handcrafts – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Hooray Santa Fe!

The last part of my US summer trip was spent in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

It had been a dream of mine for some time to visit the city’s annual International Folk Art Market and this year everything just fell beautifully into place.

My friend Annie and I had talked about the vague possibility of this visit months and months ago. Neither of us knew back then whether it really would happen. I couldn’t think of a better person with whom to visit the market.

Even when weaver friend Wendy visited me in Bolivia back in May and I found out that, by coincidence, she was also planning on going, it was still pretty iffy.

And then, when Marilyn, whom I met at ANWG in June, said that she too was going, I knew that it just HAD to happen.

I had met textile artist DY Begay at the Tinkuy in Cusco in 2010 and again last year at the weaving Encuentro. She now lives in Santa Fe and extended an invitation to come visit. And that is how it all came to be.

I arrived a few days before the market and had a chance to stroll around the downtown area. When I arrived at Santa Fe airport I was surprised to see the adobe airport building…hmmm, a little over the top, I thought at the time.

However, after taking a look around and seeing the downtown area, where even the parking stations are adobe and getting a feel for the place, it all just felt so very right. I love the smooth curviness of the structures and how the colors change from pink to gold as the sun moves across the sky. And that sky! …the deep blue of dry desert air that would suddenly be covered by enormous black thunderheads that brought refreshing afternoon deluges.

And it was hot… but not Santa Cruz hot…the low humidity made the high temperatures quite tolerable. Yet, after a full day of strolling the market, it was a relief to sit down in a shady spot and wait for the rain to start. Below you can see Annie and Wendy at the end of day one.

There were thousands of people at the market yet I just knew that I would run into Wendy and Marilyn there. I had already bumped into Wendy by chance at the Travelers’ Market and Marilyn in the plaza downtown and at the pre market procession. It was like we were all magnets drawn to each other.

Another person I met by chance was double weave expert Jennifer Moore who was helping out Nilda Callañaupa at the CTTC booth. She and I then arranged to spend a day together while I showed her how to set up a backstrap loom for double weave pick-up. I got to see all her amazing double weave samples, the ingenious things she has made and the limits to which she has pushed this structure. It was impossible to pick favorites from the array of samples she showed me but here are just two of the many things that caught my eye…(these are Jennifer’s pictures).

I loved the completely seamless bag Jennifer created for the Checkers pieces.Even the bnarrw sleeve for the drawstring was created on the loom. The twill double weave pick-up is gorgeous. — I loved the completely seamless bag Jennifer created for the Checkers pieces. I believe that the checkerboard was woven as a double width piece….woven folded and then opened to its full width once off the loom. Even the narrow sleeve on the bag for the drawstring was created on the loom. The twill double weave pick-up is gorgeous.

Jennifer and I then went on to spend a magical final evening going to the opera, La Traviata, with DY and DY’s neighbor Alana, who had offered us the tickets.

I had no idea what to expect and it was amazing!

Santa Fe has an outdoor theater. It’s covered but has open sides. The sets are minimal and the backdrop is the beautiful Santa Fe sky which changes colors as evening fades into night. Desert nights get rather cold! The theater ushers certainly knew about that as they were all dressed in long handwoven ponchos.

And, speaking of cold, here I am back in Santa Cruz in the one cold wave that hits here per year. I just happened to arrive back the day before it hit…48 degrees…this is not normal. I managed to get in one day at the loom in shorts before the long pants and socks had to come out. Well, it IS winter after all.

This is where I was at with my weaving when I left Janet’s place in northern California. You can see that I had just started some warp wrapping having been inspired by the saddle bag, from Afghanistan, (we think) that Janet had bought. However, after going on with that for half the afternoon, (bags still unpacked in the living room!) I decided that I didn’t like it. I think that I need to practice the wrapping using wool, which fluffs out and fills space, before trying it with the unforgiving cotton.

So, the other half of the afternoon was spent unweaving and unwrapping (not so much fun) and then….unpacking (even less fun).

Then I got back on track. Janet’s saddle bag inspired the wrapped design above the main motif. Bhutanese motifs form the basis of the rest. This had me calling the project “Tales from the Sub-continent”.

However, now something from Central Asia is about to creep into the mix because of bands that I saw at the Folk Art Market. I am so happy to be able to add something from that event as that means that this project will comprise a few pieces of inspiration from my summer trip. That’s one of the best souvenirs I could have.

It’s off the loom and is going to be a bag. You can see how it will be folded on the right…that’s the back.

