pebble weave – Page 26 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving- Have sticks, will travel here, there and everywhere!

HAVE STICKS…WILL TRAVEL HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE!

Oh you can’t get to heaven in a little red canoe,

‘Cos God’s favorite color is Carolina blue.

My friend Lisa told me this today as we gazed up at the perfect blue sky in the yard of her North Carolina home. Forgive me if I am getting repetitive when I go on about the wonderful colors of spring and how beautiful everything is here. I realize how much I miss seasons in my jungly home in Bolivia where we experience warm-and-humid or hot-and-humid weather with a smattering of cool days in between.

spring colorsdsz — The colors of spring… pink azaleas, the blue eggs of what we believe to be a northern mockingbird spotted in Maryland, luscious ripe strawberries on the roadside,yellow flowers – we don’t know what these are called – and a blue-eyed happy chappy enjoying his yard on a warm spring day.

After the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, I spent a few days in the home of Claudia, one of Weavolution’s founders and her friends in Maryland. We had gorgeous drives through rural Maryland on the way to and from the festival – green rolling fields dotted with deep red barns and silos.

I had ridden up to Maryland from North Carolina with my friends Lisa and Ryan stopping by the Shot Tower Historical State Park to stroll and break the journey. I was making a band in Andean pebble weave in the back of the car while Lisa worked with her Turkish spindle in the front. The inkle loom I borrowed was a perfect lap size but the work space between the top and front peg was a little small for the cross sticks and two sets of string heddles.

The finished band has twelve spaced motifs for twelve key fobs with motifs from pre-Columbian Peru as well as contemporary Bolivian and Peruvian ones. I have given away a lot of my key fobs on this trip and need to replenish my stock!

turkish spindle — A beautiful ball of worsted spun by Lisa on her Spanish Peacock Turkish spindle

You can see that I didn’t use the inkle loom as it was intended, with its shed making system, but, rather, used it simply as a frame and set up two sets of continuous string heddles as required by Andean pebble weave. The sheds are a lot easier to open on my backstrap loom and I had to take extra care on the inkle loom to make sure they were well cleared before passing the weft. The resulting band isn’t quite as stiff as the ones that I normally produce on my backstrap loom but I would never have been able to backstrap weave in the car!

We stayed the first night with Mike King of The Spanish Peacock and his wife TJ. Mike makes superbly hand crafted precision spindles, lucets and weaving tools in a variety of gorgeous woods – beautiful to look at, touch and use. He was interested to see the humble little Bolivian drop spindle that I had brought along with me, which wobbles comically to and fro as it spins, as well as the wooden backstrap weaving tools, shiny and smooth with age and use that I have collected in South America.

Over his left shoulder in the above picture you can see mini inkle looms that he makes and calls “tinkles”.

His stand at MSWF was spindlers’ heaven and moments after the gates opened it was full of eager shoppers lining up to make purchases. Even before the show could open he had to turn down other vendors who were keen to get their hands on his beautiful work.

We spent Friday night with Mike and TJ as they gathered their energies to face the onslaught the following day. TJ showed us the beautiful machine embroidered outfits she makes for their SCA events.

And then suddenly it was upon us – day one of Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival – described by Wikipedia as “the largest and longest-running showcase of domestic sheep and wool in the United States. …the heat, the crowds and the craziness. I couldn’t get anywhere near Mike and TJ for the rest of the day! I hear that last year canoes were required to navigate the rain-soaked grounds so I really can’t complain about the weather.

demo day 1STITCH — Once I was able to get into shorts, I felt that I might just survive the day. I demonstrated backtrap weaving at the Weavolution meetup at noon. It was fun to see some of those avatars come to life and meet members of some of the local guilds as well as some weavers-to-be.

weavolution at meetup — Some of the Weavolution gang- founder Claudia Segal, Kim Pierce, Deb McClintock, Sharon Carey and Maurice Blackburn.

thai reed — Deb McClintock, who was visiting from Texas, knowing about my desire to get hold of a real reed to use on my backstrap loom, brought this beautiful Thai reed for me as a gift. This piece has been designed to be used as a wall hanger on which to drape a weaving but she gave it to me so that I could perhaps have someone in Bolivia copy it and make a full sized reed. Isn’t it gorgeous?

There were just too many sights, sounds and smells on the first day. The afternoon saw people snoozing sprawled out on the grass in the shade , in their cars or any place out of the sun. Few things really held my attention for long on day one – it was all a little overwhelming.

I did enjoy seeing the animals in the relatively uncrowded outdoor areas. The vendor halls on the other hand were packed and too hard to negotiate with inkle loom slung over my shoulder and three backstrap looms in tow.

And then I found my little oasis – the glorious yurt!

It was cool and fresh inside and well insulated from the heat with plush skins on which to sit.

The trellised walls provided the perfect place for tying my backstrap loom.

And there I sat out the afternoon with many visitors who were also quite happy to come in and enjoy the relative cool. Most assumed that I was “keeper of the yurt” and plied me with questions.

Next year I will definitely make that my place to be.

I think I will bring a bunch of backstrap weavings to decorate the walls and we can have our meet up in there!

Lisa took the photo at left of the opening in the top of the yurt surrounded by decorative tassels.

The opening provided good lighting and air circulation and made the yurt a very exotic and comfortable spot in which to weave.

I stayed that night at Claudia’s place where we rehydrated and planned day two – up and out early to catch the start of Sheep to Shawl. I had never attended one of these before and it was very entertaining. Apparently the first Sheep to Shawl was held in England as far back as 1811.

S2S STITCH — Probably one of the more unusual groups was the Harley Davidson team dressed in denim with motorcycle and spinning wheel revved and ready to go. Their warp was patterned in orange flame colors and they spun and wove to “Born to be Wild”.

MUSIC AND WINNER S2S — If “Born to be Wild” wasn’t to your taste you could listen to some good old Australian bush and shearing ditties. I enjoyed hearing some of those old tunes and they attracted other Aussies to the stage.You can see the winning Bronson lace shawl at right woven by a group wearing colonial-style costume.

