Once again, other projects have kept me away from my loom which means that I’ve only just finished the silk cushion-cover fabric on which I’d been working.
In my last post, I left you with just the tail feathers of a hummingbird figure making their appearance. This isn’t a new pattern. It’s one of the figures that I designed during the pandemic when I was in my “hummingbird phase” and so you might recognize it.
The white-on-white leaf pattern continues along the sides. While it was tempting to fill all that center space with hummingbirds flitting amongst flowers, I decided in the end to keep it pretty open and quiet and only added one more figure.
Here you can see the head-less second hummer as I add a second beam to roll up the woven cloth and advance the warp.
Finished with the second figure and glad that I hadn’t cluttered the center space.
And then it was time to embark on the home stretch by duplicating the strip of foliage pattern that I’d woven at the start.
This photo gives a better view of the white-on-white pattern which is sometimes very hard to capture well. Note how the variegated thread mysteriously changes tone right at the middle of the warp.
With that, it was done…done on the loom, at least. I have yet to wet-finish it.
When laid out flat like this, it’s a bit disappointing how “flat” it looks considering that it is, after all, made from silk.
If I crinkle it up a bit it catches the light in places and shows off some of its sheen….
Of course, I know very well how silk behaves from the many silk projects I’ve woven in the past. It can be deceivingly dull, stiff and almost cotton-like on the loom only to melt into slinky, shiny softness after being washed and, most importantly, given a hard press. I’ll just have to be patient.
Here’s another look at the white-on-white patterning on the sides that I love so much.
When I eventually get myself over to Australia to live, I’ll use this as one face of a cushion cover in my home over there. While thinking about that, I remembered other hummingbird and foliage pieces that I’d woven during the pandemic that I think could be combined to match this project surprisingly well.
I wove this long silk hummingbird band for the pure joy of it. I didn’t have any kind of end product in mind and so it has been just sitting there in a drawer along with the two flower bands that I’d woven to accompany it. I used a warp-faced double weave structure using four sets of string heddles in this case in 60/2 silk. And here I was thinking that the colors in my latest project were all soft and feminine and not like me at all, forgetting that I’d already used very similar ones in this three-part project during those pandemic years.
Here it is with one of the two flower/foliage bands placed alongside.
The two flower/foliage bands together. I was particularly pleased with these two bands as they had been a study in how to switch background colors smoothly back and forth along the length of a band without using a harsh and sudden horizontal transition.
I think the three pieces could be combined to make another cushion cover and that both cushion projects would sit nicely together. So, it will take a move to the other side of the world before I can truly call these projects “done”.
I’ve absolutely loved having this wide-ish warp on my backstrap loom beams. I loved using the longest of my shuttles and hearing the clack-clacking of the long and heavy-ish swords as they worked together in the sheds. The silk was lovely to work with. I was able to create sheds easily with just a little gentle strumming action. I think my next project will involve experimenting and so I’ll most likely be back to good ol’ sampling on narrow warps to see how well my ideas translate to cloth.
Once again, thanks to Will for the gift of the lovely 10/2 variegated thread, to Susan for the white 20/2 and to Betty and Deanna for the white 30/2. This just about finishes off the cone of 30/2 silk with which I was able to do so much! But this isn’t the last I’ll see of it. I still have the little skeins of cochineal-dyed 30/2 which is one of many experiments that I used it for. I’ve yet to come up with a project for those.
I’ll leave you with images of two little slices of culture here in Santa Cruz…
On the left you see San Roque church which is two blocks from my home. It’s one of the venues for the International Baroque Music Festival which takes place here every two years. It’s nice to be able to stroll over there to enjoy a few of the concerts. This year’s festival starts tomorrow night and all the concerts are free (which can make things a little tedious as people line up early to get in on a first-come basis.)
On the right, I give you the view while dining outdoors at Burger King, would you believe?! Indoors, it’s your standard BK unloveliness. That’s the top of the San Lorenzo cathedral that you can see half a block away in the main square.
The bag is done! Phew, I made it work. Actually, I lie…it isn’t quite done. I still have to apply the magnet snaps…one to close the mouth of the bag and one to pin down the flap. I put the word out that I was looking for the kind of round magnet snaps that you see here and, like magic, a friend who happened to be out and about this morning found them. While I do enjoy an excuse to poke around the street markets, it is also nice to have the goods just handed to you like this…almost like shopping online! I am so grateful. The street market that is three blocks from my place has one whole section dedicated to fabric. That’s where I eventually found the fusible interfacing. Just beyond the market is a street of leather and faux leather supply stores. In amongst them is a fabulous store called “Hebillandia” which would translate to Buckleland. That area would have been my first stop on the search for the magnets.