As for the Central Asian influence, you might remember that I went to the Central Asian ikat exhibit, Colors of the Oasis, at the Textile Museum in Washington DC in 2010. The ikat pieces were stunning. In fact, I had to go twice beacuse it was too much to take in.

I was interested at that time in the bands that edged some of the coats. As the exhibit was focused on the ikat patterning and process, no one at the museum could tell me anything about those bands. They looked like they had been card woven but someone also suggested that they had been braided using finger loops. You simply could not get close enough to see anything helpful.

However, at the Folk Art Market we got to touch all the gorgeous ikat patterned coats from Uzbekistan and look as closely as we pleased at the edging bands. Yes, there were wefts, they were woven, and one of the representatives did confirm that they were tablet woven.

So, here is where I am at….

I dug out my tablets. These are the ones that my dear friend Gladys Miller gave me way back in 1995.

They pre-date my Navajo-style weaving activity and my first backstrap learning trip to Peru.

Gladys sent me back to Chile with these tablets and Rachel Brown’s book. Later I got more books and made the piece at left. After that, I had my Navajo loom built and immersed myself in tapestry weaving.

Then came the first trip up north to Peru….and the rest is history!

So, I made a wee sample to see if I could remember the basics of threading. I want the strap of my bag to be the same design as the bands that edge the Central Asian ikat robes. Most of the bands are very similar in design and very simple.

It is interesting that on page 71 of the Snows’ Step by Step Tablet Weaving, there is a picture of a Russian apron band that looks almost exactly the same. I was lucky to be able to buy a wristlet at the market (you can see it sitting on my weaving above) as an inexpensive example of the weave.

I know that you will all be looking at the price tag on the above piece and sighing. Let’s all go to the market together next year! I only bought one other thing. It was another sample type thing to study…Guatemalan gauze, white on white on a miniature loom.

It was fun to see how the tablet woven bands are also being used as tubes for bag straps. I would say that they were sewn into tubes after being woven and stuffed with something. Mine, however, will be flat.

I did include a tubular band on my current bag project as an edging. I so enjoy weaving and sewing those tubular bands and they make such nice finishes. Using a tubular band to edge enabled me to cover and stabilize the cut raw edge that was created when I cut the flap into a rounded shape to make it more attractive.

Speaking of tubular bands, DY and I had some weaving time together at her place. DY had learned to make the ñawi awapa with me at the Tinkuy but had not put it into practice since then. Of course, all she needed was a little refresher and soon she was on her way. It would be great to see her incorporate something like this in one of her tapestries.

It was nice waking up in the morning hearing DY’s fork beating the wefts into place as she creates her latest tapestry using her own handspun and natural dyed wool. Her home has lovely solid wooden posts which are convenient for backstrap weaving.

Now I shall proceed to bombard you with images from the International Folk Art Market to give you a wee taste of all that Annie and I got to see over those two days of market…

It was great to see the Ayoreo people of the lowland region in which I live in Bolivia represented. This the fifth time that they have been invited to attend the Market and sell their looped bags.

The fiber that is used for the bags is extracted from a wild bromeliad which in the Ayoreo language is called dajudie (elsewhere known as garabatá). The thread spun from this fiber is called dajua.

One of the craftswomen was twisting three strands of thread into one on her thigh but, unfortunately, I was never present when they were making the actual bags.

I have quite often seen the women making these in the streets of Santa Cruz but they are very reserved and not comfortable with people examining what they are doing or asking questions.

I was, therefore, happy to be able to take the opportunity at the market to talk to the ladies (picture at left by Annie).

The traditional patterns belong to the seven clans of the Ayoreo society but some women have created their own new patterns inspired by their surroundings. Mostly natural dye substances are used but some artificial colors are being used in response to the demand for brighter colors by customers.

From Uzbekistan, which probably had more representatives than any other country…

Bright colors and simple black and white: pictures made from colored sequins from Haiti, beadwork from the Ukraine, paintings from Cuba and baskets from Panama.

Khun Shwe, a backstrap weaver from Myanmar, was happy to open up her rolled up backstrap loom and show me her work in progress. Her circular warp held a piece of equipment that I had not seen before. She told me that the notched stick was used to help spread the warps. Her work with supplementary wefts was fine and beautiful. She was so friendly and happy to meet someone so interested in her loom. I would love to study with her! I think she was doing well at the market. Quite a few people were trying on garments at her booth including Annie.

The variety…

...from Peru, Laos, India and Mongolia.

There was this on the Hungarian stand…

It was only $25 and no, I didn’t buy it. A lady was walking around with one and I decided to ask her about her band weaving interests. It turns out that she doesn’t weave and had no idea what the piece was. She simply found it interesting and bought it.

