I am seeing squares! I feel like I have spent the whole week charting. The yurt band design that I charted and wove into a cell phone pouch last week was pretty easy to pick out from a photograph. So I launched myself into a bigger yurt band design this week. A lot of the elements are similar so I figured it would be a piece of cake but, as it turns out – not so much.
Getting the main motif down was easy but filling in all the background floats was the hard part. Where exactly to place the five-span floats around the curves in the motif was the dilemma and the photo I was working with was no help at all. I really wish I could put the photo here but it is not mine to show. The original band has the main motif in orange on a slatey blue – it is gorgeous – but I have stuck with some old faithful colors for this first attempt.
The first few rows woven of a new yurt band design
The outer bands have a brown motif on beige and the main section beige on red. Anyway, I think I have finally got it down. I do have a drawing program for this kind of thing but I prefer the old fashioned way – sprawled on the floor with marker pens, corrector, pencil, eraser and scotch tape.
I have been trying to come up with a good name for this technique as a title for this post but all I have so far is warp floats galore – that doesn’t even come close to covering it – but try getting your mouth around this “offiicial” classification:
“simple alternating float weave with two color patterning with all the warp-floats on one face, colors exchanging function to create pattern” (Warp Patterned Weaves of the Andes – Rowe)
Thank goodness someone came up with the simple name “pebble” to describe my favorite pick-up weave as the description for that is even longer. I have been trying to find the origin of the name “pebble” but haven’t had luck with that. It is a name that seems to be applied quite loosely to a variety of weaves and I am wondering who first coined it and to which structure in particular they were referring. Imagine my surprise when a young weaver in the main plaza in Cusco used the term “pebble weave” to describe the band she was trying to sell.
The border design from Lisa's yurt band that I charted
But, back to my “warp floats galore”. I also charted the border design of Lisa’s yurt band so that I could do a tutorial based on that here this week and, fortunately, I can show you a photo of that, thanks to Lisa.
I wove it in a variety of yarns and color combinations to see which I liked best. The example on the yurt band uses three colors one of which is also used as a border.
So this is what I came up with…
Four versions of the yurt band border design. The one on the right is the most authentic as I used the same color to weave the O's and the borders.
So I decided to go with the one on the right as it most closely resembles the original and looks nicer in the finer yarn
Fabric for the cell phone pouch
and made another cell phone pouch. I have to tell you that I don’t even own a cell phone but I think these make great gifts. I usually take woven coin purses along on my travels as gifts for my indigenous weaving teachers. On a trip to Ecuador I was looking for a typical spindle whorl and asked a group of ladies who were embroidering skirts in the marketplace . No one showed much interest or enthusiasm for my request. I then offered one of my little coin purses to anyone who could get me a whorl. In the blink of an eye out came all the cell phones from deep inside the folds of their blouses! So I think that these little pouches may be appreciated and may make better gifts than the coin purses from now on.
The cell phone pouch edged with a four-strand braidSimple X design warp floats on a hat band
The border design from the yurt band comprises a series of what I call X’s and O’s. These are about the most basic designs you can weave in this simple float technique.
I used a series of X’s separated by a single stripe to make the hat band at left.
Starting off with black and white horizontal stripes, the black warps float over the surface to form the X motifs.
LEFT: X motifs... RIGHT: O motifsX's and O's woven in succession
In the above examples, the X’s and O’s are separated by a single stripe. If you put the X’s and O’s together on the one band and weave them in succession so that they overlap, they will look like what you see at left.
The example on the left has red X’s and yellow O’s. This is reversed in the example on the right.
Now it is just a matter of putting three columns of X’s and O’s together and, voila! you have the yurt band border.
Here are the pattern charts for the X’s and O’s…
LEFT: X and O motifs; CENTER: X and O motifs overlapped in succesion; RIGHT: Three columns of X's and O's - the yurt band border.
I am going to give a step-by-step tutorial here now for the yurt band border.
For those of you who have never woven this simple warp float technique, there are step-by-step instructions here. The tutorial there guides you through warping, arranging the cross and weaving some simple patterns.
Once you have the hang of weaving this border design, especially the parts where the two motifs overlap, you will have the skills necessary to weave the yurt band design that I wove on the cell phone pouch last week – at left. But, I recommend starting small! Practice the small design in this tutorial and make something useful. Next week I will give the chart and instructions for weaving the border of the red cell pouch, pictured below.