TEXTILES DAY 2 — From Sheep to Shawl I headed to the vendors’ halls where I was captivated by a stand of ethnic textiles from around the world. I particularly like the black and white Moroccan textile upper left which is several bands sewn together. I would like to try to reproduce some of those designs. The band lower right is Peruvian from another stand and is woven in Andean pebble weave – some nice motifs to add to my collection. I think I revisited the ethnic textile stand four more times – definitely my favorite.

Then it was time to prepare for the Weavolution meet up and backstrap demonstration.

Although attendance in general seemed to be less on day two of the show, I had a bigger audience at the backstrap demo the second day and the slightly cooler temperature made it a whole lot more fun.

I told you in my last post about the charming English gent I met at Sheep to Shawl and who later came to my demo. I am sure that you have all worked out by now that that was Rodrick Owen.

Having seen my band on the inkle loom on the previous day, Carla Gladstone brought her own inkle loom along at my invitation for a pebble weave class.

Mary Pflueger of the Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore also brought along a warp and set up to backstrap

weave and learn pebble weave.

We had a pleasant afternoon weaving. I had seen pretty much everything I wanted by that time and so was quite content to hang out at the meet up point and chat to these two ladies. I was happy to see Rodrick Owen and his friend Terry Flynn return after lunch to chat with me about Andean sling braiding and one of my favorite weaving authors, Adele Cahlander. I got to show him one of the braids that I learned from a sling maker in Peru. We also chatted about mutual acquaintances in the Santa Cruz Guild in California. Ingrid, your name was mentioned more than once!

R OWEN — A visit from Roderick Owen, master braider, pictured below with Mary on the left and Terry.

FESTIVAL END — And all good things must come to an end. At left you can see a rather empty stand at The Spanish Peacock. I left a somewhat shell-shocked Mike out of the picture! Only these kids still had enough energy to leap and dance at the end of the day as musicians and stomping puppets entertained them.

I lingered in Maryland a few more days after the show staying at Claudia’s home. Claudia had some friends over for a day of backstrap weaving. One lady brought an inkle loom on which to learn Andean pebble weave.

CLASS — Some brightly colored freebie rulers that I picked up at the Maryland Show made excellent improvised beaters. Claudia has an enormous basement studio with plenty of places to tie up looms. We wove simple warp float patterns. Above, I am showing Carol (aka Retrothreads on Weavolution) good heddle opening technique to avoid abrading her warps and having them pill.

class and book — Kim aka Clay2Yarn on Weavolution came along bringing her energy and good humor too and wove simple warp floats. She brought me a gift of the Jacqui Carey braiding book!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Mary with her first ever pebble weave band woven on a backstrap loom

Claudia, Janet and I went to a meeting of the Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore where Claudia gave a presentation on Weavolution.

Mary Pflueger, who had woven with me on Sunday at Sheep and Wool, attended and brought along her completed pebble weave band to show me.

I gave a backstrap weaving demo and got to show off Mary’s band too. I just love knowing that my e-monograph is being put to use and that people are enjoying the technique and producing things.

The guild members were fun and very welcoming folks and we had a great evening. I had already met some of them at MSWF and it was nice catching up again.

This was the first weaving guild meeting I had ever attended…sigh! Wish we had these back in Bolivia – so many talented people all in one space!

Rush, rush, rush…the next day I took the train back down to North Carolina to my friend Lisa. We had a trip to the family beach house on Oak Island planned for the weekend.

BEACH FRIdsz — Quite a change of scene! But…have sticks, will travel…while the guys played in the surf I continued my pebble weave project on the inkle loom and Lisa sat spinning. I don’t know how she managed as there was quite a stiff breeze blowing which is what kept us out of the water. Elderly folks were jogging, cycling and walking their dogs while we two crazy gals sat with our fibery projects. I even got a bit of a tan.

beach house weavingdsz — Here, there and everywhere….backstrap weaving on the porch of the beach house. Lisa started a jajim-a Central Asian textile- last year in the summer but had to put it away as she has nowhere to weave indoors. Now it is back out again as the weather warms up and she can once again weave outside.

Now we are back in Lincolnton and time is running out. One more backstrap weaving demo at Lisa’s local weaving guild gave me an opportunity to see Betsy’s gorgeous tencel shadow weave pieces.

Just when I had convinced myself that shadow weave needs four colors to work well, I see Betsy’s two stunning pieces in two colors. To me they have a certain oriental look about them. I find shadow weave fascinating!

I have now been away from home for over a month and am starting to feel a bit weary and a tad homesick too. As I have decided to come back for Convergence, my new catch phrase is…”I’ll do that when I come back in July”. So the felting, cut pile weaving and other projects have been added to a long list of things to get into on my next visit. However, one project demanded immediate attention…

ANDEAN PEBBLE WEAVE ON A FOUR-SHAFT LOOM

pebble weave four shaft loom — Lisa and I are warping buddies here as I pass the warps to her to be threaded through the heddles.

I have this all figured out now and Lisa and I re-warped her four-shaft six-treadle loom with a tiny sample band, this time using all four shafts with no string heddles and, once again, with the reed removed.

I can weave plain pebble weave on this loom using the shafts. Of course, when one wants to form patterns, the warps must be manipulated by hand for every other weft pass. As I mentioned in my last post, the thing I love most about this loom is the beautiful wide clean sheds it creates with a twiddle of the toes!

Maurice Blackburn came over and put my rough draft into his computer program and showed me how to do the notation for the tie ups. I have had little experience reading the classic weaving drafts and needed some guidance. Maurice kindly came to my rescue.

I intend to add this as an appendix to my e-monograph Andean Pebble Weave and am extremely excited about it!

