weaving with wool – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – Putting it All Together.

This post is about the second expandable folder that I’ve been working on….the weaving, the stitching, the ironing and the gluing. I’m posting all this as much for my own future reference as for the folks who have asked me for an explanation. I have written my notes in my weaving book but there aren’t accompanying photos as there are here. If the process doesn’t interest you, I hope that you will at least enjoy scrolling through and seeing the photos in this post.

The folder is only 99% finished because my box of random buttons that I’ve picked up here and there over the years is now living in Australia. Silly me hadn’t thought far enough ahead to select one or two to bring back to Bolivia with me for this project. I’ve never actually been button hunting here in Santa Cruz. Who knows what I might discover.

The button-and-loop closure that I used for the first folder. I’d like to use two such closures on the new folder, one on each of the plain weave side panels, as this second folder is going to be quite stuffed full of charts.

What did I learn from this project?…..that the cotton fabric I bought for the stitched shibori project that I planned to combine with my woven cloth shrinks a heck of a lot in the hot dye bath. I had to adjust my overall folder design to accommodate that. I’ll keep that in mind for future projects.

**In my last post I showed you how different the two faces of this cloth turned out…both attractive in their own way. I eventually decided on using this bolder face for the folder project.**

**First things first…finish the main pattern fabric. At this point I was celebrating passing halfway.**

Next came the weaving of the plain-weave side panels. I chose to weave these separately as the wool singles are particularly grabby in plain weave and I need to operate the loom in a certain way to minimize the amount of abrasion. The sheds are much easier to open when I work with warp floats in the pattern area and so I find that it’s an overall smoother and more efficient operation to just weave the plain and patterned areas separately.

I prefer to weave the two strips separately rather than as one long band which I then cut in two. That saves me having to set up to accommodate the longer warp in my limited weaving space. It does result in a bit more waste, though.

The woven pieces were then ready to assemble into one wide piece for the folder.

Just as I had done for the first folder, I joined the three panels using the cross-knit-loop stitch that my Vietnamese backstrap loom teachers use to join panels for skirts and blankets.

I hemmed the completed piece and lined it with my stitched shibori fabric. I also inserted two pieces of stiff card between the woven fabric and the lining….one for each half…..and added a line of sewing across the center of the piece as well, thus keeping the two cardboard pieces separate. I stitch by hand and I love doing this kind of straightforward stitching. At this point I discovered that the amount of stitched shibori fabric that remained was not going to be enough for my original construction plan. Well, we just have to adjust and make it work, don’t we?

**These will be the fan-folded pieces that make the expandable sides of the folder. I use two for each side…one for each half… and join the two halves together as the very last step of the process.**

The sides of my first folder extend all the way from bottom to top…

**You can see the line in the middle of the fan-folds where the two halves are eventually glued together.**

In order to fit the full height of the folder I needed 11″ of length for each piece of shibori fabric. I only had enough fabric for 9 1/2″. It’s more than enough to contain the sheets of charting paper that will be housed within the folder so it’s not a big deal…still, I think the side panels look much nicer if they can extend all the way to the top of the folder. It’s hard to believe that the cotton cloth shrank so much in the dye bath. I’m wondering if I perhaps failed to take into account seam allowance when I originally measured out the cloth. I didn’t take notes!

I ironed fusible interfacing onto the reverse of the four stitched shibori pieces and then created the fan folds. This cotton cloth is quite a bit heavier than the fabric that I used on the first folder and I had to coax it into holding nice crisp folds. It really didn’t want to.

And now, this is where it all starts to get a bit fiddly and I’m afraid that my photos aren’t great. I hope that my descriptions don’t sound as clumsy to you as they do to me!

The four fan-folded pieces are then sewn to the inside of the folder. The first folded section in each is sewn down flat along the the edges of the folder. That piece of cardboard is only there for the photo to help distinguish the folded pieces from the background lining cloth.

And now, out comes the iron and things get even fiddlier! I have a burn on the inside of my wrist to prove it. The next step is about inserting the cardboard dividers. Here’s a photo of the sides and dividers in position in the finished folder….

Think of the side pieces as being folded into a series of valleys and mountains. The dividers extend across the folder from mountain peak to mountain peak. There are two mountain peaks on each half of each side.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you come up with a much better way to do this which will have me slapping my forehead, but this worked well for my first folder and I haven’t since been able to come up with another option.