You need to wind a warp and rearrange the cross so that it looks like the picture at left. The warps in shed 1 will go in heddles and shed 2 will be controlled by a shed stick. I have 4 ends in each of my borders. I am working with 18 warps, or 9 pairs of warps in each shed. This tutorial gives instructions for weaving the first 10 weft passes. Start by simply passing the weft through sheds 1 and 2 and weaving a few rows of horizontal stripes. I recommend passing your weft from left to right in shed 1 to be in sync with these insructions.FIRST WEFT PASS: Start the design by passing your weft through shed 1. My weft is passing here from left to right through shed 1.SECOND WEFT PASS: Select the warps from shed 1 that will float. These are indicated on the chart as pairs numbered 2, 4, 6 and 8. Add these to all the warps in shed 2. Pass the weft from right to left. THIRD WEFT PASS: Pass the weft from left to right through shed 1. FOURTH WEFT PASS: Select the warps from shed 1 that will float and add them to all the warps in shed 2. Pass the weft through this shed from right to left. This is where the designs overlap so we need to float warps again for this weft pass and will be selecting them this time from shed 2. FIFTH WEFT PASS: Select the warps from SHED 2 that will float and add them to all the warps in shed 1. Pass the weft from left to right.SIXTH WEFT PASS: Pass the weft from right to left through shed 2.SEVENTH WEFT PASS: Select the warps from shed 2 that will float and add them all to the warps in shed 1. Pass the weft through this shed from left to right.EIGHTH WEFT PASS: Pass the weft from right to left through shed 2.NINTH WEFT PASS: Select the warps from shed 2 that will float and add them to all the warps in shed 1. Pass the weft through this shed from left to right.This is where, once again, the motifs overlap so we need to select warps to float again but this time from shed 1. TENTH WEFT PASS: Select the warps that will float from shed 1 and add them to all the warps in shed 2. Pass the weft from right to left through this shed.
And there it finishes. We are back to step 1 – the first weft pass.
The yurt band designs on my red cell phone pouch reqiure that you select warps to float for every single weft pass.
Some project ideas for using this technique and design: weave four or five columns of X's and O's together and make a bookmark; weave the design next to plain weave and make a cell phone pouch, coin purse or sewing kit purse. Even the smallest sample can be made into something useful. I sewed a zip into the little shadow weave sample I showed you last week and made a sewing kit purse.
A typical house in the rural settlements of coastal Ecuador and the home of my weaving teachers there
Removing the seeds from natural brown "mico" cotton
I thought I would finish this post by revisiting coastal Ecuador and the weavers there who taught me this simple warp float technique in the first place. I showed you all a little about their weaving here in another post so this time I will show a bit about their spinning. The weavers I stayed with are amongst the few in the area that still weave with their own homespun cotton.
Although there are still a few wild cotton plants scattered about the settlement where these weavers live, they usually have to buy their cotton in the market. It needs to be deseeded, teased and beaten into a smooth even sheet before it can be spun.
While natural brown cotton is highy prized and expensive in Guatemala, it doesn’t seem to be considered anything special in Ecuador.
The cotton is draped on a wooden stand called the "rueca" for spinning. The "rueca" has a notch cut into its top which grabs the cotton and allows the spinner to draw out the fibers under tension. A small basket is woven from plantain fiber underneath on which the spindle sits when not in use. This is a miniature version of the "rueca' which I made with my teachers' help so that I could take an example back with me to Bolivia. The typical spindle can be seen at right with its wooden whorl. More often now you will see people using yo-yo halves and metal wheels as whorls.Here my teachers are spinning with their large ruecas-one hand twirling like mad while the other draws out the fibers. I am having a go. I found this a lot harder than spinning with a drop spindle. I taught Trini to spin with my drop spindle and she picked it up in seconds.The people in these settlements are basically farmers - up at 5am with the roosters and the donkeys to go out and work the fields so they can be indoors during the hottest part of the day. Then off to bed at 9pm. Here are some bead spindle whorls that they have unearthed while digging and turning the soil for planting. Mind blowing!!Some simple warp float designs from coastal Ecuador that I wove and have used as covers for my journal.And the spinning tradition lives on...the anthroplogist whom I accompanied on this trip has just gotten back from Ecuador and tells me that this little one is now up and spinning!
SIMPLE WARP FLOATS – a little less simple, a lot more stunning!
I have been playing around with simple warp float patterns this week looking for new designs in books and on weavings that I have bought in my travels. I found a nice one in a photo of a textile fragment from the north coast of Peru in Ann Pollard Rowe’sWarp Patterned Weaves of the Andes which I will show you later. I also pulled out a belt full of warp float patterned motifs which had been sadly neglected at the bottom of my box of Guatemalan textiles. I guess it had been ignored and forgotten as it is a simple black and white piece looking very humble and plain next to the wildly colored weft patterned pieces that are so typical of Guatemala.