4 shaft — LEFT: The tiny sample band underway with some simple motifs. RIGHT: Preparing to pick up warps by hand to form motifs

Jennifer Jordan was one of the first people to contact me and tell me about the bands she has been weaving in Andean pebble weave following the instructions in my e-monograph. This is a photo of her second project band and she certainly seems to have gotten the hang of it. Thanks to Jennifer and all the other weavers who have contacted me so far.

The other project that simply couldn’t be put off until July was pinning down the kinds of yarn that are suitable for warp faced weaving on a backstrap loom and readily available in US stores, like Michael’s and Joanne’s.

I have bought examples of four different brands – all crochet cotton – and will be providing photos and more information soon.

I am leaving this until I get home so I can weave bands with them and see how they perform.

oak island — With lingering thoughts of the sea, I am heading home to landlocked Bolivia.

Tomorrow, (Wednesday) I will be attempting to fly back to Bolivia. I say “attempting” as I am traveling on a standby ticket and it seems that I may get stuck in La Paz along the way.

Well I can think of a lot worse places for a forced stopover. I haven’t been to La Paz for quite some time now and it is a textile lover’s paradise!!

So…have sticks, will travel. The next place my backstrap loom gets tied up may be at 4000 meters somewhere in La Paz. I would really like to get this demo piece finished, off the loom and made into something useful.

And I would really love to get back home and settled and put some more tutorials together for this blog. My head is full of plans.

A big, warm thank you to all my new friends in the US who made this trip so memorable and amazing. I hope we continue to meet and interact online. 🙂 My next visit will be in July in New Mexico for Convergence!

STOP PRESS………….

Wednesday evening…here I sit in Miami airport at the gate waiting for my flight to Bolivia.

I am not very optimistic about my chance of getting on this flight and I have blanket and pillow on hand and my eye on a good piece of floor on which to pass the night. More importantly I have a good supply of chocolate!

Now what do you think has just appeared in my inbox?…Lisa has leaped back onto the four-shaft loom since my departure this morning and, after a wee false start, is weaving this lovely Chincheros motif from my Andean Pebble Weave monograph.

She is still working on the original warp that we set up on the four-shaft loom with string heddles as she doesn’t want to waste it.

Woo hoo! I am so pleased!!

Backstrap Weaving- Madness at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

MARYLAND SHEEP AND WOOL FESTIVAL – MAY 1 AND 2

day two demo — Backstrap weaving at the Weavolution meetup on Sunday. I got to meet a lot of the people behind those avatars and user names. It turned out that the rabbit building where we all met up was one of the coolest places in the whole festival.

You may remember a few weeks back when I was still in Bolivia and packing all my “on the road” crafting bits and pieces for this trip, I said that if I didn’t get my Friday blog post out, that meant that I was having too good a time. Well it finally got to me. Waaaay too much fun and craziness at the Maryland Festival combined with a stay with my friends Claudia, Janet and David from Weavolution in Montgomery County, a ten-hour train trip back down to North Carolina and now packing for a weekend at the beach means that I can only give you a mini post this week and a hint of the good things to come.

I had fun backstrap weaving on both days and my wallet came out quite unscathed – I only bought a dvd. But I had plenty of time to watch the Sheep to Shawl, wander the vendors halls , pet the animals, take photos and meet and talk to loads of interesting people.

demo of pebble weave — I wove some pebble weave at the show on my backstrap loom and also took a sample on an inkle loom that I had woven in the car on the way up to Maryland from North Carolina. I don’t know who took this shot – a lot of people have sent me pictures and I thank you all.

The rabbit building was cool but this was THE COOLEST PLACE at the festival. I tied up my loom and spent the afternoon weaving in a yurt. The felt was great insulation, I had beautiful skins on which to sit and some cool grass for my toes and the opening in the roof aided good air circulation. Here I am shiny faced and slightly bedraggled after a day in the heat but having a ball!

Now I must leave you or this mini post will turn into a small novel. I am about to go out and plant a herb garden with Lisa. Before I do, I would like to leave you with a little story and a teaser until I can write my complete post next week.

While watching the Sheep to Shawl – my first one ever on day two of the show, I climbed up onto the stage to get a better view of the shawl judging. Along came a charming English gent who said that he envied my lofty position from which to take photos. Well, I just told him to come on up where he spotted the inkle loom I had slung over my shoulder with my pebble weave band and we got to chatting. I invited him to come and watch my backstrap demo at noon, he assured me he would and we parted.

I was in full swing at the demo setting up my loom and getting ready to weave when my new British friend sat by my side and then presented me with a beautiful braid that he made from fiber he had picked up at the show…and then he showed me these…

So, have you guessed his identity? I’ll give you another clue…he was recently the subject of one of Syne Mitchell’s Weavecasts….

Speaking of Syne Mitchell and WeaveZine, my e-monograph has been selling well and I have already met a bunch of people here who have bought it and are using it. I will be writing with some yarn recommendations for backstrap weaving in my next post following very useful feedback I have had from some folks..

More about my encounter with my new braiding buddy and a bunch of other MSWF antics as well as some pre-and-post-festival fiber fun soon!

We are off to Oak Island this weekend. I am looking forward to dipping my toes in the Atlantic, eating shrimp, inkling in the car and backstrap weaving on the porch of the beach house. Next week we are going to try out my theory for getting Andean pebble weave onto the four-shaft loom – I have got it down on paper and am dying to try it.

See you then! 🙂

Backstrap Weaving: Looms, MORE looms and southern hospitality.

Spring has sprung in North Carolina! I am spending some time here in Lincoln County with my online buddy Lisa and her family. Lisa’s father owns and runs the local newspaper and is a wealth of information on local history and its colorful characters and has kept me highly entertained with stories throughout my stay over breakfasts and dinners of typical southern treats. He tells me that North Carolina, while being one of the ten most populous states in the US, is also one of the most forested. This town looks like a gorgeous well manicured and landscaped park in which people have been graciously allowed to place their homes – luscious, expansive green front lawns, azaleas in full bloom, majestic oaks, show-case flower beds and vegetable and herb gardens abound. You can barely see the houses amongst the trees and shrubs – so gorgeous!..so spacious! Oh, and I heard a mocking bird yesterday! – To Kill A Mockingbird is my favorite book.

