in tone when they were boiled.

**The color called Mahogany in the center after being boiled. The pre-boil color is below to the right.**

And of course, there is the horizontally-held spindle for cotton spinning that is used by my teachers in coastal Ecuador.

The cotton is draped on a wooden stand called the “rueca” for spinning. It has a notch cut into its top which grabs the cotton and allows the spinner to draw out the fibers under tension. A small basket is woven from plantain fiber underneath on which the spindle sits when not in use. This is a miniature version of the rueca which I made with my teachers’ help so that I could take an example back with me to Bolivia. I need to place something in the little basket to weigh it down because it is so small and light. The typical spindle can be seen at right with its wooden whorl. More often now you will see people using yo-yo halves and metal wheels as whorls.

Here are some tiny whorls from coastal Ecuador that the family had found while ploughing their fields. There were close to forty of them sitting in a bowl on a shelf, just like that.

My very first experience with spinning cotton had been in coastal Ecuador where I got to work almost from scratch, de-seeding, teasing apart, and fluffing up the cotton. It was difficult spinning it on the horizontally-held spindles compared to what I do now with the takli. Unfortunately, I didn’t spend much time on it while there, being much more interested in the weaving part of the process. My teachers already had plenty of spun singles that they doubled for warp so that I could learn how they weave their double-pocket saddle bags and hammocks. We would pass time in the evenings on cotton preparation.

**My first attempts with the horizontally-held spindle in Ecuador** **with my teacher Trini and her mother Luz (rip).**

I put in a little practice when I got back home but the loom soon called me away…

**My cat got to the point eventually where she paid no attention to my fiber-y pursuits.**

I may have never gone back to cotton if not for the pandemic. The loom was always pulling me one way yet my stash of gifted sliver in the closet was growing. Thank you to all those, especially Betty, who were so kind with their gifts when I was visiting in the States.

I have woven with my singles thread. It was an even freakier experience than the first time weaving with my handspun llama yarn all those years ago.I was surprised to see how well it tolerated the string heddles and the close sett on my backstrap loom.

**I love the look of all these handspun cotton singles lined up on my backstrap loom.**

I’ve used it in plain weave for ikat pieces as well as for pieces decorated with pick-up patterns that I’ve used in small purse and wallet projects.

**Wallet project with pick-up patterning in the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave.**

Right now I’m spinning some more brown sliver that I just uncovered in the closet. I’ve yet to use the brown in a project.

**Ikat projects in my handspun cotton singles. The lower one uses some of the natural green cotton in both its boiled and not-boiled versions. Most of what you see there is the not-boiled green.**

No doubt when I return to Australia I’ll have lots of access to sheep fleeces and will wonder about my Traddy and how it’s being used on this side of the world. I won’t be buying another wheel though, and will slowly work my way through, as is my habit, with my drop spindle. I won’t be displaying my other spindles on the wall either and that might lead me to picking up one of the others for a spin and giving the Cusco one a rest.

See you all next time…

Backstrap Weaving – Spinning Tales

The Cusco spindle was the second one I ever got, the first being from San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile. The Cusco one that I got in 1996, being more robust, became my constant travel companion. It was practical. Although I have collected many more spindles on my weaving safaris since then, this Cusco one is the one I always use while the others hang on the wall as souvenirs of places I have been and people I have met.

**And here, dyed with coca leaves, spearmint leaves and cochineal.**

Prior to that experience, I had spun wool while still living in the Chilean Patagonia in the mid 1990s. I had brought some alpaca back from my first trip to Peru but had made a mess of it. That had me turning to sheep. There were sheep galore down there and I was given a fleece. So, I got experience washing and carding it and my first project was knitting! I can hardy believe it as I can barely knit. But I designed a pattern and fumbled my way through knitting the front of a vest. I wove the back panel in balanced plain weave on my Navajo-style vertical loom…without a reed. I probably didn’t even know that reeds existed back then. The knitting yarn was spun on the Cusco drop spindle and the yarn for the weaving on an Ashford Traditional wheel that my boyfriend at the time had brought back from the Falkland Islands. Spinning yarn that worked well for this knitting and weaving was a complete fluke. I really had very little idea about what I was doing.

**Parts of the vest with a triple cross-knit looped edging. The brown part is the woven back. the multi-colored thing on the side is part of a woven bag also edged with the cross-knit looping stitch.**

It seems that when it comes to spinning I am totally product oriented which is kind of strange as it is quite the opposite when I weave. I just want to get this stuff done so I can go weave with it. In weaving I am all about enjoying the process. I probably would not have been willing to devote any time to spinning if not for the pandemic. The combination of needing to keep my hands busy during Zoom sessions as well as a dwindling stash has had me happily spinning up all the wool I could find in my closet. Now I am making a start on the cotton. There’s still some alpaca lurking in there.