Looking back through my photos and notes, I see that this bag project sort of got started way back in January with this….
3-color reversible pebble weave in 8/2 tencel.
This was an exercise in getting my head back into three-color reversible pebble weave after a break of a few years. I guess I will always associate this particular band with Covid as it was during this project that I got infected. I had to put it on hold until the brain fog had cleared.
But going even further back, you could say that it started with this….
Yarn that I started spinning and plying while enjoying covid Zoom gatherings in 2020 and 2021.
The idea was to weave an item with my hand-spun wool using the 3-color pebble structure that would allow both faces to be seen. I decided to weave a strap. The bag idea grew from there.
Lining cloth in doubled 20/2 cotton.
I’ll say it again…I don’t need a bag. I just like to weave and this project has kept me weaving and out of trouble for some time. I also knew that it would teach me a lot. For example, I learned about fusible interfacing: what it’s called in Spanish, the difference between woven and unwoven, the various weights, how to apply it…most importantly, where exactly I can get it in the street market (although I think that I have bought a lifetime’s worth in three different weights!) Things can just inexplicably disappear from the stores here, like the alum that I had suddenly found so hard to find. I figured I should stock up on interfacing! I learned what makes a good DIY reed-threading hook and about doubling threads in dents. People do think that I am quite mad for weaving the lining fabric for the bag but I did learn a lot from that experience, used up some stash for which I had no other use, and I really like knowing that I wove absolutely every part of the bag (except for the interfacing).
I learned that with determination, or some might say stubbornness, I could make some things work. I might just happen to stumble upon the right way to do things. If not, I learn what not to do for next time. I did try to cut down on the “fails” and “do-overs” by asking for advice in online groups.
Some of the pieces coming together.
I had read about procedures for adding lining. One way is to sew it to the outer fabric before sewing the body of the bag together. Another way is to sew it on its own and then “drop” it in later. It seemed to me at first that the former would be easier and so I am glad that I asked in the Many Shuttles Handwoven Bags Group that Kathrin Weber started on Facebook as the majority of responders seemed to favor a dropped-in lining. I got the tips I needed. It would never have otherwise occurred to me that the lining should be sewn in exactly the same size as the outer fabric. I chose to ignore one tip that I had been generously given and regretted it. Hence the lining had to be dropped in twice. I learned that my “make-it-work” hand-stitching is hard to rip out!
Here is the flap fabric that I showed you last week and some of the other pieces…
Lining fabric, intermesh sides and base, strap and warp-faced plain weave body fabric.
I had so much fun weaving the flap fabric. I think that much of that came from the sheer relief that it was going to work. I had had some serious doubts about the 20/2 wool being able to stand up to this three-color structure. I only broke one thread. Strangely, I broke two when weaving the much simpler intermesh band that encircled the mouth of the bag. I needed that band to cover the top of the pleats that I had placed in the body of the bag. The pleats are supposed to make the whole thing slightly less box-like.
One of the scariest, and subsequently most fun, parts was finishing the flap. I had planned it to be twelve inches wide and that’s precisely what it ended up being. However, when I placed it on the bag with its strap sewn in place, it turned out to be too wide. I had to cut off the natural selvedges which, along with the curve that I wanted to cut into it, gave me way more raw edge with which to deal than I had anticipated.
I applied interfacing to the flap fabric and a hand-woven backing fabric. I sewed a line of stitches just to the inside of the proposed cutting line. Then I cut and applied the tubular band.
I love using woven tubular edgings! The raw edge is entirely enclosed within the tube and well protected. It goes on like magic! I hope that you can make it out on the curved part of the flap in the lower right image. It’s such a neat finish which also serves to strengthen the edge. The very top pattern on the flap fabric is the part that sits on the back of the bag. I have a tutorial on cutting a curved flap and applying tubular bands here.
So, after all this explanation, here is the finished bag. The first shot is the only one that shows that there was an attempt made to shape the bag with pleats. My pleats were probably too small. I’ll show the bag with open flap once I have the magnets in place. Lets see if I can make that work without having to gouge holes in the fabric.