What is strange is that I bought this belt in the same town where the women wear a particuarly wide and richly decorated hair sash – it is quite a contrast to see the two pieces together. I wonder if they are both woven by the same weavers.
Belt and hair sash of Aguacatan
As you can see, the belt does not have a continuous design, rather, a series of small motifs. No two motifs are exactly the same. As I pull the belt through my hands to examine the motifs, I can almost imagine the fun this weaver had deciding what motif to display next on her 9-foot 3-inch canvas! There are mistakes. There are motifs that obviously didn’t go quite the way she had planned but I get a feeling of playfulness from this belt that I just don’t get from the heavily ladened hair sash.
I have been thinking about what elements can make this simple warp float patterning more interesting and fun for weavers. I have written a tutorial for this technique herebut it is a technique that never seems to get fully explored – just a “stepping stone” on the way to the more advanced techniques.
Here are a few ways, for starters, to make a piece patterned with this technique a little more stunning.
Three pieces woven using a simple warp float technique.
On the left and in the center are two pieces made by members of the Backstrap Weaving Group at Weavolution. Historicstitcher used bands of bright and lively colors alongside her warp float pattern. She used single rather than paired floats to give a more delicate look. In the center, Jeannine designed her own sunny warp float pattern and wove it beside a more somber border of vertical stripes. I think it looks amazing! And on the right is part of a bookmark that I made using three colors across the width of the design rather than two as is more usual.
As the name implies, this is a simple technique. If you imagine looking at a warp in profile, you will see in the following diagram exactly what is going on in this technique as it is woven.
A profile view of a warp where green warps are “floated” over a base of red and green stripes to form the patterns.
Let’s take another look at the black and white Aguacatan belt and see the different motifs the weaver has created – from very simple to not-so-simple.
As you can see, it all starts on the left with a base of black and white stripes. Then the weaver can decide which color she wants to float over the surface to make her designs. Her first design has been made with black floats, the next design to the right has been made with white floats. Moving along, she has made a quick succession of black and white float designs.
On the left, the weaver is again swapping from black floated designs to white, and back again. The one on the far left has an almost three dimensional effect. On the right she has started to combine black and white floats within the one motif. This means that in one weft pass she will be floating black warps. In the very next weft pass she will float white ones. When I went to weave this it took me a while to get my head around it!
She is getting increasingly adventurous now with her combination of black and white floats all within the one motif. Those designs on the left really play tricks with my eyes!
But, of course, things don’t always go to plan. On the far left it looks like she was trying to combine single warp floats with pairs but ran ino a few problems. Next to that, she didn’t manage to get the white design centered. While I don’t find mistakes in my own work terribly amusing, I do like to look at these little mishaps in other weavers’ pieces and imagine what was going on to cause the lapse in concentration. Perhaps her husband was telling a funny story, a neighbor dropped by for a chat or one of her kids was swinging off her loom. In any case, my examination of this band makes me really want to meet this weaver!
On the right is a different band where the horizontal stripes in one part are not evident at all as the entire surface has been covered with black warp floats.
All of this finally led me to my project of the week…
Simple warp floats used to reproduce a yurt band design.
This piece has been woven with the simple warp float technique using floats in both colors in one continuous motif. The horizontal stripes cannot be seen as the entire surface of the weaving has been covered with warp floats – the same simple three-span floats shown on the Aguacatan belt. Where the outline of the design changed direction, I had to use five-span floats.
A cell phone pouch for Lisa
I charted the design from a photo of a yurt band that was sent to me by Lisa Matthews of North Carolina. Ever since Lisa and I met on Ravelry back in June last year, she has been sharing not only photos of Central Asian weavings with me, but also her love and enthusiasm for all the textile and fiber crafts of that region so I thought it would be a great idea to make this piece into a cell phone pouch for her.
On the turned edge of the flap you can just make out the horizontal stripes where I started this piece. From there on the stripes got covered by floats.
I edged the pouch and made a strap using a four-strand braid. Although I learned this braid a long time ago, my weaving teachers in Potosi taught me a new and really fun and quirky way to do it by looping the braid strands on my fingers. I have made a tutorial for this with step-by-step photos and a video which you can see here.
Lisa writes a fascinating blog about her explorations into the crafts of Central Asia and has kindly allowed me to use photos of her yurt band here. In her own words here she describes her passion:
“I’m extremely interested in the cultures of Central Asia both past and present. Within the context of the historical reenactment group I participate in I am attempting to learn how to portray the daily life of a 10th to 11th century Steppe Nomad. To do this I have been learning how to make yogurt, cook flat bread, camp in a yurt, felt, spin, and weave so far. I’m very interested in both felting and weaving and feel that weaving on the Nomadic ground loom brings the ability to weave fantastically patterned pieces to even the novice weaver with a very, very small outlay of cash to set up the loom and get weaving. The versatility of the ground loom is that you can weave anywhere you go and anything from fabric for clothing to tent bands to cut pile rugs and kilims on the same loom. Yurt bands are something that especially interest me and I am in the process of learning how to weave them. My husband and I were lucky enough to purchase a 48 ft long band thought to have been woven by the Krygyz and its handmade beauty has really inspired me.”