And as with my favored Cusco spindle for wool, I have taken the takli that Elizabeth gave me in Australia as my one and only tool for cotton. It is all I feel the need for right now. It makes for quiet, comfortable, and fuss-free Zoom spinning.

**My slow-growing hand-spun cotton stash.**

And of course, there is the horizontally-held spindle that is used by my teachers in coastal Ecuador.

Here are some tiny whorls from coastal Ecuador that the family had found while ploughing their fields. There were close to forty of them sitting in a bowl on a shelf, just like that.

The cotton sliver that I have been spinning was given to me by my friend Betty. One day while breaking off a length from the bundle in the closet to continue spinning, a label fell out which identified it as the Sea Island variety bought from a place called Straw into Gold. Judging from the yellowed state of the label and the fact that it had been typewriter-written, I am guessing that it was bought quite a long time ago. I had been becoming increasingly pleased with my progress spinning cotton but am less so now after having read a little about this variety of cotton online. Apparently it is known for its particularly long staple which makes it one of the easiest varieties to spin. Darn! It seems that I have started at the wrong end of the learning process. Considering how I struggled through the preparation and spinning of that ugly llama fiber all those years ago as well as going to the trouble of washing and carding the fleece I had been given in Chile, it seems like cheating to be picking up this beautifully prepared long-staple cotton as my (almost) first-ever cotton-spinning experience. I wonder if it will feel like going back to square one when I finish this and then start on the other varieties that I have. My very first experience had been in coastal Ecuador where I got to work almost from scratch, de-seeding, teasing apart, and fluffing up the cotton. It was difficult spinning it on the horizontally-held spindles compared to what I do now with the takli. Unfortunately, I didn’t spend much time on it while there, being much more interested in the weaving part of the process. My teachers already had plenty of spun singles that they doubled for warp so that I could learn how they weave their double-pocket saddle bags and hammocks. We would pass time in the evenings on cotton preparation.

I put in a little practice when I got back home but the loom soon called me away…

But now to the present. After finishing my big bag project, I took a few days off to spin cotton and think about what should be next on my loom.

**The finishing touch on the bag project…magnet clasps for the flap and mouth of the bag. I had spare fabric to which I could first attach them.**

I decided that I wasn’t quite done with the three-color pebble yet and that I should weave a study in color transitions. Upgrading my camera strap gave me a product to justify the use of my hand-spun for this study. I dyed some of it a rust color so that I would have three colors that would work well together in all possible arrangements.

**Small quantities of hand spun wool for the camera strap plus some hand spun cotton singles ready to be boiled.**

I got totally absorbed in working on the color transitions and different color alignments and thus forgot that I needed to start weaving the hummingbirds upside down at the half-way point so that they would be the right way up when the strap was worn. Oh well. **That’s what happens when the things that are important for the final product get lost in the process**.

In the picture above, I was testing shapes for the tabs which I would later cut from leather. I have an old home-made leather backstrap that was just the right color and was willing to sacrifice it for this project. I couldn’t get anyone in the street market to sell me just a tiny off-cut of leather and the available colors weren’t quite right in any case. Hand-stitching the leather was fun.

I used the existing strap hardware otherwise I am not sure how on earth I would have attached the strap. There’s a special kind of clip that I have never seen elsewhere that goes through a tiny hole on the side of the camera.

And here I am wearing the strap with its upside-down hummers on one side! and my “Ta-da!” face.

What’s next? I have started a sample for a wool Finnweave cowl. I am using 20/2 wool and need to see if the proportions of the motifs in my weaving with this material match those of the figures on my chart. But first I had to go through that annoying confusion of trying to figure out Finnweave all over again. You make notes from the last project but they are never thorough enough because you stupidly assume that some things are just too obvious to bother writing down. Not so! This time I will get it right and make sure I write down every single detail.

The other purpose of this sample is as a width gauge. This 20/2 wool is a fair bit thicker than the 20/2 cotton that I have been using for Finnweave lately. I have to get used to the difference between the cotton and wool. Cotton, naturally, gives a much sharper image and the hairiness of the wool makes it easier to produce skips in the lower layer of the double weave.

The other project idea that is waiting its turn is a very, very simple double-ikat pattern using my hand-spun cotton. I would hate to waste this lovely Sea Island cotton on a failed double-ikat experiment but I am so curious to see if I can manage to make it work. I will just have to keep reminding myself to keep it simple.