I cut five pieces of stiff card (8″ tall) and twenty 8 x 1 1/2″ strips of heavy fusible interfacing. I ironed about two thirds of the width of each interfacing strip to the two edges of each card, one to the upper face and one to the lower.

**I hope this photo gives you the idea. This isn’t the tricky part, by the way!**

My cardboard divider pieces now look like they are edged with an “open jaw” of interfacing ready to clamp down on and enclose something. They need to be ironed onto the fan folds so that they grip the mountain peaks. Yep, that’s the fiddly bit. For the most part it works really well, especially if you manage to keep your body parts out of the way of the iron. I used Wellbond glue for any parts that weren’t quite within reach of the iron. It’s good stuff and works really well. However, I prefer risking the iron to the mess of the glue. Plus the glue requires a much longer “cure” time than the ironed interfacing.

This process will utilize four of the five pieces of card. The fifth gets inserted at the end when you join the two halves of the side panels together. I used the Wellbond glue for this and could then sit back and give it the required amount of time to cure before placing my pile of pattern charts into their new home.

**You can see the center join which forms another mountain. The interfacing tabs on the last cardboard divider are glued in and sandwiched between the two sections.**

**All I need to do now is braid some loops and find two nice silver buttons.**

That just about finished off my supply of Petaluma wool. I have some left to use in my next venture into dyeing with cochineal which could well be my next project. I’ll be able to weave a (very) little something with it. If not that, I’ll weave cotton ikat cloth, using my handspun, and make another stitched shibori project for a wallet.

And here’s a reminder that Dorinda is in the States and will be able to mail orders of beautiful cloth and products created by my weaving teacher, Maxima, and the other ladies in the co-op they operate in the central Bolivian highlands. She can do this until December 6. The pieces ae made from the weavers’ own hand-spun and naturally-dyed wool. Take a look at the gorgeous range of colors they are able to create from local dye plants and cochineal. Finished products are available as well as just the cloth on its own for you to use in your own sewing projects. These are snippets of pieces that I have bought over the years.

You can contact Dorinda directly at dkdutcher@hotmail.com or via the PAZA Bolivia blog. I hope you’ll consider making a purchase for yourself or friends for this holiday season. And many thanks to those who have already done so. Dorinda keeps me updated!

Backstrap Weaving – Hitting the Ground Running

I traveled and now I’m back home trying to get my sleeping patterns back in order. I’ve found after all the trips away that I have done that one of the best ways to ease the effects of jet lag is to hit the ground running on my return. In the days when I was teaching English here at the Centro Boliviano Americano, I would arrive back from a trip to Australia and be back in the classroom the next day. I seemed to shake off the effects of jet lag so easily that way. If I come home and am just faced with cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and a pile of yarn, it’s way too easy to give into the temptation to lay everything down and go take a nap. That doesn’t help at all with getting back to normal sleep patterns.

So, where did I go?

Arriving in Sydney in the early morning, I had hours to kill before my afternoon train up north. I put my luggage into storage at Central Station and went down to the harbor on what was an absolutely glorious day.

My gosh it was crowded down there. Was this the mass tourism that I had been hearing about? Not quite. I eventually realized that people were coming to witness the 50th birthday celebration day for the Sydney Opera House. Crowds were gathering for the day’s events.

**Flying into Sydney at day break reminded me of the colors I had chosen for my woven piece named Sunrise, Sunset.**

Now I’m back in Bolivia and have hit the ground running as far as my fiber-y pursuits go….not so much as far as cleaning and laundry go, though. Has it helped with the jet lag…..hmmmm, maybe just a little bit.

I had taken some cotton fabric away with me so that I could keep busy during any down time stitching for a shibori project. If you’ve read my most recent posts, you’ll know that I have plans to create another expandable folder just like this one that I just finished…

**My expandable folder project has a woven wool cover with three-color patterning.** **It holds my various styles of blank pattern charts.**

**I used some fabric that I happened to have to line the cover and make the expandable sides.**

I’m planning to use my stitched shibori fabric to line the cover and make the sides on this second folder project. I chose a simple leaf pattern to suit my beginner skill level. I’ve only made a few small stitched shibori experiments so far which I’ve used to line some of my woven bags.

At this stage, all the leaf shapes have been stitched and I am pulling and tying off the threads to prepare the cloth for dyeing. The folds of cloth in the tightly gathered areas will mostly resist the dye. I completed this task and took the piece home ready to go into the dye pot.