And the people came and came and looked and spent… When we were arriving at around 10am on Saturday, there were already early birds leaving with their purchases! I spent some time on Sunday afternoon with a very happy vendor from East Timor who had sold everything.

Nilda was opening out this very large piece for an admiring couple when I was walking by and yes, they bought it! She couldn’t hide her pleasure at the sale. Of course, the ladies from Chinchero were seated at their looms and Nilda had a corner booth so they would have room to sit away from the crowded aisles in the shade and weave. That attracted a lot of people to the booth I am sure.

An artisan from Pakistan creates a piece using applique and reverse applique techniques while another from Nepal works on a painting.

Everything about the Huichol artists from Mexico creating their yarn paintings was fascinatiing….all those woven bands and belts and straps to look at.

There is more….much more. Remember that there were over 150 artisans there! This is just a taste of the color, and excitement. I am saving the vast majority of pictures of textiles decorated with supplementary wefts for another post. When I have finished my bag project, I will start the next in the red, black and white wall hanging series and this piece will be all about supplementary weft patterning. I will show more market pieces as I progress on that as well as pieces from Nagaland that were on display at the Travelers’ Market in Santa Fe. They have all kinds of interesting ways to decorate using supplementary wefts.

Here are some finished projects from Ravelry group members and friends…

Julia and I got to weave together and she has been captivated by supplementary- weft techniques. She sewed a band onto fabric and made a bag and then cleverly made a square braid for a strap, fanned out the ends and wove a balanced weave shoulder pad and then finished the braid for the other half of the strap (much the same as one would do when making an Andean sling).

Cindy wove tubular band with me and is now making several slim bands to wear as a necklace, She is experimenting with making the bands in cotton. I find that it is harder to get an even finish with cotton than it is with wool. Her band looks great.

Gmp set me a picture of her latest band.. She simply added rings to the end so that it can be used as a belt. The pattern is charted in my second book.

I saw the handmade book made by Betty at ANWG. It was her contribution to the Portland Handweavers Guild study of Japanese textile techniques. The paper is handmade and from Nepal. Betty used a traditional binding for the book and wove the cover. She wove a warp-faced double-weave band on a backstrap loom with Japanese characters to decorate the cover.

That’s all for this week.

From hooray Santa Fe to hooray Santa Cruz….the weather is supposed to warm up any day now to a pleasant coolness…perfect weaving weather. I have come home with lots of ideas from this trip and am happy to be back at the loom for a few months.

My cat has gone to a new home. I spend too much time away and it is not good for her. It’s sad after ten years together but I know she is happy in her new place…she even caught her first mouse!

Here are DY and I and Drey, DY’s cat, one of my many kitty companions on this trip…

Backstrap Weaving – Time for even more Play!

The fall trip is almost over…time to gather and bag my loom bars, fold the backstrap, wind up all the little balls of yarn, stash the beaters and sticks, and stuff them all into the wheely bag ready to fly home….but there is still a little time to play some more! Now I am home and looking back. I was too busy playing last week to even do a blog post 🙂

The last days were spent backstrap weaving with friends in Maryland.

It was nice but confusing seeing many familiar faces at the guild meeting. Now…. where did I meet these folks…was it at Sheep and Wool last year where Carla and Mary wove with me in the bunny barn or at the guild meeting I attended?

md sheep and wool 2010 — Weaving in the bunny barn at MD Sheep and Wool last year

There was one very familiar face…oh yes, that was Peggy who wove with me in Pennsylvania last spring. On top of that there were familiar names, if not faces, of people who have commented on my blog or Facebook page.

And then there was Kathie! I spent three weeks with Kathie in coastal Ecuador in 2007 with the family of cotton saddlebag weavers that I have told you about here before. Although we have kept up a regular email correspondence since then, we haven’t been able to get together in person until now. She came along to weave with us.

Above left, you can see Kathie on our visit to Ecuador in 2007 showing photos that she had taken when she first met this family back in 1976 and, above right, at our backstrap weaving get-together.

I unwound with my friends in their home in Maryland and made plans for my last week in DC. Claudia is a weaver and Janet is a knitter so there were still plenty of fibery things going on around me.

I learned about rag rug weaving from Claudia in her basement studio where she is in the process of making two 9-foot commissioned rugs. I was there to celebrate the finish of the first one. It’s quite a process!…cutting strips, sewing them together end to end, ironing them, winding them onto the long shuttles. I was glad to be able to help at least with the sewing and ironing and the sewing was novel for me…only my second time using a machine.