I love the simple border motifand I am thinking thatI may be able to do a tutorial on that here next week so you can all learn to do the two-color floats.
At first glance, you may think that this weave is Andean pebble weave, but a look at the back of the weaving will show you that it is not. Andean pebble weave is double faced, that is, the same warp float motif appears on the back of the weaving with its colors reversed. On a simple warp float piece, however, the warps that float on the upper surface create a gap on the lower surface through which the weft is revealed.
LEFT: The front and back of an Andean pebble weave motif. RIGHT: The back of a simple warp float motif reveals the red weft.
I was really fortunate to run into Lisa online but this wasn’t my first encounter with these Central Asian tent bands. I was lucky to happen to be in Washington DC when there was an exhibition of these pieces at the Textile Museum in 2007. This certainly made up for my initial disappointment at not finding any Andean weavings in their permanent displays. On top of that, I had a wonderful time sitting on the floor with a pile of books in their bookstore and spent hours in their library. Meeting Ann Rowe there was the icing on the cake!
The finished pouch on the Textile Museum’s post card. I still haven’t found a suitable closure for the pouch – open to suggestions!
Here is the new pattern that I charted from the old Peruvian textile fragment. There are several woven versions here as the picture in the book was not very clear. I finally decided on the motif on the upper left hand side. A larger version of the chart is here.
Warp floats of brown and white cover the surface of the weave.
Above, the motif is woven on a background of horizontal stripes. If you were to cover the surface completely with floats, it would look like the photo at left.
According to Ann Rowe in Warp Patterned Weaves of the Andes, no archaeological examples of this two-color float weave have been found in the Andes although twentieth century ponchos have been made with this technique in Northern Argentina. There is a photo of one such poncho with bold geometric motifs in Ann Rowe’s book
A few bits and pieces to finish off…I received some comments from people last week about how difficult it is to find a suitable place to tie up their backstrap looms at home. I know what this is like! I am fine here at home, but when I go to visit my mother in Sydney (my backstrap loom goes everywhere with me!) there is nowhere to tie up my loom so I braid in the evenings when we are sitting about and chatting. My brother and sister-in-law have been kind enough to put some hooks into the side of a large dresser in their guest room in their home so that I can slip a dowel in and weave away.
Here are a few photos of some tie-up options…
LEFT: Tied to a STRONG doorknob. Not the best option for narrow warps as the warp will slip on the rods and cause the loom to tip from side to side. RIGHT: Hooks in a piece of heavy furniture.LEFT: The loom bar can be lashed to a heavy piece of furnture, a stair or porch rail, or the ladder on a bunk bed. RIGHT: The loom bar can be wedged behind a pair of clamps.
If you are at all into DIY, you should check out Sharon’s (aka Rose Goldilocks) blog where she has invented a nifty seat, footbrace and tie-up place all in one.
Sharon emailed me last weekend to tell me about a new Interweave publication – a magazine called Knitting Traditions 2010. Apparently it has instructions for Peruvian needle knitting, or cross knit looping, for making finger puppets. I would love to learn how to make three dimensional things with this technique. Well, that is definitely going on my shopping list for my up and coming trip to the US.
There are some gorgeous knitted finger puppets for sale in the craft markets here but they are made in regular two- needle knitting as far as I can tell. All kinds of animals are made and they are pretty hard to resist.
LLama and sheep finger puppetsFront and back of my “knit” pre-Columbian fragment
And while we are on the topic of knitting, I found some information about one of my pre-Columbian fragments, once again, in Ann Rowe’s book. Apparently these pieces, which are constructed with what look like knit stitches and which are very thick, were used as straps and belts by the Incas and were made using a 4-strand warp twining technique. No evidence has been found yet to explain how exactly this was achieved…but it’s nice to know at least this little bit about one more of the fragments on my little Chancay dolls.
At right I’d like to show you the pencil pouch that siseltikva, from the Weavolution group, wove on her backstrap loom and edged with cross knit looping. It’s a really nice project idea for a narrow band and , as always, I am thrilled to see my tutorials being put to use.