And I have been treated to helping upon helping of southern hospitality. I am so tickled everytime someone calls me ma’am! I was eager to try some typical southern food – all those names that we hear in movies and TV shows and have no clue about – so Lisa’s husband made me a batch of “biscuits” which we enjoyed with Lisa’s homemade berry jams. We have biscuits in Australia but our biscuits are what people in North America call cookies.

foodDSZ — LEFT: Homemade buttermilk biscuits…RIGHT: A good southern breakfast.

We went out for a good southern breakfast. The largest plate in the above picture is mine! – biscuits with gravy, corn grits and country ham. I still can’t believe I ate all that! I asked about chitlins as I have always wondered about those but the general reaction at the table made me think that I would be better off not trying them!

For something different, Lisa and Ryan took me to their favorite Thai restaurant as I had mentioned that south-east Asian food is something that I miss in Bolivia.

On entering the restaurant, Lisa and I were drawn immediately to the textiles that decorated the walls and tables. The owner was so pleased by our interest in Thai weaving that he gave us each a woven bag from Thailand!

So, what has been planned for my visit apart from eating? – lots and lots of fibery fun! Lisa and I met online through a discussion on her fabulous yurt band which you may remember from a previous post. Finally my little yurt band border bands get to meet their inspiration. You can see them there at right next to the huge forty-eight foot yurt band. There is nothing like seeing something like this “for real” after having admired it for so long online. The colors are so much richer and I am suprised at how loose and flexible the weave is compared to South American bands which are beaten hard into a stiff firm fabric.

So Lisa and I met on Ravelry where she was trying to figure out the structure of the yurt band weave to see if she could reproduce it. Photos were flying back and forth in cyber space and it was only after seeing the back side of the textile that I finally recognized it as simple warp floats. We then set about weaving a tiny reproduction – the “s” motif on which I made a tutorial here. We laugh about the fact that a chica in South America helped a gal in North America figure out a weave from Central Asia – and all online! And thus a friendship was formed.

By the way, my friend Caroline in Australia has been doing her own investigation into other kinds of yurt band construction which you can read about here. She wove a three-color reproduction band recently.

small looms — Inkle, cardboard, tapestry, card, backstrap, frame and rigid heddle looms!

Lisa is a felter, spinner, knitter, painter, braider, weaver and loom gatherer. In an attempt to clear some space so we could use her four-shaft floor loom, we pulled no less than fourteen looms out of her studio! Now what am I , the backstrap weaver doing on a four-shaft loom? I will tell you more about that little adventure later on.

In the meantime, check out Lisa’s fabulous felt work above. Lisa is in the local fiber guild and SCA group and so her projects tend to involve historical reproductions with her SCA companions as well as work with the fiber guild which gives her an outlet for more contemporary pieces.

Lisa’s felted pouch and inkle loom woven strap. I can’t wait to make one and decorate it with a backstrap woven band. The yurt design cell phone pouch I wove for Lisa is next to it with her iphone inside – a perfect fit.

The piece above on the left has a Scythian design. The Scythian people existed on the Central Asian steppe around 500 BC and a feature of their animal motifs is the twisted hindquarters.

The piece above on the right is a Viking design.

There are a lot of felted pieces in Lisa’s home. I am seated on a felt cushion with my feet on a felted rug and, hopefully, if time permits, Lisa will teach me to make a felted pouch like the one at left. I will do a South American motif – shock! – and weave a strap on my backstrap loom.

lisas cut pile — I have my fingers crossed for a cut pile lesson or two while here too! Lisa has one started on her Mirrix loom which you can see on the left. The felt rug in the center is one she bought and is from Kazakhstan and I think it is splendid. At right, check out her grin as she peruses her newly arrived catalog from the “Secrets of the Silk Road” exhibition currently at the Bower Museum in Santa Ana.

Did I mention that she is also a terrific spinner? Here are a few of her most treasured spindles – Turkish and Tibetan styles, phangs from Ladakh, a Kundert, which is her workhorse spindle, and sentimentally valuable ones gifted by her husband as well as a bead whorl crafted by 5 1/2 year-old Joshua.

Lisa loves to teach and share and I got to see her in her element at an Earth Day Festival last weekend, where she showed and taught her crafts.

lisa braiding with scoutsDSZ — Lisa has taught me that finger loop braiding need not be limited to short braids as I had thought. She has a nifty way of hooking the end around her toe and an even niftier way of tamping down the braid which I will show you in a video. Here, she is teaching a five-strand braid to girl scouts, Carolie and Julia who had a ball with it.

When my weaving tecaher in Potosi taught me a six-strand finger loop flat braid, I would make the braid while she would tamp it down using the side of her hand with a slicing action. So it seemed that two people were required to work together to make the braid nicely. Not so… check out Lisa’s cool foot action in this video!

weaving at earth dayDSZ — I got to demonstrate backstrap weaving and that was a lot of fun. There was a convenient pole in our area to which I could tie up.

earth day miscDSZ — There was music and the weaver eye, forever on the lookout, spotted the ikat guitar strap

I wove pebble weave to promote my new e-monograph and it was quite a different experience to weaving at CNCH where my audience was largely weavers.

At this Earth Day event a lot of the people had never seen weaving demonstrated in any form and we attracted quite a lot of onlookers.

Lisa was spinning and explaining the felting process while I knelt on the floor and wove.

Caught up in the excitement of it all, I completely forgot that that kneeling position is not something I can maintain for longer that five minutes at home! I sat there happily for a couple of hours!

earth day activitiesDSZ — Kids were kept busy painting Earth Day flags. I was quite taken with a lady who was selling cards on recycled paper with photographs of her cats-eye-glasses-1960’s youth and with a wicked sense of humor. She gave a pair of cats-eye sunglasses to her vistors and that led to this photo op with me there in the center. Becca, from Shiele Museum, who was making paper flowers with kids, kind of caught the whole sunny spirit of the day with her colorful clothes and radiant smile.