While the machine is definitely the way to go for sewing those hundreds of strips together, I still prefer hand sewing for my little backstrap woven projects. When I arrived home, I cut the wildly colorful striped demo warp, that I had been carting around the US, off the loom. It had served its purpose, I didn’t really like it and I couldn’t face weaving any more of it. However, it didn’t go to waste as I was able to sew the small piece that I had woven into a new sewing kit pouch.

I folded it in half lengthwise and sewed it together so you only see half the colors at any one time…a little less jarring than the way it looked with all the stripes together on the loom. It is the perfect size for storing tape measure, scissors, needles, buttons and thread. I still have to finish off the sewing on the zip and you can see that the pouch is without the usual baubles and embellishments that I like to add. I think I will leave it this way.

Now I have 26 loom bars standing up in their bins waiting for new warps and I have at least as many ideas floating around in my head for future projects!

But anyway… back to play time in DC.

A couple of emails arrived while I was at Claudia’s place. One from Mary told us about a Chilean handcraft exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian which would include weaving demonstrations by a Mapuche weaver.

The other was from Peggy who has woven with me a couple of times and who is a docent at the Textile Museum.

She offered to guide me through the current Kuba textiles exhibit on Wednesday which also happens to be the day the museum library is open. I jumped at the opportunity.

Perfect!

Of course taking photos of pieces in the exhibit is not permitted but you can see above some the publicity material that the museum has put out showing a piece of raffia cloth on the left and bark cloth.

The picture at left of a Kuba raffia cloth weaver in the Congo is on Marla Mallett’s website where you will also be able to see quite a few images of raffia pile and embroidered cloth pieces.

The Kuba Kingdom is a confederation of several groups of people in the area now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. They were nomadic until the 1600’s and absorbed textile traditions from the Kongo people of the west coast as well as from the Tutsi and Hutu groups in the east.

Men weave the plain-weave panels using fiber from the raffia palm. The cloth is then wet and pounded to make it flexible. The insertion of the colored raffia in a pile technique is the work of the women. The raffia is not knotted. It is simply inserted under warps and/or weft and held in place by the tightness of the weave. The inserted raffia is then brushed with a knife which splits the fibers and creates a fuller more plush texture. I found myself surrounded by bold labyrinth-like and swirling patterns.

The women also embroider along the edges of the pile sections. I was able to look at the back of the pieces that were on sale in the museum shop. Neither the inserted raffia nor the embroidery shows on the back of the cloth.

One of the uses of the cloth is for ceremonial skirts that comprise many panels sewn together and which are gathered around the body. Smaller panels are used as overskirts by high ranking women while other small pieces are status cloths, amassed as symbols of wealth and nobility.

There was bark cloth from the Bushong people, hats, caps and headdress of titleholders from the Kongo people that I can’t even begin to describe.

I saw a delicate cape thought to be from Angola that looked like it had been made in sprang, tie-dyed cloth using sticks tied to the cloth to create the straight lines in the patterns, patchwork, reverse applique, embroidery and ornate belts decorated with beads and cowrie shells.

I loved the boxes and baskets with shaped lids which immediately made me think of the basket maker from Burundi with whom my friend Joan is working in Massachusetts. (see her piece pictured at left).

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could be taken to such an exhibit?!

I bought the exhibit catalog and would love to use some of the motifs in double weave. That museum shop is a deadly place…I came away with the catalog as well as with Ann Rowe’s latest work on costume in highland Ecuador and a collection of papers on Andean weaving on sale for $5 while all the time wondering how in the world I would manage to squeeze this load into my luggage!

The next day was all about Mapuche weaving at the National Museum of the American Indian at an exhibit called Chilean Rakizuam.

Rakizuam is the Mapuche knowledge of being, whether it pertains to the environment or an understanding of life that has been passed from generation to generation.

It was quite nostalgic for me listening once again to the very distinctive Chilean accents of the exhibitors and the accompanying folk music.

There was even a gentleman there from Punta Arenas, the country’s southernmost city, where I lived for five years.

He brought baskets made by the descendants of the Yagan people as well as his own jewelry which combines pieces of coiled basketry with silver.

When I lived in Punta Arenas there was one elderly pure Yagan woman still making the baskets who has since died. I still have one of the baskets that I bought back then.

Other displays included pieces from the central zones of Chile south of Santiago…silver work with Mapuche motifs forming pendants and shawl pins as well as almost transparent figures woven from the hair of horses’ tails. The sturdy ribs in the figures are a plant fiber and the finer weft material is the crin, the hair of the horse or ox. And now I know that ”crinoline” according to Wikipedia was originally a stiff fabric with a weft of horse-hair and a warp of cotton or linen thread.