My shadow weave sample using a 10dpi rigid heddle on my backstrap loom
Let me leave you with this picture of my latest experiment with balanced weaves on my backstrap loom. I wove this tiny shadow weave sample using four sets of string heddles and a rigid heddle as a spacer. I can’t say that I am crazy about it! There are a few examples of careless heddle lifting there. I have been told that this looks great done in four colors – two contrasting colors for the warp and two tones of those colors for the weft. I really enjoy doing these balanced weaves – they are a nice change of rhythm and beat so I will choose my colors carefully and see if I can make something I like better from this weave.
A motif inspired by a Central Asian design and woven with a supplementary weftA design inspired by weavings of the Huni Kuin people of tropical Brazil
You may remember these designs from a previous post on supplementary weft patterning. Now I am happy to present the promised tutorial on supplementary weft patterning together with a tiny project idea-key fobs.
This technique definitely falls into the category of those which are within the reach of beginners. We weave a simple plain weave band and then ”paint” in some motifs with an additonal weft.
A set of simple key fobs made with techniques suitable for beginners.
Let’s look at the above key fobs-nice beginner projects. A beginner in backstrap weaving will probably start by weaving a plain band like the light blue one on the left, learning to wind an evenly tensioned warp, set up the loom, operate the sheds and keep their edges straight and even. They may then move on to the next band adding some stripes to their warp-getting used to cutting and tying on new colors at the warping board and maintaining an even tension. From there they can try horizontal stripes which involves a rearrangement of the cross on the loom-a new skill. More complex arrangements will produce staggered horizontal bands or ”combs” as in the red and black and black and white bands.
And then we come to the two supplementary weft patterned bands on the far right. I aim to show you in the following tutorial how simple this technique is.
To weave bands decorated with patterns made with a supplementary weft, I start off with a warp prepared for plain warp faced weave. For this tutorial, I have used strong primary colors which show up well in photos. My yarn is 24 wpi mercerized crochet cotton. The blue base, seen below, has a pale yellow stripe next to each edge. As I used my mini portable warping board, I have just enough warp to make two key fobs. Instead of a shed rod I am using a simple shed loop and I have put the end loops on a needle to have a smooth rather than fringed start.
You can see more about the needle start in this previous post.
A warp prepared for plain weave. There are two sheds-the heddle shed and the shed loop shed.Enough plain weave has been woven to be passed through the key ring, folded and sewn. Now I can begin the pattern.
We introduce the color of our choice as the supplementary weft with which to make our patterns. I am using doubled strands of embroidery floss which work really well with the 24wpi plain weave base. The supplementary weft always needs to be a lot thicker than the main weft. Embroidery floss is thick, lies flat and gives good coverage. Looking at the photos below, you will see the difference in width between the blue warp and weft threads and the yellow supplementary weft. The blue weft will continue to form the structure of the plain weave while the yellow independently forms the motifs.
THE PATTERN CHART (All the pattern charts for these projects can be seen here)
Pattern chart for supplementary weft patterning
You may recognize this diamond chart from my double weave projects.
For supplementary weft patterning, we need to look at the chart in a slightly different way. In double weave the yellow spots would indicate the warps that need to be picked.
However, in this technique the yellow spots within the diamonds represent each warp that needs to be dropped in order to expose the supplementary weft.
Now let’s see this in action……..
WEAVING
Dropping the warps in the first row of pattern.
I have opened the heddle shed and placed my beater within and I am using a pointed stick to help select and drop my warps. Reading the pattern chart from right to left and starting at the bottom, I see that I need to keep the first six warps, then drop one, keep one, drop two, keep one, drop three and so on across the row.
Passing the supplementary weft through the shed from left to right. I am separating the warps to show the starting tail which is left hanging out under the weaving and which can be trimmed when the band is finished. You can see that I am laying in the supplementary weft only from one yellow edge stripe to the other rather than all the way across the band.Passing the main weft from left to right under all the warps in the open heddle shed. This completes the first row.I have opened the shed loop shed , placed my beater within and beaten. Now I am dropping the warps in the shed loop shed according to the second row of the pattern chart again counting the warps from right to left-keep six, drop two, keep one, drop two and so on.Again, the yellow supplementary weft is passing from the edge of one stripe to the other turning on the surface of the weave. I am laying in the weft loosely and pushing it into place with the pointed stick .After passing the main weft from right to left under all the warps in the open shed loop shed, I open the heddle shed, place the beater within and beat, ready to do row three. I am finishing the third row. You can see that the yellow weft turns on the surface of the weaving at the stripes. I don't like carrying the supplementary weft all the way to the edge as I don't like the bumpy edge that that creates. I would rather have the weft turning against the stripe and use that as a decorative feature.One half of the motif is finished. I can continue with the same color or introduce another. The finish tail of the yellow weft will be left hanging out the back of the weaving. If you have packed your wefts in firmly, you will be able to safely snip the tail off when you finish the band.On this Central Asian design that I made you can see that the turning wefts on the left form their own decorative ''stripe' on the plain weave.The turns of the pattern wefts in this piece virtually disappear against a stripe of the same color. Several colors can be used for the motifs within one piece.