The next day I was invited to visit with British couple Maurice and Ursula. Those of you who are on Weavetech may know Maurice and the superbly crafted looms he made for himself. Maurice, on hearing that there was another “British Subject” in town, promptly invited me to tea and then lunch and a visit with his four and eight-shaft floor looms and weaving studio. Ursula’s passion is quilting.

morris and ursulaDSZ — Maurice in his studio. He also built the spinning wheel in the center. Ursula posed with her quilt which she has finished piecing together but has yet to quilt. She is still experimenting with designs on her recently purchased quilting machine. Maurice and Ursula can work side by side on their fiber pursuits in the studio. The photo does not show the true colors unfortunately. The main colors are deep purple and apple green and they are stunning together.

Since putting out my e-monograph on Andean Pebble Weave, I have had a couple of enquiries about whether the technique can be worked on a four-shaft loom. Sadly, I didn’t feel qualified to answer those questions well and so I was determined to get educated about that on this part of my trip and Maurice was extremely helpful. I had never seen a four-shaft loom “in person” and I don’t think that Maurice was all that familiar with a backstrap loom. So together we muddled through and came up with a possible way to get the pebble weave going on this kind of loom if you simply didn’t have any other kind of loom to work with.

THE 4H LOOM 1DSZ — Here Lisa and I are ready to attack this project. I got a lesson in warping one of these looms with this tiny narrow warp. We warped front to back with Lisa sitting on a stool behind the harnesses while I fed the yarns to her. We only used two harnesses and set up the pebble sheds in those.

starting 4h pebbleDSZ — All set up and on our way. We used a pair of string heddles in front to form the picking cross and removed the reed and away we went. All went very smoothly starting off with plain pebble weave. We are using an eight-revolution warp which gives us sixteen warps from which to pick patterns. This wee band looks quite funny on this large loom.

Lisa on her wayDSZ — The first motif is started and Lisa’s smile says it all.

LISA PROCEEDINGDSZ — More motifs start to take shape and all is working well, The tension is just right as the motifs are not elongated and there is enough room to get hands and sticks in to do the pick up.

Opening the heddle sheds to form a picking cross and then using a stick to pick up the pattern warps.

So, we had fun with this. Lisa learned to make patterned bands (she had graciously tested my instructions for plain pebble weave before I published my e-monograph) and I learned a little about the workings of a four-shaft floor loom. What a lovely wide shed those harnesses create with the minimum of effort.

EDIT…..As I get more familiar with this loom and its workings, I have had the famous aha! moment and figured a way to do away with the string heddles and get everything into the four shafts. However it won’t make the actual weaving any faster. It is still, after all, a pick up weave and individual warp threads need to be handled. When I get back here from MSWF and a short stay in DC, I shall get another band on this loom.

Lisa is not the only weaver in this household. Above you can see five-year old Joshua making a scarf on an Easy Weaver rigid heddle loom. The scarf has been finished and hopefully he will find it so I can show it to you here before I publish this post.

I had another encounter with this Easy Weaver loom this week as Brian Jones in England sent me a picture of an Andean pebble weave band he has been weaving following my e-monograph. I can’t tell you all how ecstatic I am about seeing the monograph being put to use!! 🙂

readers pebble bandsDSZ — LEFT: Brian’s warp set up on his Easy Weaver loom. He is weaving a band from lesson 2. RIGHT:Jennifer Jordan made a key fob with the plain pebble weave band in lesson 1.

I told you before that Lisa pulled out her collection of looms so that we could get at the four-shaft one and this gave me a chance to play with and think about looms, other than backstrap ones, on which pick up bands can be woven.

frame loomsDSZ — You may know Franco’s clipboard loom at left. Lisa also has a somewhat sturdier frame loom on which she has been weaving a band with simple warp floats.

If some kind of tensioning system could be rigged on these so that tension could be eased off as weaving progressed, they would be wonderful. As is, the amount of take up in the warp makes it increasingly difficult to open the shed and pick the warps as weaving progresses.

I set up a warp for Andean Pebble Weave on Lisa’s frame loom to see what it would feel like and wove some pre-Columbian birds. The pattern charts for these are in my e-monograph.

As I warped up quite firmly, I think I will only be able to weave half this warp before everything gets too tight. I think it is a nice loom for sampling and short bands.

Here are some pick up bands on inkle looms. The one on the left above was made by Karren from the Weavolution Backstrap Weaving Group some time ago. She made this into a cell phone pouch. This motif is charted in my e-monograph.
On the right is Lisa’s “s” yurt band design on her inkle loom. I warped up a narrow pebble weave band on an inkle loom when I was in California and enjoyed doing all manual pick up. I have just started winding a warp for a wider one on one of Lisa’s looms and will use additional string heddles this time. I’ll keep you updated on that.
Above, you can see a picture that Ellen sent me from Denmark where she is weaving one-weft double weave on her inkle loom following my tutorial on Weavolution.

Carolyns pebble weve rh — Carolyn sent me these pictures of her first Andean pebble weave band, following lesson one in my e-monograph, which she lashed to her rigid heddle loom.

Then there are tapestry looms, or this Navajo loom onto which I lashed a four-color pebble weave warp. My Navajo loom has a tensioning device so I could ease off on the tension as I progressed and, therefore, compensate for the take up.

Lisa’s Mirrix loom on which she has her cut pile weaving would work well for this.

So, all the beautiful pick up weaves that I show on my blog and for which I have provided tutorials, can be set up on a variety of looms. They by no means have to be restricted to the backstrap loom.

This has been a wonderful learning experience here! Tomorrow we are going to get into some felting. I would like to learn this and make something for myself but probably won’t get to continue with it back in Bolivia as I can’t get sheep wool where I live in Santa Cruz. And then there is the cut pile weaving. I got Noreen Roberts’s wonderful book on the subject but there is nothing like having someone show you in person. Lisa is still in the experimental stage with this but I am sure that she will be able to give me some good tips.