Sleep was denied me the first couple of nights. That along with the fact that day time temperatures have been outrageously and unseasonably high (and I don’t have air conditioning), had me dyeing the cloth in the wee hours and attempting to remove the stitches. **That was the only time that I could bear to use the stove.** **It was lovely sitting and working on it in the quiet and relative coolness of 3am**.

I’d used stronger thread than in my previous projects and removing it was quite a challenge. I was amazed at how different the two faces of the cloth looked. The photo above shows a soft image while the other face, below, has much bolder lines and higher contrast.

**I’ll probably use one face for the lining and the other for the sides because I simply can’t decide which face I prefer.**

I’d created a new pattern for the three-color weave I was planning to use for the cover of the new folder. I was once again going to use the wool singles that I’d got from the farmer in California. I dyed two blues to use alongside the natural grey. I think the pattern I drew for the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave was born from having spent some time looking at textiles and basketry from Borneo and Sulawesi.

I made all the necessary calculations and wound the warp leaving it ready to be picked up when I returned from my trip.

This was what was waiting for my return so that I could hit the ground running. I’d separated the threads onto two sticks for the two sets of heddles and left the heddle making itself as the task that would get me straight back into the groove on my return.

Weaving with these wool singles is all about gently taming a hairy squiggly beast. I’d barely got into it when I broke a warp thread. This was a convenient reminder of just how careful I needed to be.

**I got some smart and wonderfully thin black cable ties while in Australia for my unconventional way of lashing my warp to the beam.**

**Approaching halfway and rolling up the woven cloth around beams and paper.**

**Woo hoo!….past halfway and time to reverse the pattern. No more broken threads.** **I’m really pleased with the new pattern I created.**

I’ll construct the folder in the same way I did the other. The cover will be three woven panels that I join with a decorative stitch. I had requests from a few people to explain how I put the folder together. Hopefully, I’ll remember to take pictures of the process this time so that I can write a blog post about it and show you.

Before I leave, I’d like to invite you to visit the PAZA Bolivia blog that my friend Dorinda Dutcher writes about the work of my weaving teacher Maxima and the other ladies in the co-op in the central Bolivian highlands. There are exciting plans to perhaps introduce the ladies to indigo-dyeing techniques and I can’t wait to see how the weavers combine it with their current gorgeous range of natural colors.

My favorite Bolivian weaving teacher, Maxima, stands here on the left with one of her daughters and a granddaughter…..three generations of weavers! Her granddaughter proudly shows her first ever weaving that has been accepted for sale by the co-op of weavers in her community. It was woven on the traditional leaning frame loom using handspun and naturally dyed wool. Dorinda, who works with these ladies to transport and help sell the products made from this beautiful cloth, has just written a blog post showing all that she has available to ship now from the USA (until Dec 6) if you are looking for Christmas gifts.

Another reason to direct you to the PAZA blog, is to make you aware of the woven products that the ladies offer via the co-op especially now that Christmas is approaching. I do hope that you will consider making a purchase to support them. Dorinda’s latest blog post shows what she has available in the US to ship until December 6 (after which she will be traveling and unable to process orders). Dorinda fills the blog with personal stories and photos of the weavers’ rural lives and is well worth a read even if you aren’t in the market for a beautiful piece of handweaving. Here’s the link again.

Until next time when I’ll hopefully have a finished folder to show you…..

Backstrap Weaving – One Method doesn’t Fit All.

Does one backstrap loom operating method fit all? Definitely not, especially when working with sticky, sticky, mill-spun singles wool. Give it a shot of hairspray some people will say, or coat it in sizing. My reaction is “yuck” (mind you, I’ve never tried it!). My hands are right in there in amongst the threads in the kind of pick-up patterning I do and I like to feel the natural fiber rather than a starchy stiffness or chemical coating.

The process is more meaningful to me than the finished product and I would rather slow down and adapt my method for operating the loom than coat the threads with stuff. (I’m quite sure I’ll try it one of these days, though, as I get further along with weaving with my own handspun cotton singles and will then take all this back).

I don’t want to limit myself to only the smoothest and friendliest of materials that are deemed suitable for warp-faced weaving on a backstrap loom. And so I will occasionally jump in and make the sticky stuff work. I guess in a way I enjoy the challenge as well as the feel of the finished product. Of course much depends on the intended use of the finished product.