All notes were recorded in my Weaver’s Journal, of course! I used my drop-spindle-spun yarn for the strap and the tubular band. The lining was in 20/2 cotton and a balanced plain weave. Everything else is in the 20/2 worsted-spun wool (that you can see in the skein) in tight warp-faced structures.
What’s next? I think that a couple of days of cotton-spinning on my takli are needed to clear my head. I am thinking about using it in a balanced plain weave (not yet in the open sheer cloth that I have mentioned here before) with some tiny bits of inlay in natural green and brown cotton. I might weave a fairly short piece to use as something very light that sits around the neck. I have decided that I am done with scarves…all that length and those ends flapping around to deal with…they annoy me! Maybe you have to have been raised wearing scarves to have learned to deal with that. In all the years that I lived in ski resorts and Patagonia, I never once wore a scarf. Nevertheless, I won’t be cutting down the ones that I have already woven. Tour de Fleece spinning teams are starting to form on Ravelry. I won’t join a team but I will follow along with my cotton spinning.
My slow-growing takli-spun cotton stash.
I would also like to use some of my hand-spun wool to weave a three-color camera strap. And then there’s a wool Finnweave project calling to me for which I am gathering ideas and a silk ikat with thread that I dye with cochineal…. and maybe a hand-spun cotton ikat?? if I can find cotton dye. That’s plenty to keep me out of trouble!
I will tell you which of these has won top position next time.
More books! Well, just one more for now. I still have a book that I had originally bought for my current book-cover obsession but which I had decided wasn’t quite the right size. I might just cover that one too. I already have a name in mind for it…Daily Mischief. I would like to do this one in Andean Pebble Weave. It’s not an ideal structure for lettering but my friend Ruth in Australia came up with some quirky fun lettering in it when she wove a name tag for herself. A quirky, fun style would suit the Daily Mischief title, I think.
My latest book cover is once again in 30/2 silk and, as I only have natural white, I had to measure out my needs for this project and dye it. I combined two blues that I have with a color called Quarry and I am delighted to say that this is one of those times when I can declare that I got exactly what I had wanted. I am wondering if maybe I am getting better at this!
Although I loved the color, this scraggily heap was rather dull and uninspiring. I had to keep reminding myself that this is soft, sleek silk. When wound back into balls for warping, it started showing once again its silky loveliness. It’s funny how when it is woven on the loom it somehow takes on a very matte cotton-like quality only to recover its sheen once again after having been wet-finished.
The sheen returns.
The color palette…
All the smaller balls are the 60/2 silk which might get used as supplementary weft to create the patterns. The skein on the left is more 30/2 silk for warp that I also dyed.
The warps for the last three book covers that I have woven in 30/2 silk have all had 904 ends and the warp is just short of 13 inches wide. I use Schacht warping stakes that are five inches inches long. I take a lot of care with tension when I am winding my warps for the backstrap loom. These ends aren’t going to cut and threaded through a rigid heddle or reed and then tied and re-tensioned. This means that I need to get it right as I am winding at the stakes. I always say that a beginner can be handed a well-wound and well-tensioned warp and then proceed to weave something decent. But even a very experienced weaver will have a very difficult time dealing with a poorly prepared warp. There are ways of dealing with a certain kinds of tension issues but it doesn’t make for fun weaving.
I love seeing a new wide, evenly-tensioned warp stretched out before me.
For that reason, I don’t like piling more then two inches worth of thread on my stakes in case they lean, even ever so slightly, and will always wind my wide warps in sections. The following pictures are some that I quickly snapped as I worked. First I chose and then laid out my sticks on the floor…cloth beam, warp beam and cross sticks.
Then I decided how many ends I would have in each section. In this case I had 80 in each in the dark blue areas. I wrote that out so that I could check it off as I went. I wound the first section on my stakes, replaced the stakes with safety strings, saved the cross and transfered it all to the sticks on the floor.
I leave the safety strings in place. Later when I am weaving, I only remove the ones at the cloth beam. The ones near the warp beam will make good counting strings when I need to lay in the first row of each of the pattern sections.
Adding more and more sections. If I lose track because I neglected to check off the numbers on my paper, I can always count the safety strings.
