woven bag – Page 2 – Backstrap Loom Weaving

Backstrap Weaving – The Odd-shaped Bag

I once created what I called the “yurt-shaped” bag from woven cloth. The hand-dyed and painted reeled silk warp had been given to me by Sara whose weaving and dyeing studio is a yurt. It seemed appropriate to weave cloth from her warp and shape into a yurt!

**Sara’s yurt-shaped studio in the woods.**

**Sara gave me the warp ready to go and I adorned it with a pattern in the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave. I am sure that many of you will recognize Sara Lamb’s color palette.**

It wasn’t a terribly long piece of fabric but it turned out to be just long enough to form the walls of a cylinder with circular base. Adding a drawstring at the top completed the yurt-ish look.

**The circular base with tubular edging challenged my limited sewing skills. Cutting into the fabric was stressful!**

**I added tassels and a braided strap. I’ve never been happy with that strap and one of these days I’ll weave another.**

The reason I am looking back at this old project is that my current project….a bag for my cotton-spinning tools was meant to be the same shape. I chose that shape because the mortar that I use to support my takli spindle is round-based and so a round-bottom bag seemed like a good idea.

However, once the fabric was off the loom with circular base sewn in place, I decided that I would lose too much height with a draw-string top. I added a band of fine cotton to the mouth of the bag. I figured I could sew a channel along its center to hold the drawstring but even so, I felt that I was sacrificing too much height. I wanted to be able to fit a good amount of cotton sliver in the bag along with my tall mortar and spindle. And so, the “odd-shaped” bag was born! I have been trying to find something to which I can liken this shape so that the bag can have a better name. I haven’t come up with anything. If you do, let me know, please. I am thinking that once it has its strap and is being carried cross-body wise, it may look less odd.

**My bag for cotton spinning tools awaits its strap.**

You’ll see that I went with a zipper in the end. The cotton band that I added at the top is woven from 30/2 indigo-dyed Guatemalan cotton that I got from Mayan Hands at a conference many years ago. It’s lovely stuff and I have used it in the past to weave covers for books. It was the perfect color for this project.

**Weaving cloth from Guatemalan cotton to cover a small journal. My friend Claudia’s initials, CS, were placed to sit on the spine** **of the book.**

That indigo-dyed cake of thread has sat on a shelf far away from windows for years. It’s amazing how much the color has faded. I had to pull thread from the center to find the original rich blue. However, I do love the unevenly faded stuff too and will definitely use it in a project one day.

In my last blog post, I showed you my progress with the spinning-bag cloth on the loom. Here’s a slightly different view of it resting on the floor.

This was just before I added the final band of patterning which would be made up of woven words. The darkest blue sections that you see in this piece are warp-faced….a complementary-warp structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave. The other horizontal bands in various shades of blue are weft-faced. I have basically turned the Andean Pebble Weave structure on its side and woven it as complementary-weft instead. This means that I can weave it in any color I like. I chose to use various shades of blue and teal in this piece.

The woven words that I chose to use are “Spinning Cotton” and ” Hilando Algodon”. This is the first time that I have woven letters using the structure that I call Andean Pebble Weave. I showed you many others structures that I have used for lettering in my last post and I wonder if any of you were inspired to try them. I used the letters that Alison Irwin designed and published in the latest issue of Little Looms magazine. Letters in Andean Pebble Weave are naturally quirky. The nature of the structure doesn’t allow them all to sit along the one line. That makes them seem to dance jauntily along the warp. Because I wove them as complementary-weft rather than as complementary-warp, the words I wove run width-wise across the warp rather than along the length as Alison has woven them in her article. I think they perfectly suited my jaunty little bag. Okay….I’m liking that…The item formerly known as The Odd-shaped Bag will now be called The Jaunty Bag.

**I altered a couple of Alison’s letters to better suit my layo**ut.

I always love the moment when the cloth is off the loom and I get to see the detail on the other face. In this case I don’t have to try to decide which of the two faces I prefer because of course the words are backwards on the reverse. Still it’s nice to enjoy looking at it before I sew and it gets hidden forever inside the bag.

I was able to continue weaving once the lettering was done and the bag cloth finished because I had enough warp left to enable me to weave a piece that could be cut into the circular base of the bag. I stabilized it with heavy interfacing before cutting and that gave me a nice sturdy base for the bag.

I hadn’t planned on adding a strap to the original draw-string bag idea. It was just going to be a storage bag for my spinning tools that would go into another bag when I was out and about. However, I felt that the jaunty bag was asking for a strap. No problem. I was happy to have a reason to continue practicing combining warp and weft-faced structures in the one piece.

I wound a warp for the warp-faced strap using only one color instead of the two that I would normally use for Andean Pebble Weave projects. The warp-faced sections would be one solid color and I could play with weft colors for the small weft-faced sections. That way, the strap would not be too loud next to the rather busy bag.