**This is the mill-spun wool singles yarn that I bought from a farmer while weaving with friends in Petaluma, California**.

I have used this wool in three small projects in plain warp-faced weaving so far. It has stood up well in the weaving process and with use. I had yet to use it in any kind of denser warp-float structures, let alone in the three-color structure that I was planning. I figured that I could weave a sample to see how it behaved and then decide if I wanted to take it on for a larger project. I was confident that I could make it work. It just depended on how much work I had to put into making it work. Working with yarn like this usually involves slowing down and gently coaxing unwilling threads to release their sticky hairy grip on their neighbors so that you can get something that resembles a clear shed without damaging the yarn.

**Two of the plain-weave projects that I’ve completed with this wool….a travel documents pouch on the left and mobile phone case on the right.**

What made things a little trickier was the fact that I dyed some of the yarn. In the hot water the singles sort of poofed up (surely there’s a technical term for this) and didn’t recover when they dried. The un-dyed yarn looked thin and wiry next to it.

I wove a narrow sample in the three-color structure and decided that it would be doable in a wider project. Surprisingly, the threads in the tiny plain-weave borders were ones that complained most with that alarming rasping and tearing sound that they make as their entwined hairy fingers are torn apart. It all sounds very violent, doesn’t it?! But in reality it all has to be done very gently. In the warp-float section, there were far fewer complaints but I still had to work to clear sheds.

I sampled both the reversible and non-reversible versions of the three-color technique and also played with different weights of wool weft. Using the same yarn as weft gave me the best result.

There was a lot of pick-up to be done in my much larger planned pattern flanked by a lot more plain weave. Because operating the loom for the wide plain-weave borders required slower more gentle operation of the loom, I decided to just weave the pattern on its own and to add the sides as separate pieces. That way I could just place all my focus on the pick-up.

**Taming the mill-spun singles into a three-color pattern in the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave.**

I’ve woven this three-color structure several times before using Tencel, tapestry wool and my own plied handspun wool and have achieved nice crisp images. The hairiness of the singles yarn gives a much more rustic look to the figures. It grows on you and I love the way it feels.

**Using 8/2 Tencel in the same structure.**

I had set up my warp with two sets of string heddles and once I had figured out my method for working them with this extra sticky stuff, I was on my way and enjoying seeing the pattern emerge. It’s always good to have multiple ways of adjusting basic methods to suit the kind of material with which you are working.

I didn’t do a whole lot of color flipping on this one, unlike the hummingbird camera strap that I wove in my own handspun. I just flipped to outline some leaves in red rather than white in one part. This wasn’t the kind of design in which I could regularly flip the background color.

**The camera strap in which I could play with changing the background color, the hummingbird outline color and filler color. It was a bit brain bending but fun.**

**A little further along with some cloth already rolled up.**

One thing that I always try to do when weaving with wool is advance the warp as often as possible so that the heddles and rods are not abrading one spot for too long.

And here it is finished….

Next came the grey side pieces….

**Now to decide on whether to join the three pieces without overlapping them using one of the decorative stitches that I’ve learned from my teachers here, or join them with the tiniest of seams.**

**The heddles from the two warps remained pretty much fluff-free.** **The one on the left is from the pattern warp and is discolored. I’m guessing that a fine film of fluff has discolored it.**

This little pouch for my pin loom is made up of three pieces joined together with a tiny seam. The center is a piece I wove from my own handspun llama yarn that I was rescuing from an old project. I added sides made from the mill-spun wool singles.

A subtle joining stitch in cotton connecting two panels that don’t overlap. I’d woven a very long band on a circular warp and Karen-style backstrap loom that had been given to me. I cut the band into five pieces and joined them to make a table square.

**The stitch can be decorative as well as functional when worked in a contrasting color. I used it to join the panels of this wool lap blanket that I wove.**

**Another kind of stitch that my Vietnamese backstrap weaving teachers use. I used it to connect two bands and make a tool bag**.

Sometimes the joining stitch can be one of the main features. I used this stitch which was shown to me by one of my teachers in the Bolivian highlands to join two cotton panels that I had woven. Maxima stitches it in many bright and lively colors.

**Picture courtesy of PAZA Bolivia shows Maxima’s carrying cloth with its colorful joining stitches.**

So, what is this project supposed to be? It will hopefully be the cover for a folder that holds my pattern charts. I just have to figure out how to construct the folder. I want it to have multiple pockets for the various categories of structures and it may need to be expandable.