I have put the pattern charts for these motifs as well as the Central Asian and Huni Kuin inspired designs on a separate page. You can design and print out your own blank diamond charts here.
If you are planning your own designs, as a general rule, it is best not to have weft floats that span more than four warps. This of course will depend on how fine a yarn you are using and the purpose of the piece you are weaving. You need to consider that long floats on a key fob or bag will easily catch on things whereas on a hatband, for example, they may not be a problem. You should also take in account the fact that floats over a single warp, for example the points of the triangles in my sample design here, can barely be seen. Try to have your weft floating over a minimum of two warps.
cI finished the motif in another bright photogenic color and have turned the loom around to weave another key fob on the other end. You can see that the design does not show on the back of the band.
Below are some more key fobs that I have made in a variety of techniques and yarns ranging from 12 wpi mercerized cotton to doubled sewing thread. I weave a few now and then to add to the collection and have them handy as gifts for my friends here, or back in Australia or for other travelers I meet on the road in South America. Some are finished and some are yet to be braided and sewn.
Two can be made on one warp. First I weave one and then I move the shed loop to the other side of the heddles, turn the loom around, pass a needle through the end loops and start weaving from the other end. I cut between the two small weavings when I have finished and then braid the ends or leave them as fringe.
Key fobs in earthy colorsAnd some in brighter colors.
SO WHAT HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN UP TO?
There’s nothing I like better than to see my instructions and charts put to use!
Here are some things that a couple of blog visitors have worked on……..
Amber's mug rugs look good with black motifs on white.
Amber made one African and two South American motif mug rugs on the one warp. She tied up her loom to the ladder on her sister’s bunk bed which I think is a brilliant tie up place. I am thinking about having a sturdy wooden ladder with several rungs built and screwed into a wall so that I can have different tie up places at different heights. When I am not using it for weaving, I can use it to hang things on or display weavings draped over the rungs. Thanks for the idea, Amber.
Courtney tied up her loom to a sofa bed to weave her llama band. You can read more about this project and her furry helper on her blog.
My tutorial for this one-weft double weave technique can be found in the Backstrap Weaving Group at Weavolution.
Courtney's black and red llama motifs.
If anyone else out there is weaving the designs or using the tips from my blog, I would love to hear from you and show off your projects here. Even if you have not woven a project yet, I would love to see the backstrap loom you have put together. I hope to see what you have created with supplementray weft patterning.
Leave a comment for me here or contact me at Weavolution. You will need to join Weavolution to do so-it’s free!
Once again, thanks for visiting and thanks for all the comments! 🙂
Lately I have been playing with supplementary weft patterning and, once again, have been inspired by Weavolution members. One member joined my Backstrap Group as she is interested, amongst other things, in reproducing a Central Asian yurt band. She has introduced me to many beautiful Central Asian designs and often sends me photos of pieces she has seen at reenactmant events that she attends.
Together we figured out the technique on a yurt band she had bought and even wove it simultaneously- all coordinated by email!
When she sent me this photo (at left) of a Central Asian piece she had photographed at one of the historical events, I couldn’t wait to weave the design into something. The technique wasn’t clear in the photo and, as I wasn’t concerned with reproducing the original technique, I decided to weave it in either double weave or supplementary weft patterning. I chose the latter as, since studying this technique in Guatemala in 2008, I hadn’t put it to much use.
In this technique, it is really important to get the right balance between the weight of the warp yarn and that used for the supplementary weft and so I quickly wove a sample and then went ahead and made the table runner below in 4/2 cotton (24wpi) warp with 6 strands of the patterning thread that I had brought back from Guatemala as the supplementary weft. You can see that I added a little embellishment of my own to the pattern.
My colors are rather bland compared with the original. I love that orange zigzag next to the main design. Perhaps I will be more adventurous with color next time!
My table runner with a Central Asian inspired design
My other source of inspiration has been a Brazilian member of Weavolution who has generously shared what she knows about the weavings of the Huni Kuin people who live in the tropical forest of Brazil and Peru. They weave with backstrap looms using cotton that they spin and dye themselves. You can see a video of their work here and a photo of a Huni Kuin weaver here. Although they do not use the supplementary weft technique, I chose to use this method to weave one of their designs into a bag.
A small bag with supplementary weft patterning inspired by a traditional Huni Kuin design.