This is a very basic figure-eight warp in a single plane. Backstrap loom weavers in some regions add the heddles and often a coil rod as they wind the warp. It’s not my habit to do so even though I was taught this way on a circular warp by my Montagnard (Vietnamese hilltribe) teacher. (You can read more about that here).
Next comes the lashing. I have my own rather unconventional way of doing this. Most backstrap loom weavers will tightly lash a header cord to the cloth and warp beams all the way across the width of the warp. I prefer using a metal rod instead of a header cord.
Using a metal rod in place of a header cord and lashing it to the beam. On this narrow warp from many years ago I only needed two lashing points at the edges of the warp. I prefer using cable ties now.
I have collected rods in a multitude of girths and lengths over the years. My lashing is done with cable ties, usually five to seven depending on the width of the piece. I count the threads so that one is placed exactly in the center and further divide the warp into other sections with two or more…again counting so that the cable ties are placed in exactly the right spots. Two more cable ties are placed at the two edges. Being precise in the placement of the cable ties really helps me when it comes to measuring and setting the width before the first shot of weft is thrown. I can calculate how wide the warp should be in each section that the cable ties divide and distribute the warp threads within those sections as evenly as possible.
Starting on the 452 string heddles.
Next, I set up a second cross so that I can use what I call the “twisty sticks”. These are two sticks that I grasp and twist to help me open the heddle shed. I explain how I set up and use these in my video class Operating a Backstrap Loom which you can stream or buy as a dvd at Taproot Video. You can also see me using them in one of the video clips in this blog post.
You can see the two rods that are bound with rubber bands on my warp in this picture. Those are my “twist sticks”. In the various regions around the world in which the backstrap loom is used, weavers use a variety of techniques to help them raise the heddled threads smoothly and create a clear shed. Using the twisty sticks just happens to be my current favorite way of doing this.
You can also see me using the twisty sticks on a silk warp in this video:
And finally, because I will be weaving this piece in warp-faced plain weave and want to avoid the corrugated look that plain-weave cloth can sometimes develop especially when the warp material is one which has little to no stretch, I insert a coil rod. The coil rod locks the two layers of warp threads together so that they can’t see-saw back and forth as I operate the loom. Many weavers achieve the same thing by weaving an inch or so first at the far end of the loom before turning the loom around and starting at the cloth beam. That also locks the two layers of threads together. In fact, that was the way I was taught to do it by my several of my indigenous teachers but I have since become a big fan of the coil rod. For me, it has other benefits in addition to the one I mention here.
Dar Ku from Myanmar allowed me to spend some time with her as she wove at her backstrap loom You can see the coil rod in her warp, the rod that is furthest to the left.
After measuring and pushing threads around and measuring and repeating, I finally feel that the sett is just right and that I can start weaving. Of course, there was time spent drawing patterns onto charting paper. That was something that I was doing while waiting for the dyed thread to dry. I had decided that this would be a Traveler’s Diary (yes, I settled on the single ‘l’ spelling) and charted out lines of verse that I thought would suit the theme as well as picked the best hummingbird figure to go with them.
The first lines of writing appear.
I really like the way the light blue supplementary weft looks on the light blue spine color and am thinking about perhaps weaving an entire piece that way in which there is only a subtle difference in color between the warp and patterning weft…even more subtle than what you see here. It will depend on how clever I can be at the dye pot. My dyeing is still all a bit “mess or success” at the moment.
The second line of verse and the hummingbird leaving us for its long journey of migration. I have been seeing articles recently on hummingbirds in some parts of the U.S that have actually started to change their habits and winter over.
Bye-bye hummingbirds.You can see the two swords I use to prop open sheds and beat. My current favorite pick-up stick from Guatemala is also there. The little tool with the handle is from Ecuador and also used to beat. I use it when I feel that I need a little extra “oomph” and use it to press the weft into place while inching my way across the warp. I use it in much the same way as highland weavers here use the llama bone tool. My llama bone tools are too harsh for this silk.
It’s still on the loom as I write. It will be cut off, washed and placed on the book cover. I will most likely need to weave narrow strips as I have with the other covers to compensate for lost width during the wet-finishing process. I don’t feel that I can precisely account for shrinkage in the number of warp-ends to ensure a perfect fit. Adding the narrow strips to the other books has actually provided quite a lovely finishing touch. You can see three that were added to the Weaver’s Journal. A fourth was also added to the edge of the back cover.