While I figure that out, I’ll start washing my handspun cotton singles as I have a project in mind for them and I might start preparing the handspun wool I recently got in the market for some cochineal dyeing. We have a run of really high temperatures coming up and I can’t say that I’m keen on having the stove on for these tasks. I don’t have air conditioning. But never mind, there’s always plenty of other fiber-y things to do.

**Natural brown handspun cotton singles waiting to be washed. I use these metal mesh pencil cups to hold the thread under tension in the pot.**

I’ll just pop in a photo here of the box purse that I was making in my last post. I didn’t show a photo of the open box with its contents. It’s so handy…I love it.

I’m going to leave you with a couple of short videos I took of weavers in Peru working with wide wool warps on their backstrap looms. You will see that some time and effort needs to put into opening the shed-rod shed with the particular kind of warp material they are using. Its not just a matter of drawing the shed rod forward to the heddles and then sliding the two together. The threads don’t smoothly rise and pop through to the other side as you often see happening in the hands of some backstrap loom weavers on Youtube who are using other kinds of friendlier warp material. Those of us who are privileged to be able to work with all kinds of warp materials soon find out that there isn’t just one single method that fits all.

Backstrap Weaving – The Simple and the Complex

Every now and then when I am sitting at my loom, I am reminded of the years that I spent teaching English here in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The institute had received a visit from a teaching consultant from the U.S State Department who introduced us to the concept of what she called “barefoot teaching”. She had developed this after having spoken with many teachers, especially those living in countries of the developing world like Bolivia, who had convinced themselves that they simply could not teach effectively without flashcards, computers, interactive boards and all other kinds of audio-visual aids. The barefoot teaching idea basically involved setting yourself the challenge of leaving all the tools at home and going into class with nothing more than a lesson plan and a piece of chalk (as well as a lot of enthusiasm and creativity)…in other words “barefoot”.

Then I get to thinking about Maxima, my favorite weaving teacher in the Bolivian highlands, and what simple tools one really needs to get started in backstrap weaving…basically your back, some thread/yarn and a toe! (and instruction or guidance, be that in person, or virtually via books, blogs, video or a multitude of other ways to connect online). Real barefoot weaving! Maxima doesn’t even use a backstrap.

Maxima has made a picking cross and is selecting the warps from each side of the cross for her design. Her warp is attached to her toe and for a while so was mine. Then I also attached my warp to her toe when mine had had enough! Finally we moved to the post to tie my warp up and later Maxima did the same.

There’s not a single stick in use.

Ten-year-old Peruvian weaver Juan Miguel, above, has a stake driven into the ground to which his warp is attached – his only real piece of equipment. If it were a shorter warp, he could use his toe. (Maxima deals with longer warps by wrapping the warp once around her toe to securely grip and tension it. A string passed through the end loops of Juan Miguel’s warp goes around his waist and acts as his “loom bar” and “backstrap”. He is using a string loop for one shed and string heddles for the other. He isn’t even using a beater or sword. His hands do the trick. After passing the weft, he opens the other shed and pulls the upper layer of threads up while pulling the other down in order to squeeze the last weft shot into place.

A warp can be wound in a figure-eight around a finger and a toe. The thumb and a finger of the free hand are used to gather up the cross when the warp is complete while the weaver uses the other hand to tuck one end of the warp into the waist-band of her skirt. The other end stays on the big toe. A length of yarn is inserted to hold the cross leaving two hands free to make string heddles.

**My weaving friends in the Bolivian highlands were excited about the opportunity to try out cotton that had been donated by Cotton Clouds.**

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be tossing out my loom bars. I like using them even for the tiniest of warps but it is nice to think back to how I got started. We used pencil-width sticks about five inches long for loom bars, slightly longer ones for cross sticks and we had a beater. My teacher tied a cord around my waist and lodged the stick under it. Cord was passed through the other end of the warp which was attached to a bush so we could weave tiny pebble weave bands.