Here in Bolivia, the supplementary weft technique is used by women to weave bands to decorate their hats. It is in these hatbands that I have seen the widest variety of woven designs. Except for in Calcha, where it seemed that the women had decided on one hatband design to represent their village, I have never seen two hatbands alike.
This Potolo woman is using three hatbands at once.
Hatbands from Bolivia
Sometimes the supplementary weft is used to form the motif as in the small condors on the upper half of the center band above. At other times, it is used to fill the negative space to outline the motif on the ground weave.
From having purchased some hatbands here, I was able to see how they were woven. I made a few sample bands but, as I didn’t get the right warp to weft ratio, I wasn’t too pleased with the results and never really went on to explore this technique further- that is, until I went to Guatemala in 2008 and studied weft patterning with three teachers there. It was my first time in Guatemala and an absolute explosion of color and inspiration was awaiting!
The traditional hair sash of the women of Aguacatan, Guatemala
So I would like to spend the rest of this post introducing you to my first teacher in Guatemala and showing you how I learned supplementary weft patterning with her.
Lidia lives in the very small town of Santa Catarina Barahona near San Antonio Aguas Calientes in Guatemala. The typical blouse, or huipil of the area has designs woven in single and double faced supplementary weft patterning. The large areas of double faced patterning are those that most distinguish the huipiles of this area.
Typical huilpil of San Antonio Aguas Calientes.
Single faced weft patterning. The patterns can’t be seen on the back of the textile.
This double faced patterning looks very much like embroidery. The national bird, the quetzal, is a very popular motif.
Day 1-Lesson 1. I have chosen my colors for my piece and am winding the thread into balls prior to warping
Making a small warp for my lessons
Once the loom was tensioned, the heddles were made.
Lidia’s sister Carmelita showed me how the warps, under which the patterning wefts would be placed, are picked and stored on two additional sticks. The resulting designs are called ”pepenado”.
The first design lesson-Lidia is weaving the ”tijera” (scissors) pattern. She uses a pointed stick to hook theweft tails and pass them under the raised patterning warps.
The finished tijera pattern
Double faced ”abeja”-bee
Three ”abejas” that I wove when I got home
The ”abeja” was topped off with another section of ”tijera” and that completed my second day of classes. Finally, on day three, I learned the ”arcos” (arches) pattern. This is a combination of weft inlay and warp wrapping.
Weaving the ”arcos” designs
The finished ”arcos” design
It looks like my teachers did all the weaving and I just stood around and snapped pictures! Well, I can tell you that it wasn’t so. Lidia was a very ”hands-on” teacher and she would take over only when I got up to stretch and take photos.
But it wasn’t all hard work. Other family members and neighbors came to visit, we paused to make and eat tortillas, chatted and played with the nieces and nephews in Lidia’s shady yard and walked to town to go yarn shopping.
Snack time. While making my way around Guatemala I learned to recognize the ”slap slap slapping” sound of tortillas being prepared.
Small rectangular pieces are covered with double faced designs and closed with a drawstrig to make a baby’s hat.
Whne I got back to Bolivia I finished off the piece that I had been making with lidia and then wove another sampler to consolidate the weft patterning techniques I had learned.
And I used my lesson piece in the lid of my weaving toolbox.
I went on from Lidia’s home to study with two other weavers in Guatemala but, more about that in another post!
Lidia’s daugther Sara and her cousins
I will be doing a tutorial on suplementary weft patterning with lots of step-by-step photos here on my blog in the following weeks so that you can add designs like the Central Asian and Huni Kuin ones, that I showed you above, to your projects.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip from Central Asia, to Brazil, to Bolivia and onward to my teacher’s home in Guatemala. If you did, I would love to hear from you 🙂
A Weavolution member recently introduced me to Teyacapan’s fabulous Flickr page which has hundreds of images of Mexican people with their crafts and weavings. Honestly, you can get lost in that site for hours! I was very much taken by a photo of a weaver doing gauze weave and hope to go to Mexico one day to study with the gauze weavers. Mexico is very high on my list of places to visit and, as I am planning to go to Guatemala again in March or April, it will be easy to duck over the border. If I can spend so long just looking at the images on Teyacapan’s site, imagine how long I will get caught up in Mexico!!
I am lucky to have some great books on Mexican weaving and have been inspired by the images in Joanne Hall’s marvellous book Mexican Tapestry Weaving, to make some more mug rugs with Mexican motifs. I was given this book by my Navajo weaving teacher back in 1995 and made a Navajo style tapestry based on one of the pictures. It is wonderful to see that all these years later, the images in the book are still fresh and inspiring.