And look above at what she gave me! – a charka from India. I am thrilled to bits to have something like this from my place of birth. Lisa’s fiber guild friend Katherine came over today and showed me how to use it.

Katherine sews and also makes card woven bands. She made the pin cushions from felt and then embroidered them and the band, I think, is intended for her husband’s guitar.

I would so love to be in a fiber guild and surrounded by all these talented people. Well, I shall do my best to soak up everything I can from Lisa during my stay here although I have to admit that being in Weavolution gives me access to weavers from all over the world – so I can’t complain – and I only need to go up into the Bolivian highlands to be with wonderfully talented backstrap weavers.

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I have a band to show you from Ann Littlewood, woven from her own design in supplementary weft technique (see my tutorial here). She is going to use this as a bookmark.

And I also had a fun message over at Weavolution from Marta Madeja in Spain who tells me that she is hiking in the Alpujarras south of Granada and picked up some sticks along the way to make a backstrap loom. She has never tried backstrap weaving before and decided to dive head first into pebble weave and bought my e-monograph. The only “yarn” she had about was embroidery thread and she managed to make a tiny pebble weave band based on lesson 1 in the monograph.

The pin will show you just how tiny this band is. She tells me that she will try lesson 2 with thicker yarn when she gets home. I wonder what she tied up to on the trail. I am waiting to hear more details from her. I think this is really cool!

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Finishing here with a million thanks to Lisa, Ryan and Jack-in-the Box Joshua, popping into the photo there below, for an amazing time in North Carolina. We are off to Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this weekend. If you are going, please drop by and say hi. I will be demonstrating backstrap weaving in the rabbit building at the Weavolution meet up point from noon to one pm on both days.

See you there!

Thanks to all who have written to me about the e-monograph. Keep the projects and comments coming. 🙂

Backstrap Weaving- New Friends and Old Believers

Giddy with all the nice comments I have been receiving about my e-monograph on Andean Pebble Weave, here I am back in San Francisco. Ridiculous as this sounds, I have to tell you that my mental image of California has always been freeways and car yards. Don’t ask me why – I guess I have been watching the wrong kinds of movies and TV shows. I have spent the last week since the weaving conference up in beautiful Humboldt County in Northern California with my Weavolution friend Janet Finch. Janet lives and works with her husband Larry on a berry farm up there and I doubt that you could find anything further removed from that ugly freeway image. What a paradise! Now I think my new Californian mental image will be something like what you see at left.

Some of you might know Janet as “Aunt Janet” from the spinning lists and know about the spinning mill that she runs – a wonderful playground for the fiber fanatic – full of warm fibery smells, processing equipment, looms, spinning wheels, yarn and fleece at all processing stages…bags and bags of the stuff and lately it has become the hangout for a bunch of neighborhood backstrap weaving folk. Janet has rigged up hitching posts so that probably up to a dozen backstrappers could be happily weaving away in there at any one time.

So we took advantage of that, spread the word and set up some backstrap weaving for the week that I spent there and it was a lot of fun. It was all very casual – people came whichever day they wanted, stayed however long they liked and wove whatever technique they chose. It kept me on the ball as quite often I was helping people with three or four different techniques all at once!

lessons 1 — LEFT: Georgie brought her homemade inke loom on the first day as she had already warped up on that. It was a nice loom with two sides, one of which was removable. First we worked on her selvedges which you can see improved very quickly. RIGHT: Connie learned to warp on four stakes for pebble weave as I was taught in Peru.

lesons 2 — LEFT: Nineteen year-old Mikeila was visiting from Kenya to learn about organic farming. She joined in and really took to it weaving simple warp floats and charting her own designs. RIGHT: Janet was trying out supplementray weft and had a gorgeous range of embroidery floss colors to work with.

Janet's supp weft band — Janet’s supplementary weft band.

Karen weaving — Karen, a nun from the Redwood Monastery came along on two days. She is from La Paz, Bolivia and was happy to speak Spanish with me about her home. She arrived in the US when she was 17 and is so pleased to be able do a traditional craft from her homeland. She brought linen thread which was at the monastery and chose to learn double weave starting out with the simplest of motifs and a fine job she did. I love her tapestry crocheted hat from La Paz..

lesons 3 — Linda and Jane were both doing simple warp floats. It was Jane’s first time working with a backstrap loom. They both wove the same motif but see what a difference different tension and beat can make to the design. Remember you can click on these photos to see larger images. Linda gave me some freeze dried indigo to take home and try – excellent! I can’t wait to go home and weave something dyed with indigo next to cochineal. Linda gifted indigo to the weavers in Chincheros, Peru and she could very well be responsible for the gorgeous blue and red textiles that they are now creating.

Linda has a lovely weaving website, by the way, and has a particular interest in natural dyes. She showed me one of her ikat pieces – just simple ikat dots in stripes of various colors but her color combinations and arrangements were stunning. It has really inspired me to give ikat another go but to keep the design simple as Linda did and play with color instead. I have found and bought my cold water dyes and so am ready to go!

lessons 4 — Georgie came back another day with her backstrap loom and tried the more complex warp floats making the yurt band border design that I taught in a tutorial here on the blog. Jani also came for two sessions with a specific project in mind. She wanted to make a bag strap – the bag will come later. She wove the simple warp floats but decided that she was more into the plain horizontal stripes – not a pick-up kind of gal!

So that was our week of weaving and between all that there was plenty to enjoy on the farm…

the bunnies — I met Janet’s gorgeous angora bunnies whose fur gets plucked and spun into fiber.

weavings — LEFT: My second cell phone pouch with the yurt band border found its owner when Mikeila spotted it and promptly put her cigarette package inside – a perfect fit – so that’s going off to Kenya now! RIGHT: Janet showed me an amazing Peruvian textile fragment that she got in some sort of sample exchange – it is marked as being from the Chimu culture and is a slit tapestry weaving. The colors are so delicate and pretty.