So that’s the story of the books so far…to be continued. I actually remembered to take a picture of myself at the loom as I approached the end of this one so that I can wish you all a very happy, safe and peaceful transition into the new year.
First of all, I have to tell you just how wonderful it was to hear from so many people behind the scenes about the bonus video clips I talked about in my last post. Those who had bought my tubular band book on Patternfish needed to contact me to gain access to the video gifts. And contact me you did! I have to apologize for not having sent each and every one of you a personal reply…it got a bit overwhelming! But it served as a reminder that there are many many eyes out there reading my posts….yes, actually reading all my ramblings and not just scrolling down through the pictures (although, there’s nothing wrong with that!). I do try to provide a lot of eye candy for those who stop by and don’t have the time to read everything.. All this is to say, thank you. It made me feel good.
You’ll see that the title of this post is I Made a Thing. I did… but this thing I made is not THE thing that I am planning for my hummingbird motifs. That idea is still developing in my head, But, yes, I made A thing. However, there was still some sampling to do as I had come up with another idea for my little birds.
Two posts ago I showed you a new version woven with supplementary weft rather than in double weave in which I used the idea of embellishing the hummers with curls and swirls. The sample above is in 30/2 silk with silk supplementary weft. I used this idea one more time in some green cotton thread that I had brought back from Guatemala in 2008. I think the cotton might be something like 30/2 in size and I am pretty sure that it isn’t mercerized.
In the example on the left, I created the outline and the swirls within the hummingbird shapes with teal supplementary weft. On the right, I filled in the negative space around the swirls with white supplementary weft. That means that the swirls are revealed in the exposed green ground cloth. It’s a different look. I love both versions! I may have to combine both in that distant “real” project”.
An advantage of the using the supplementary-weft technique is the simplicity of the loom set-up. I like to use four sets of string heddles when I weave with fine warp material in warp-faced double weave. I need only use the most basic set-up of all when I use this supplementary-weft technique.
I am using five strands of very fine silk as the supplementary weft and played around with the idea of using strands of different colors. I abandoned the first attempt at the bottom…too pale…and liked the darker version at the top. Dwindling stash has me using color combinations that I might not have normally considered. I do like the green and orange-y red tones together. A weaver friend told me that green goes with everything because, after all, Nature has combined it with every imaginable color of flower. True!
supplementary-weft colors
I love how my backstrap loom allows me to set-up a short sample warp like the one above. I could probably squeeze a couple more inches out of that warp if I remove the coil rod and replace the pencils with finer sticks. I can even drop back to just one stick or even to no stick at all…using a shed loop instead to contain the threads in that half of the warp.
So, while I ponder that “real” project to which I keep referring, I decided to use all that I had learned so far and weave a cover for a book. This is the Thing that I made. I found a book in a size I like in a local store. It has blank, thick lovely pages that have lots of texture. It was a chance to use the cotton thread from Guatemala that has been sitting here since 2008. I had brought it back with plans to use it as supplementary weft rather than as warp. I didn’t have enough green and so I decided to get even more comfortable with orange and use orange as both warp and weft. What I am calling orange in the warp is more of a coral color really.
I love the look of all those crisp white heddles against the green. I normally weave my book covers with the selvedges running along the horizontal edges of the book. Because I wanted my hummingbirds to be be the right way up rather than sideways, I planned this piece to have the selvedges aligned with the vertical sides of the book. I crossed my fingers in the hope that my one short and narrow sample in this thread would give me reliable information in terms of ends per inch. I wanted the cloth to sit right at the vertical edges. I didn’t want to turn it over all four edges and create all that bulk at the corners.
I also decided that I wouldn’t wet-finish the cloth. I know....Shocking! I figured that it’s a nice tight warp-faced weave that doesn’t require further tightening in the water. I simply was not going to deal with accounting for shrinkage. The cotton has a rough rustic feel that I like. Wet finishing would have softened it I am sure, but I am happy with the rustic feel.
Completely removing the cover from the book was easy and made the process so much simpler. This way, I didn’t have to cut the cloth and tuck a tab into the spine. Contact cement has become my friend since I learned to work with it. This isn’t the first book I have ever completely covered with my woven cloth…number 11, in fact, and I have learned some do’s and don’t’s along the way.