So, I am happy to say that I have woven a set of four Mexican themed mug rugs in double weave and have come up with a new double weave project-a hotpad.
hotpad and matching mug rugs
So, it was Mexican all the way for lunch yesterday with spicy beans and tortillas. I think that the hotpad is another perfect double weave project using 12 wpi cotton-it makes a good thick piece to protect your table from hot dishes and casseroles. I wove it on my backstrap loom and is a good project for those of you who are thinking about venturing into wider pieces. Practice on a mug rug set first and then add your matching hotpad.
hotpad and mug rug designs
Although I am very happy with the hotpad design, I think I will make a few changes in the patterns I drew for the mug rugs. Perhaps I will break up some of the large red areas with a bit of black-what do you think? Once I have tweaked the designs and woven another set, I will post the pattern charts here on my blog for you all. In the meantime, here is the chart for the hotpad. I am only posting half of it as it is huge!
double weave pattern chart for the hotpad
If you would like to learn this double weave technique, you can use my free tutorials in the Backstrap Weaving Group on Weavolution. The tutorials have step-by-step photos and links to videos on my Flickr page. Remember that you will need to first join Weavolution and the Backstrap Group to obtain access to them.
Well, as much as I love Mexican food, I don’t think I could manage it every day (although, if I am planning that trip to Mexico……..). Anyway, here is another fun use I found for my new hot pad. It fits perfectly on my breakfast tray where it stops my plate from sliding about and certainly “spices” things up a bit!
spicy breakfast!
I loved designing and weaving this hotpad and I have a bunch of designs in my head for others so you can certainly expect to see more of these in the future. 🙂
MAKING CONTINUOUS STRING HEDDLES………..
I warped up a couple of weeks ago for another set of South American themed mug rugs and used that warp to put together a tutorial on making continuous string heddles. This process is shown on the videos in my WeaveZine article but I have heard from many people on dial-up who have not been able to access the videos. I spend half my time on dial-up as my wifi connection is pretty erratic so I certainly know how it is. I kept all my photo files small for this and I do hope that dial-up folks will be able to enjoy this photo sequence.
I learned this way of making continuous string heddles from my very first weaving teacher, Gladys Miller who taught me Navajo style weaving way back in 1995. I have seen many different ways since then while studying with my indigenous weaving teachers but none have convinced me to change my ways.
First I’d like to show you some pictures of a few weavers I have met and worked with here in South America and Guatemala and how they make their heddles.
Zapote, Ecuador. This weaver is using her flat tenter stick as a spacer around which to wind the heddle string. This helps her to make all the heddles the same length.The spacer will later be removed.
San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Guatemala. Here the weaver wraps the heddle loops around her hand before passing them to a stick.
Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Hammock weavers' warps are so wide that they can't use a heddle stick. They just leave the heddle loops loose and pull them in small groups across the width of the warp to open the shed.
THE TUTORIAL………
Larger and heavier versions of these tutorial photos can be seen here.
For double weave, your cross will look like this. Remember that in this technique you are using doubled warps. The all-black warps will form the black border. You have one white and one black warp in pairs in the area where you will weave your motif.
You will be putting each of the pairs of warps that are passing over stick B in a heddle. Open the shed and pass your heddle string through as shown.
Make a slip knot in the end of the heddle string and place it on you heddle stick. Leave a long tail as shown.
Reach down between warp pair 1 and 2 and pull up the heddle string as shown.
Put a twist in the loop.
Place the loop on the stick and anchor it with your left forefinger.
Put an extra twist in the heddle string forming a small loop.
Put the small loop on the stick and tighten it by pulling on the end of the heddle string.
You can now let go and see that your first warp pair is secured within its heddle.
Moving on.....heddles have been made around the 1st and 2nd warp pair and the heddle string is being pulled up to make the 3rd heddle.
Slip the loop on the heddle stick and adjust its length by pulling on the end of the heddle string. Once you have the length correctly adjusted, anchor the loop on the stick with your left forefinger before making your extra twist.
Continue like this, cut the heddle string and tie the start and end tails together. DONE!
I always use the same yarn that I am using for the warp for my string heddles. A lot of my teachers use thin nylon thread or cord as it is less abrasive on the warps. I can’t stand using nylon but you should experiment and see which kind of heddle string suits you.
Here’s hoping you have found this useful. Maybe you know some rigid heddlers too who will be interested in seeing how to make string heddles so they can add another shed to their looms. Pass it on!
Once you have the hang of weaving this border design, especially the parts where the two motifs overlap, you will have the skills necessary to weave the yurt band design that I wove on the cell phone pouch last week – at left. But, I recommend starting small! Practice the small design in this tutorial and make something useful. Next week I will give the chart and instructions for weaving the border of the red cell pouch, pictured below.