We were invited by Karen, the nun from Bolivia, to visit the Redwood Monastery and that was a real treat. It is located on a three hundred-acre property where deer, wild turkeys and the occasional mountain lion roam -all very very novel for me and I was quite taken with all the wildlife! The church is decorated in a minimalist style with floor to ceiling windows looking out on the redwoods. Karen showed me the rec room in the weaving house high up on a hill where she ties up her backstrap loom to weave. She ties up to an enormous eight-shaft countermarche loom with a six-foot weaving width and a flying shuttle! Her backstrap sticks cetainly looks very small and humble up against that monster. Talk about from one extreme to the other!

Karen adn Janet at monastery — Karen and Janet on the porch of the weaving house overlooking the dorms and redwoods. Karen’s is one of the few groups that has decided against wearing habits.

Speaking of enormous looms, Janet’s mill will be needing some re arrangements as she has been recently gifted her own monster loom. Yes – GIFTED!! Her walking wheel and smaller looms will need to find new homes. I know of one loom that has been particularly unfriendly and won’t be missed – Janet has given it a name that I can’t even mention here!

Flemish tapestry — One of Siv’s tapestries based on a traditional Flemish design.

It took two trips to get the loom from a Swedish woman, Siv Berg, who has had to find the loom a new good home as she had injured her arm in some way and felt she could no longer use it. I went along on the second pick up trip and found Siv to be a delightful and interesting person with enormous energy and a desire to tell us stories and share all her weavings . She is a wonderful tapestry weaver who has created pieces based on traditional Swedish and Flemish designs.

And it turns out that her son Bjorg spent some time in Argentina living and working with the gauchos on the southern sheep estancias and he totally blew me away when he appeared with this….

gaucho belt — The traditional belt worn by the gauchos of Argentinas woven in warp faced double weave quite likely by a Mapuche weaver. They are designed to wrap two to three times around the waist. This was thrilling for me as I have only seen these in pictures and have actually always wondered if they were only worn for the tourist photo op. Bjorn was able to put me straight on that.

Siv showed us other textiles that she had around her home including a particularly fine huipil from San Antonio Aguas Calientes, where I learned to weave, in Guatemala. It is almost completely covered in double faced supplementary weft patterning and woven on a backstrap loom. She also showed us the complete traditional Swedish woman’s costume that she handwove and embroidered. I am afraid that the photo of her holding it here does not do it justice.

We could have stayed all day with Siv really – she is a fascinating lady and she must be happy knowing that her loom is going to a good home.

So I left Janet’s and headed on down to San Francisco once more and am having a couple of lazy days to catch up on this blog post and do a little online promotion of my e-tutorial. My backpack is somewhat swollen, not so much with stuff I bought at CNCH, but rather with what you see there at left. Janet gave me a whole lot of beautiful alpaca fleece to take back with me. Now you are probably thinking this is nuts – taking alpaca from the US back to Bolivia. Well would you believe that I have yet to find alpaca fleece in my travels in the highlands and that which is processed by the mills is only available for export. Janet gave me a big variety of colors including some incredibly soft stuff which she says is probably cria. I shall have to choose my weaving project very carefully for this lot.

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BACK TO CNCH (Conference of Northern California Handweavers)

A little step back in time to share a bit about the cool folks I met at CNCH a couple of weeks ago.

Bambi, who made this all possible and who kept us all supplied with cookies and munchies.

The conference had countless highlights for me. Just one of these was the chance I had to meet people from the Santa Cruz Handweavers Guild who were demonstrating various fiber arts at their Education Booth. I was invited to demonstrate by Bambi who was busily spinning.

The problem was HOW to tie up my loom and I was just lucky that Janet had purchased a new set of wool combs that came with clamps so I was able to put the clamps on a table at the booth and lodge my loom bar behind it. Actually I only used one clamp and it worked really well.

Next to me was Annie McHale who was demonstrating inkle weaving. I have crowned Annie the Queen of Sashes and she has a great website showing her work. We had met up the previous day and she returned bringing me a bunch of beautiful bands to see. She makes the coolest guitar straps and was weaving one at the conference with letters writing a line from a Beatle’s song – what a great idea and it turned out so well!

Annie's letter band — There’s Annie showing her Beatle’s song line – I don’t know this song , but it has a special significance for the person who ordered this band. Next to Annie is Yonat, also from the Santa Cruz Guild, demonstrating inkle weaving and infecting us all with her high energy.

And then there was Ingrid. Now I would have had to have some kind of super high speed camera to catch Ingrid as she never stood still….and I didn’t manage to catch her!

Ingrid was demonstrating finger loop braiding and her lessons were highly popular and she was on the go all day. She tells me that she has seen my braiding tutorials here and that she is going to make some YouTube videos too to teach her braids – excellent!

One of Ingrid’s students at the show was kind enough to let me film her making a five-strand square braid and so I can share that with you all here – I LOVE finger loop braids – I used two strands of each of two colors and one strand of a third color.

And then there was the shopping. I will just give you a taste of the colors here…

shopping CNCH — Colorful and highly popular African baskets. Yarn and yarn galore! My purchases…the book on sashes was a gift from Annie!! I bought an Ashford inklette, some beautiful belt shuttles and a 12.5 dpi rigid heddle for my backstrap loom as I still get a kick out of doing balanced weaves now and then.

Syne and Ruth Temple, who I know from Weavolution. Ruth presented Syne with the “Syne Mitchell action figure” complete with tiny rigid heddle and card looms! Now I must make her a teeny backstrap loom…

And some other cool people I met…I met Syne Mitchell online last year when I wrote the Backstrap Basics article for WeaveZine and lately we have been in close touch about the publication of my e-tutorial on Andean Pebble Weave which she is selling on the WeaveZine site.