And here it is finished. I managed to get the little flower positioned on the spine right where I had wanted it to be .I apologize that I have been lazy lately just snapping all my photos with my tiny ipod, some of them as you can probably tell, late at night . I still haven’t bought myself a new tripod for the “good” camera.
Naturally, questions arise about technique tutorials when I show these projects on social media. I did write a very basic tutorial on this supplementary-weft technique many years ago which you can find right here on my blog. I admit that the tutorial makes me cringe just a little as the base warp that I used in the blue example all those years ago was so terribly corrugated! Nevertheless, the tutorial will give you a good idea of how this works and I know that many people have successfully used it.
A wonderful resource for supplementary-weft techniques that I have come across in the last few months is the website of Guatemalan-based Mari Gray’s Kakaw Designs. Mari writes on her site that Kakaw means cacao and goes on to explain that Kakaw Designs supports “traditions as deep as the root of the cacao tree”. Apart from selling clothing, accessories and even footwear made from Guatemalan textiles that she and her partners have specially designed, she runs tours, offers courses and sells kits for weavers who would like to try their hand at operating a backstrap loom.
One of several pre-warped and pre-heddled loom styles offered by Kakaw Designs.
You can order fully warped and set-up backstrap looms, like the one above, with everything you need to weave brocade (supplementary-weft) patterns using the techniques employed by weavers in San Antonio Aguas Calientes. The kit can be supplemented by classes via Zoom given by Guatemalan weaver Doña Lidia in English. There are classes on basic backstrap loom operation and plain warp-faced weaving as well beginner and intermediate-level brocading classes. For more advanced weavers, they even offer a class in the double-faced supplementary-weft technique. Other offerings include tamale and tortilla-making classes.
A piece that I photographed of a Quetzal bird woven in the double-faced technique while in San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Guatemala in 2008.
This simple bee motif is the first I learned to weave in the double-faced structure with my teacher in Guatemala.
Single and double-faced styles that I studied and wove in the same area in which instructor Doña Lidia is located in Guatemala.
This piece shows the nature of single-faced supplementary-weft patterning.
Instructions are also available via PDF with accompanying video clips for those in time zones that don’t fit well with the scheduled Zoom classes or for those who are not able to attend the live classes for any other reason. Take a look at the Experiences page on the Kakaw Designs website for more details. If any of you have taken any of these classes with Kakaw Designs, please do let me know. Perhaps you would be willing to share pictures.
Doña Lidia being filmed for one of her weaving classes.
From the archives….here’s me practicing all I learned in Guatemala back in 2008. I learned so much that expanded my knowledge of supplementary-weft techniques far beyond what I had learned here in South America. Guatemala is so much about weaving with supplementary weft. and there are so many different styles. Once you learn more about it, you will understand how Guatemalan textiles can be so wonderfully colorful.
In this picture I was weaving the cloth that would become the front and back covers of the journal in which I recorded all the instructions. Even back then I was enjoying creating woven covers for my books. I finished the piece that I had started with my teacher in Guatemala (inset) and used that on the lid of a backstrap loom tool box.
Ah…my weaving space looks so neat and tidy in that picture! I wasn’t living alone back then. Here’s what it looks like now. You can see my book cover cloth on the loom and the rest is all the accompanying creative chaos.
I’ll finish by showing you a picture that Kathy sent me of her warp-faced double weave project. She used some rather soft cotton that she happened to have in her stash and was surprised that it behaved so well. Warp-faced double weave is a dense structure and can be hard on softer yarn so that’s something about which you should be careful when choosing thread for this technique. Crochet cotton with its high twist works very well when you are learning. With experience you could ty branching out to using less hardy materials. Kathy has used motifs from my Warp-faced Double Weave on Inkle Looms book but she is a backstrap-loom gal at heart and prefers to weave double weave that way. She is using just two basic sheds as I teach in my inkle loom book.
Warp-faced Double Weave is wonderfully versatile in the range of images that it allows you create…from whimsical birds, butterflies and bunnies to delicate leaf and floral patterns, to the bold angular shapes of Mapuche-style motifs or the more intricate Al Sadu-style patterns of the Bedouin. It’s one of my favorite structures for creating images and lettering.
The Garden Bands are finished and now the question is whether to use them in a project and, if the answer is yes, how?
In my last blog post, I showed you the first of the two bands sitting alongside my hummingbird band.