**Twenty-six years ago, I sat on that pillow between my mother-and-daughter teachers to take my very first “watch and do as I do” lessons in weaving on a backstrap loom.** **They were lessons not only about the pebble weave structure, but also about how to use your body to operate the loom. Most importantly of all, they were lessons in how to learn by simply watching.**

Last year was the twenty-fifth anniversary of that very first experience and I wove a piece as a representation not only of my vision of a post-pandemic world, but also as a recognition of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the happy scene above. The very first pattern that these ladies showed me was a hummingbird (although it took me several years to recognize it as one!). Hummingbirds, therefore, also became a part of the piece that I wove. In it, we are together again. The bush has grown into a tree with strong and extensive roots and although our warps have widened, the simplicity of the tools remains the same.

**Panel 4 from the Within These Walls series.**

Even something as simple as long thumb nails can be very useful. I appreciate them most when I am making string heddles. Sometimes I am unaware of the part they play in other stages of the process and only realize when I have had to cut them. Then I really miss them.

I love the simplicity in this picture….one’s entire weaving kit rolled up and neatly stored away.

And I wish that I could be organized enough to create a simple, clear weaving space like this…

My teacher Felicia’s weaving space…sticks, a bone tool, a bit of plastic-wrapped wire, and a sheep skin on which to sit. Simple tools don’t necessarily need to be made from natural materials. Hat and cat are optional. She was weaving for a museum’s gift shop and needed to adhere to precise pre-agreed measurements…hence the measuring tape.

I have an out-of-sight-out-of-mind way of operating and so my weaving space is strewn with things that serve to remind me of ideas for future projects as well as samples and works in progress. Yes, I now have a lovely weaving journal in which to jot down those ideas but it’s not the same as being constantly reminded of them when I have to step over and around them every day..

The thing that really motivated me to write this post was the completion of the simple fabric with which I will, hopefully, construct a bag….a simple blue bag to go with the highly decorated and comparatively complex reversible three-color strap. I even opted out of adding a motif to the cloth here and there using supplementary weft. One of the joys of supplementary weft is that you can treat your base cloth as a blank canvas and just add pattern wherever you please. The cloth can be covered with pattern from edge to edge or just show a few scattered motifs here and there. I used both options in this scarf…

**60/2 silk fabric for a scarf on the loom with the simple tools that were used to create it.**

One of the other many joys of using supplementary weft is that if you decide that you don’t like the motif you have woven, you can simply cut it out. Your base cloth will remain intact. I started adding a motif to the cloth for my bag, decided it was too much, and removed it. I actually unwove to remove it rather than cut it out.

Having got the urge to decorate the cloth out of my system, I sailed along enjoying the simplicity of the “dance” of just rhythmically operating the two basic sheds on the loom and passing my shuttle. Well, “sailed along” might not quite be the right way to describe it. It was a sticky wool warp and required a slower pace, stopping to advance the warp more frequently and performing strumming and other operations a lot more gently than I normally would….but I so enjoyed weaving it!

And here’s the contrast between the simple and the complex in the finished cloth and strap….

**The cloth is in industrially-spun wool and the strap is in my own spindle-spun wool.**

I am showing the string heddles because they are almost perfectly clean despite the stickiness of the wool warp. There is the faintest film of blue fluff on their tips which makes it look like the tips have been dyed.

I will leave you now with this lovely hummingbird piece that showed up in my Facebook feed from the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. I visited that museum many a time when I was living in Chile but haven’t been there since its major renovation some years ago. They were even selling my woven bookmarks in their gift shop at one point…wow, that was so long ago!

Backstrap Weaving – The Sounds of our Craft

It’s been a while since I last heard the scritchy sound of hairy warp threads releasing their grip on each other as I open sheds on my backstrap loom. I am hearing it now because I have taken on the challenge of weaving with mill-spun wool singles that I bought from a farm while traveling in California. I don’t really know what I had in mind when I bought that yarn. I had just wanted to buy something as a souvenir of that part of my travels from the lovely people who had allowed my friends to gather and weave in their barn.

Because traveling to far off places to buy yarn like this is off the table at the moment, this is another case of my exploring my dwindling stash and enjoying the new challenges that this presents. My idea is to use this yarn to weave the body of a bag that will go with the strap I just finished. I used a three-color reversible Andean Pebble Weave structure for this strap and the wool yarn that I had been spinning and plying on a drop spindle during pandemic Zoom gatherings.

**Despite the dark colors, I think it’s a happy garden scene of flowers and hummingbirds**.

I did start off with the idea of creating an orderly, cohesive pattern layout but the temptation to play with the three colors and pop those hummingbirds wherever I wanted took over and I had a lot of fun doing just that.