So finally we got to meet in the flesh. Ruth Temple, who I know from Weavolution, was there too. It was actually from Ruth that I first heard about Weavolution – she wrote a comment on it on Ravelry back in the early days.

syne and franco — Franco Rios, a very active participant in my Weavolution Backstrap Weaving Group and undisputed King of DIY shows off his clipboard loom to Syne.

If you want to see some really nifty homemade looms and learn lots of cool DIY tips, check out Franco’s blog.

Lastly, I will show you a little about the gallery…

tien's wedding dress — Tien Chu, one of Weavolution’s founders, entered her handwoven silk wedding gown and coat in the garment category in the gallery and won Best Of Show. She also won first and second place in the accessories section with other pieces.

I entered a set of three sashes in the wall hanging category and got a blue ribbon 🙂

my sashes — The three sashes have been woven with three different Andean pick up techniques and represent three different regions of Bolivia. My aim is to extend this into a set of nine sashes covering all the techniques I have learned spanning the South American continent. Even the prize ribbon with the writing was handwoven by Lillian Whipple-you may have read her articles on WeaveZine.

P4120180 — Kathe taught, amongst others, a class on how to make the tassels used on the Old Believer belts.

Finally I would like to introduce you to Kathe Todd-Hooker, tapestry weaver and one of the teachers at CNCH.

I told you all last week about Kathe and Pat Spark’s involvement with the Russian Old Believer communities in Oregon. One of my blog readers was kind enough to embed a video with her comment last week which has a series of black and white photos of various Old Believer communities around the world. I thought it would make a fitting introduction.

The music that accompanies the photos is beautiful and haunting.

Feast your eyes on some of the backstrap woven and braided belts of the Russian Old Believers in Kathe’s collection…

ob sashes 1 — LEFT: Supplementary warp patterned bands at top and bottom with a tapestry woven piece in the middle. The motifs on the supplementary warp patterned ones closely resemble some of those that are in the book on Lithuanian sashes that Annie gave me. RIGHT: These look to me to be Andean pebble weave-they are doubled faced and appear to be patterned with the same warp float structure as Andean pebble weave and they have me baffled! I am quite confident that I could reproduce them exactly.The motifs are not any that I have seen on Andean belts except for the border design on one.They again resemble those that I see in the Lithuanian sash book. If anyone knows anything about a belt weaving tradition in Europe using this structure, I would love to hear from you.

ob sasahes 2 — LEFT: Braided belts RIGHT: A single color plain weave belt with simple warp floats. Kathe told me that the belts are generally 60 inches long and three are woven to a warp.

plain ob belt — These are the kind of plain belts that the Old Believers are now opting for.

To be honest I think I have rambled on more than enough in this blog post this week!

I still have a lot to tell you about these belts and mostly about the fact that the skills involved in weaving them, at least in the communities in Oregon, are on the verge of being lost forever. Kathe was privileged to have been accepted as a weaving student by one of the older ladies in the community, then in her eighties, who has since died. I gather that it is by no means easy to be accepted and indeed a rare privilege. She was taught to weave a supplementary warp patterned belt and, once that was done, was simply told not to return. I imagine it was hard going as after a short time they made do without a translator.

Kathe is including information on the backstrap loom these weavers use and their weaving tools as part of a book she has written with Pat Spark called “So Warped, Warping a Loom for Weaving Tapestry”-soon to be released.

You can see at left the belts that are now being used. Woven by indigenous weavers in South America, they are brought to the US by members of the Old Believer communities in Brazil and Bolivia when they travel to the US in search of wives and sold for a few dollars.

It seems strange to me that their interest in their traditional costume, in what would probably seem to most of us, garishly clashing colors is still strong. Yet ,what Kathe tells me is the most important part of their outfit, the belt, is neglected. The belt represents the arms of their church encircling them and they seem content with these plain quietly colored versions. Perhaps the skills have indeed been completely lost and they would welcome someone to reteach them. I would gladly oblige!

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And speaking of threatened traditions…you may remember this little poppet from a previous post. She is the granddaughter of Luz, my weaving teacher in coastal Ecuador who taught me to weave simple warp floats and spin cotton. Luz and her family are probably the very last saddlebag weavers in the area who still handspin their cotton. Kathie, the anthropologist whom I accompanied on this trip has just uploaded to YouTube a video of nine year-old Melita learning to spin. Although, she doesn’t quite get it all coordinated, I am sure that it is just a matter of time . She certainly seems to be keen and interested and Kathie has played a very large role in documenting the weaving, dyeing and spinning traditions of the region and ensuring that they are not lost by encouraging the youngsters to take them on.

And just in case you didn’t know…

My e-tutorial on Andean Pebble Weave is now available at WeaveZine!

Thank you so much to all who have bought it so far and have mailed me with kind comments 😉

UPDATE………

Thursday night..Dallas airport. Ah, the life of the standby traveler! I finally got on a flight to Dallas from San Francisco but too late to continue on to Charlotte, North Carolina and my friend Lisa. A lovely American Airlines lady gave me a cot, blanket and bottle of water and so here I am set up in one of the lounges cosy as can be, laptop set up and getting ready to pass the night. Hmmm…I wonder if there is a place to set up my backstrap loom here. Now if I could just figure out how to turn off the annoying tv!

Good night! See you all here Friday morning. 🙂

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

BALANCED WEAVE, DOUBLE WEAVE AND BALANCED DOUBLE WEAVE….

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

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

doll set — Sets of Chancay doll reproductions

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

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

1_2 — A close look at a couple of the fragments with bird and bat motifs

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

3_4 — Two more pieces with bird and snake motifs

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

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

A_B1 — A piece in slit tapestry that I copied on my backstrap loom

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

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

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

birds together — Bird motif in pebble weave

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

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

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

F_G — Balanced double weave bird figures

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

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

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

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

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

red pinwheel — "Strawberries and cream" pinwheel mats

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

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

rosepath finished — Spring garden table runner

log cabin book cover — A small log cabin sample

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

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

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

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

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