When I had finished the hummingbird band, I had been thinking about cutting it into two or three pieces, placing them side by side and making “something”. Friends in one of my Zoom groups were not enthusiastic and suggested I weave two bands to flank the hummers and use the whole thing as a wall hanging. I liked the idea of not having to cut (and possibly regret having done so). On top of that, weaving accompanying narrow bands meant that I could once again try out the little flower motifs and the subtle color transitions that I had been sampling in 20/2 cotton.
Now both bands are finished and here they are together…..
I am really pleased with them and may never use them for anything at all. I just really enjoyed creating them. I will play around with placing them next to the hummingbirds in various ways to create symmetry or even asymmetry as some of my weaving friends have suggested. I might keep the borders or perhaps fold them back so that they are hidden. I might hang them together so that they look like one complete piece or leave space between them.
Right now, I think I just need to leave them be and think about all that. Put it this way, there won’t be any cutting or sewing happening just yet.
What I would like to do next is sample these motifs in heavier thread. I have some 8/2 tencel that I would like to try. It will be interesting to see how wide the piece will be in this tencel. I have quite a few people asking me if I plan to publish these patterns and I am not really sure how they will look on a larger scale. They are fine and delicate in 60/2 silk. How will they look in 8/2 tencel?
At the same time I am not even sure if I would like to publish the hummingbirds. The hummingbirds have become part of my pandemic experience…they represent my yearning to be out of all this and zipping about freely. My friends in the States tell me that it is time to take in their feeders as the hummingbirds start their migration south. It must be so nice spotting the first ones arriving at the start of the season the following year. I have often thought about doing a similar seasonal change by spending the mild winters here in Bolivia and the summers in Australia but that was a pre-pandemic dream. I am not sure if I can pull that off any more. I, like many of you I am sure, have had to modify plans with the times.
This is the warp I created for the second band…
In this photo, I have finished creating the heddles for one half of the warp in this warp-faced double weave structure (one heddle set for all the light threads, and one for the darks), and have just started creating a third set for the light threads on the other side of the cross. A fourth will hold all the dark threads on that side of the cross. Those of you who have used my book Warp-faced Double Weave on Inkle Looms will have learned a two-shed set-up for this same structure that is perfect for the inkle loom. I only use four sets of heddles when I am weaving with a lot of ends and especially if the thread is fine. The inkle loom is perfect for the more basic two-shed set-up with heavier thread and fewer ends. Bolivian weavers who use this structure will use the method that is traditionally used in their community. Some of them use the two-shed method even when the threads are fine and numerous. This was the way that I was initially taught. Others use a four-shed set-up.
Working with multiple sets of heddles for a warp-faced structure on a fixed-tension loom, like the horizontal ground looms that are used in certain areas of Bolivia and Peru, is challenging.
Bunches of string heddles control the colored layers of warps on the horizontal loom of Taquile Island, Peru
In my experience, using a loom where the weaver can modify tension at will with his or her body makes the process of using multiple heddles much easier. Of course, I am talking about the backstrap loom. The weaver can control just how much the warp threads are able to rise and bend to form as large a shed as necessary without dragging up any sticky neighboring threads that don’t belong, and without causing abrasion.
A two-heddle set-up for Andean Pebble Weave for one of my Within These Walls panels.
When I was first taught Andean Pebble Weave way back in 1996 using narrow warps with quite fine thread, I was shown how to manage two sets of heddles. It took quite some time to figure out what was going on. I would just watch my teachers hands deftly manipulating the heddles, magically and effortlessly creating clean sheds, but at first was not able to replicate the moves. What I wasn’t noticing was how the rest of the body was also involved in the process. It wasn’t only about what their hands were doing. My teachers had to move to slightly relax tension on the warp while working with their hands. I broke a few warp threads in my rough handling before that key piece of information clicked. Those broken threads did not make me popular! You might understand what the title of this blog post is about now.
On narrow warps, I was able to wrap one set of heddles over one hand and roll it away while pulling up on the other heddle with the other hand. The wrapping and rolling tightens all the threads in those heddles. It holds them taut and in place so that they simply cannot grab on to neighboring threads and become part of a shed in which they don’t belong.
Here’s 7-year old Lily doing just that:
This and some of the following images are screen shots from videos that I took and will be blurry as a result. I think they still allow you to see what is going on. You can see how slack Lily’s warp is because she has relaxed tension (more than is really necessary as you can get away with very slight movements when the warp is this narrow). One hand is pulling up the second group of heddles while the other wraps and rolls the first set away.