One thing that I had wanted to do was use one color for the pebble spot that represents the hummingbird’s eye and another color for all the other pebble spots that sit within the figure’s body…but you know, I forgot to do that every single time! Well, almost every single time. I was determined to remember to do two things before I eventually finished the band…take a picture of myself at the loom working on it and get those colored eye spots in!

I once met a bird photographer that told me that it is really important to capture the little spot of white light in a bird’s eye in order not to have it appear lifeless. I have looked for it in every bird photo I have seen since. In the same way, I think the different colored eye spot on these last two hummers makes an enormous difference.

I didn’t hear any woolly scritchy sounds while working with this hand spun of mine. I had been concerned about how well it would stand up to this rather dense structure but realized after a while that I had completely forgotten all my concerns and was able to enjoy how friendly it was and how lovely it felt.

I remember the first time I wove with my hand spun. It was with some rather nasty dry and dusty llama fiber that I had bought from the animals’ owner up in the highlands. At the time, the scritchy tearing sounds were freaking me out and the yarn I had spun was anything but soft and lovely to handle. I had put a tremendous amount of twist into it so that it would stand up to warp-faced weaving. I don’t do that any more.

And now, there is a new experience…weaving with these mill-spun singles. This is a first for me. Yes, there’s some “scritchiness” but I am actually finding it pleasant…almost like the warp is whispering to me. That llama fiber had seemed to be screaming at me in that first-ever experience. I made adjustments to the way I was spinning it, it became friendlier, and I was able to enjoy weaving with it more. 🙂

This is my sample for the bag fabric that will follow. I wound a warp of 27″ length and 160 ends. The idea was to weave and allow it to settle into a consistent width so that I could then make calculations for the bag fabric. I most typically start off too narrow with new-to-me yarn and have to let the piece gradually widen and settle. Once I am happy with that, I put it aside and work on the real project. This time, however, I was enjoying working with this wool so much, I decided that this piece really needed to be something and I figured that my cell phone, which currently sits in a case, could do with a pouch. So, I unwove a good 3″ of fabric so that I could start over at the correct width. The fact that I was able to unweave the warp-faced cloth woven with wool singles yarn without losing my mind, tells me that this yarn and I are going to have a happy weaving relationship.

And I decided to use some of my plied hand spun as supplementary weft to weave in a pattern. This is some of the thicker “Zoom” hand spun that I first created and used to weave a wrist cuff before deciding to try and go finer. It is making a very nice supplementary weft. I am using the outlining technique of supplementary-weft patterning in which the weft does not travel from selvedge to selvedge. I can make my hand spun yarn go further that way. It is precious to me and I don’t want it to be just hidden away between the layers of warp as it travels to the selvedge. I can’t tell you how much fun I am having with this!

**Wrist cuff with the initial run of hand spun.**

A couple of observations: There had been a tendency for me to think that the action of the heddles against the wool would be the cause of most of the abrasion and subsequent pilling or shredding. Lately I have found that with good loom-operation technique, this isn’t so. There is actually a point of layer exchange that sits between the heddle and the shed rod where most of the abrasion is occurring for me. This exchange happens when the threads that lie on top of the shed rod are lifted and brought down through the heddles to the weaving line. (I keep my shed rod stationary and don’t slide it forward to the heddles as some backstrap weavers do which explains why the point of layer exchange on my particular warp is in that position.) That abrasion point is the one I need to watch and I notice that a little bit of fluff accumulates there. I am particularly gentle there and tend to spread the threads with my hands and lift them through that point in sections. It is also important to advance the warp as often as possible so that the abrasion point is constantly changing position.

**I love the multiple tones in the warp and its rustic look. I had considered a hummingbird pattern but decided that this one better suits these natural earthy colors.**

But despite all that gentle handling, the warp does continue to whisper to me in its scritchy voice, possibly just as a reminder not to get cocky and careless when I open the sheds. This talk of sound playing a part in our weaving, reminded me of some thoughts I had posted way back in 2013 that I thought I would revisit and share with you.

Back then, something a weaver had posted on the Weavolution website had resonated with me. An Australian gentleman, Hakim, was learning to make cut pile knotted rugs with an Iranian teacher in Australia. He said that when he is at home working on his practice piece, he can tell that the tension of the warp threads is correct if they make the same sound when he handles them as they do when he is working on his learning piece with his teacher in class.