From the central zone of Chile come pieces, such as the carved wooden stirrups above, associated with the huasos, the Chilean horsemen who also use a finely woven silk poncho known as chamanto. The exhibitors brought one of the striped examples which I have been told is called manta with the name chamanto being reserved for the ones that have been decorated with pick-up patterns.

Representatives of the northernmost region of Chile brought jewelry which incorporated traditional weaving and looping techniques. Now there’s another use for the tubular bands!

There was a variety of shawls, pillow covers and other woven household items as well as knitted apparel made with handspun and naturally dyed wool by Mapuche artisans.

And the best part…a Mapuche weaver, Marta Isabel Huitraiñan Aillapán from Carahue, had been brought by the Chol Chol Foundation to demonstrate her weaving skills.

While looking at the displays of woven pieces I spotted a spindle in one of the baskets that had been made for Marta by her son. She was quite happy to give me a quick spinning demonstration.

And here is a video…soft lighting in the exhibit area has made the footage a little fuzzy.

And there was the leaning vertical loom almost ready for Marta’s demonstration. You can see that the shed rod is fixed in place lashed to the posts of the vertical frame. The string heddles were made and tied in bunches to transport the piece to the US. They will later be put on a heddle stick.

In the picture above, Marta is lifting the warps on the shed rod with her hands and clearing them through the heddles.

You can see that the heddle stick is now in place and is protruding from under her right arm. The heddle stick rests against poles which are placed alongside the vertical posts of the loom frame which means that the warps in the heddles are in a permanently semi-raised position. This means that Marta does not have to pull on the heddle stick in order to raise the warps in the heddle shed. By pushing down on the warps held by the shed rod, just enough space is created to allow her to get her fingers under the warps in the heddles and pull and fully raise them.

You will see the process (executed very quickly!) in the following video:

You see that she holds the shed open with the sword in her right hand while picking up and dropping out the supplementary warps with her left. The tension on the warp and her beat are relaxed.

The next day, after warping and weaving the supplementary warp piece above, Marta allowed me to help her warp for the complementary warp technique that is used to weave their belts. With the warp we made, Marta planned to weave a band with lettering (RDO DE CHILE…recuerdo de Chile, souvenir of Chile). I wove the letter “R” with her guidance and then, sadly, it was time to go. And once again twining enters the picture. Marta starts and finishes her woven wall hangings with weft twining before braiding the warp ends or leaving them as fringe.

On this narrow complementary warp piece we did not use a heddle stick but tied the heddles together in bunches instead and pulled on them to raise the warps.

Marta was a great teacher for me – very patient – and says that she loves to show the process to people who are really interested. I don’t know how many times she answered the question from onlookers “How long does it take you to weave something like that?” I know that question well!!

I was in very good company with Marta on the second day right up there at the loom! On the first day I was very much occupied with taking videos and photos when I suddenly realized that I should probably step back so as not be in the frame of other onlookers’ pictures. It was then that I noticed another particularly interested onlooker with camera in hand… Ann Rowe. So, spending time with Ann made day one even more special.

Another great opportunity at the exhibit was being able to see, for the first time, one of the ikat patterned poncho pieces on the loom.

I have always wondered just how the Mapuche weavers stop the warps from moving out of place while they weave ikat patterned pieces.

They manage to reduce the characteristic blurry feathered effect on the edges of the designs to an absolute minimum. The result is beautifully sharp white figures on the dyed black background.

The set-up on the loom certainly didn’t give away any clues!

I was told that of the one hundred and fifty weavers that belong to the Chol Chol Foundation cooperative only one knows how to make the ikat-patterned ponchos.

One thing that was missing was the double weave belts. I guess I shall just have to take myself off to Chile to see those. And happily now I have a contact in the Mapuche community. While I have been to Mapuche weaving exhibits before in Santiago, I have never been to one where I have been able to have so much interaction with the weaver.

It would also be nice to visit with Celinda and Isobel, the Aymara weavers, that I met at the weavers’ gathering here in Santa Cruz earlier this year. And, if I need any more reasons to justify the trip, I could also go to Doñihue to learn more about the chamantos.

So, here I am at home in Santa Cruz trying to get back into a routine, blogging one day earlier than usual to make up for the missed post last week. I send a big hello and hugs to all the people with whom I wove on this latest US trip and to all the people who so kindly took me into their homes.

Now to decide what to warp up and put on the first pair of those 26 loom bars!