Here’s my student Berna doing the same: (Hi Berna! I know you read this blog from time to time). She is raising the first heddle while rolling the other away. You can see how her left pinky rests on the warp and acts as the pivot point for the roll. Having placed her other pinky within the shed to save it, her body is on its way to returning to the “neutral” position in which the tension on the warp is no longer relaxed. She had relaxed tension just enough to enable her to save the shed on her finger. She can later replace her finger within the shed with a sword to beat.
Susan learned all this about operating a loom with two sets of heddles on narrow warps from me during my visits in the States. She needed to contact me recently after having set up the beautiful Andean Pebble Weave warp (below) with its two sets of pretty heddles as it’s her first time attempting something this wide. She works with wood and has had to prepare swords that will suit the width of this new project. I hope that she sends pictures of them.
The heddles on their rods fill a narrower space than the width of the warp as some of the heddles hold two threads. This difference in width is expected as the woven cloth will be a fair bit narrower than the width of the warp as you see it here. The fact that this structure uses warp floats on both faces of the fabric means that the fabric will be narrower and thicker than one with the same number of ends in plain weave.
Isn’t this warp gorgeous? I can’t wait to see what she does with this asymmetric layout.
This is Susan’s first attempt at this kind of width having woven several beautiful Andean Pebble Weave guitar straps for friends and family which have given her plenty of practice in winding nicely-tensioned warps and making string heddles. Of course, now her question is how to manage these two sets of much wider heddles. A hand is simply not large enough to wrap and roll these.
For wide warps, I was taught to substitute a sword for the hand….
Here I am demonstrating doing this for a group of friends and exaggerating somewhat to show the effect of moving my body forward to relax tension on the warp. The more I move forward, the larger the shed. The edge of the sword rests on the warp and is the pivot point. Once the shed is open, I can let go of the sword in the wrapped-and-rolled heddle, maintain the forward position, keep pulling up on the heddle rod, and save the open shed on a sword. You can see how my sword is completely wrapped within the heddles and rolled. So, an important tip is to take account of the width of your sword when you are making the heddles. If they are shorter than the width of the sword, this move will not work so well. If they are a lot longer, they will be clumsy.
This still-shot which I grabbed from one of my videos, shows a backstrap weaver in Peru positioning herself to wrap and roll her sword away while her other hand lifts the heddle nearest to her. She chooses to use a sword rather than her hand even on this relatively narrow warp. Her sword sits just below the heddle stick which shows that her heddles are the perfect length for this. That is what I always aim for. No doubt she has been doing this for most of her life and doesn’t even need to think about it.
Now you can see her raised heddle a lot more clearly and her forward position is evident.
So, this was precisely what I was doing on my double-weave Garden warp. I would roll Heddle One away with my hand while lifting Heddle Two. And I worked Heddles Three and Four in the same way. It enabled me to work with this fine 60/2 silk without breaking any threads from abrasion and achieve nice clean sheds every time.
When working with just one heddle together with a shed rod, I like to use what I call the “twisty stick” method. You can see this in action in this video clip. Twisting the two sticks tightens that layer of threads so that the threads remain taut and in place while I bend and raise the threads in the other layer. I go into this in more detail (how to set it up etc) in my video class Operating a Backstrap Loom.
You can see me using the twisty sticks a few times in this next video where I am nearing the end of a warp of 60/2 silk…
Of course, it is important to point out that there are many many different methods used by backstrap weavers to operate their looms. I share with you some of my current favorite methods that work well for me with a variety of warp materials. There is no single correct way to do any of this. Some materials, for example, are just friendlier in terms of stickiness and work well with simpler methods. Some materials are so sturdy that the weaver can get away with simply grabbing and pulling up on the heddle while sawing it back and forth along the warp to clear the shed and remove any stray threads that don’t belong.
How I would love to be there with all of you who are venturing into weaving on backstrap looms. Who knows when that will be possible? In the meantime, I hope that some of what you have seen here today is helpful and perhaps interesting even to those who don’t use a backstrap loom.
It’s time to wet finish the Garden and Hummingbird bands and give them a good hard press in order to better enjoy the loveliness of the silk. Right now they could easily be mistaken for cotton. I am looking forward to bringing out their sheen.