What a piece of priceless knowledge!

(At left you can see an example of a set of tools that Hakim was able to get for me from his teacher for the day when I try this technique. It’s on that long, long to-do list).

Hakim’s comment made me think about the different sounds that are connected with weaving on simple looms and how much I enjoy them.

I am not one for placing things in my ears and listening to music while busy with something else. I can’t stand that. I like to be in touch with the sounds around me. They form a very important part of my memories of places and experiences.

In my skiing days, I would wonder at people who skied with headphones on. I would never give up the pleasure of hearing the wind and the swish of the skis on the snow, or the sudden change of sound as snow turned to ice giving me time to react and adjust position. Back then, no one wore helmets. I am told that the helmets being worn now don’t affect the skiers ability to enjoy those sounds.

I learned to fly a glider when I was 19. There is nothing like the sound of an engine-less craft rushing through the air. There was so much with which to be occupied while learning (especially for someone like me who was so utterly un-coordinated at the time!) but I could always simply rely on my ears for certain information. For example, if the sound of the rushing air suddenly disappeared it was a sure sign that I had the nose up too high and that told me that I had better do something quickly before the glider stalled!

When we first went into pandemic lockdown here in Bolivia, I remember finding the sudden absence of sound really disturbing and almost frightening. Then I realized that what was missing were familiar sounds of human activity and that they had been replaced by much more pleasant ones…bird song and the sound of leaves being blown across the cobbles…sounds that normally were drowned out by the hum of city living.

As for sounds while weaving, I love using multiple big swords. I so enjoy the musical tok tok sound they make as they knock together in the sheds. And I love the chuckling chatter of all the sticks on the loose as they fall together when I release tension and roll up the warp at the end of the day. Below, you can see the sticks I used in a wall-hanging piece….many different kinds of wood making interesting sounds. It can become quite a collection.

Then there’s the plink plink sound as the tip of a delicate Guatemalan pick-up stick slides from one taut warp to the next as the weaver counts out threads for supplementary-weft inlay.

The dancing dangling bobbins used in weft twining go clackity clack as they twist and jiggle.

And they enable my teacher to create such beautiful work as this:

**Examples of *kteh* work by my Montagnard weaving teachers.**

I loved the opportunity to drag the llama bone tool across the strong highly-twisted wool threads that my teachers in Peru had prepared below…scritch, scritch, as I strummed to help separate the warps. Only warp threads with certain characteristics will tolerate this.

Listen to my teacher doing it…

If you stroll around a village of weavers in a certain part of the central highlands of Bolivia, you will know in which houses a weaver is at work by the LOUD THWACK!! THWACK!! of the llama bone hitting the sword as the wefts are slammed into place. That sound is one that is not really pleasant, at least not to my ears, when I am seated right next to my teacher. Here is one of my teachers in Candelaria at work at her loom:

When I stayed in the stilt-house home of my weaving teacher in Ecuador, I was often awoken at dawn by the muffled thump, thump and accompanying vibrations as Trini drew down her heavy beater while working at her vertical loom. This was combined with various house shaking and creaking sounds as the loom was connected to floor and ceiling beams…a part of the house itself. You can see that big sword/beater lying across Trini’s leg below and get an idea of the muscle that goes into operating this particular set-up.

The sound of threads in a warp-faced weaving rubbing past each other as a shed is opened can range from a soothing smooth swish to a seemingly painful tearing protest depending on the yarn being used and how it has been prepared.

When weaving with new backstrap weavers, we even learn to be amused by the constant clatter of swords jumping out of their sheds and hitting the floor. Each sword has its own musical tone…nowhere near as much fun on a rug! A cement floor like the one in this picture greatly enhances the melody.

Joan following a pattern chart at the Mannings.

By the way, I am in charge of picking up the fallen swords….gives me something to do. It is funny that as time goes by we have people weaving in silence. What happened to our musical accompaniment? Well, new weavers, without even realizing it, get a feel for the right amount of tension and the sweet spot in the warp where the sword will sit happily upright and not leap to the floor. Or…they just get rather good at catching the sword on its way down!

Maybe one of the nicest sounds for me is the fwip fwip fwip fwip in rapid succession as I pull my heddle string quickly but carefully (or else it will tangle miserably!) off its heddle stick. This means that the piece is finished.

And with that soft, happy sound in your head, I will leave you.

Until next time.