I’ve been conservative in my color choices in this project. Perhaps in the next I’ll weave a solid black band with a variety of lively weft colors for the weft-faced patterns.

Take a look at this colorful warp-faced hair sash below from Jacaltenango in Guatemala. The weaver has made good use of the fact that she is free to change the color of her supplementary weft at will. Complementary-weft doesn’t allow that much freedom but I could still create some quite lively spots of weft-faced color along the length of a warp-faced band in which the weft is normally completed hidden.

Speaking of hair sashes of Jacaltenango, Carol Ventura will be giving a free Zoom lecture on them on Friday the 11th. Follow this link to register.

And now the thought has crossed my mind that perhaps I can line the Jaunty Bag…but not with my handwoven cloth. I’ve been thinking that I would like to try stitched shibori. For those who don’t know what that is, it is a resist dye technique for patterning cloth in which stitches are used to pull and shape cloth before it is dyed. The stitching creates areas that resist the dye and remain the original color. I’ve never done it before but was lucky enough some years ago to be in the area when Kris Nardello (and another dear lady whose name, forgive me, I have forgotten) were giving a workshop on it at the Textile and Fiber Arts Guild of Santa Cruz in California.. I wasn’t able to attend the whole thing but did bring home the kit which was made up of three sheets of scoured cotton cloth, needles, beads, thread and other bits thinking that one day I will take it up. The day has arrived.

The only things I have found from the kit so far are the sheets of cloth. I can decorate and line my bag with them and try something new…and if I make a mess of it, well, it will be hidden inside the bag, or I can just over-dye the whole thing. By the way, Kris kindly left a very helpful comment on my blog for me when I puzzling over my cochineal dyeing experiments a while ago. She is an expert in natural dyeing techniques.

This book cover will give you an idea of what stitched shibori can look like in expert hands….don’t expect to see anything like this in my next post!

The initial knee-jerk plan of action was to go looking on Youtube for instruction. But then it occurred to me that there will be highly experienced people who have devoted time and effort to writing books on the subject and that it would be nice to support them. As I have written a number of how-to books myself I know what it’s like to be in their shoes. Trust me…no one is getting rich from writing these kinds of books. The Kindle version of the one I have looked at is $35 and so I will need to give that some thought. If you own a book on the topic and can recommend one, please let me know. I have only just started to look. It will have to be a Kindle edition, though.

I hope in my next post to show you the finished jaunty bag with its accompanying sedate strap…and maybe my beginner attempts at stitched shibori. It will be one of those “mess or success” projects and no doubt, much will have been learned.

Backstrap Weaving – Proud!

I have woven a lot of things that have made me very happy but my latest piece is something of which I am particularly proud. That might sound a little obnoxious…but I can’t help it. The little cross-body purse that I just hand-sewed has me grinning from ear to ear. I guess it’s because I remember my school days when I was convinced that I was a total klutz when it came to any kind of craft project. In the end I even stopped handing in the work all together and my report cards would say “No work presented”, “Assignment incomplete”, or “Disappointing result”. I remember having a friend’s mother take pity and rescue and do

the sewing part of an assignment for me. My mother was also convinced that she had no craft-related skills or talents and I guess I just assumed I would be the same.

**One of the 60/2 silk ikat pieces that I wove last year.**

Not that this latest project is any great feat of sewing. It holds together and looks like what I had in mind and that is enough to please me. There aren’t any zips or fancy pockets. I took sewing skills that I had learned in my recent shoulder bag project and got to apply and improve on them. I took the ikat skills that I had learned in all the silk projects that I had woven during the worst of the pandemic and applied them to cotton.

In my last post, I showed you my ikat warp on the loom, heddled up and ready to go.

**Almost all heddled. There are 880 ends in total of 20/2 cotton.**

**A coil rod in place on one of my older cotton scarf warps.**

I had been deciding n whether it would be worth inserting a coil rod. I did go ahead and use one. Next time I will insert the rod right at the far end of the loom and leave it there. This time I inserted it, as is my habit, within reach just beyond my shed rod which meant that I had to roll it along the warp each time I advanced the warp. The rod will pick up the tiniest looseness in tension in any particular thread, take it up, and sort of push it along and away to the far end of the warp where it remains trapped. This is all very well unless you are trying to keep your ikat threads strictly aligned. In this case, it is preferable to have any tension differences gradually even themselves out as you inch your way along the warp in such a way as not to be noticeable at all. Each time the coil rod pulled a thread out of alignment, I had to take hold of the thread and ease it back into place. Lesson learned.

It’s amazing how fast the weaving goes after all the wrapping and dyeing that had taken place before I could even get the warp on the loom. Of course, it is only a meter of cloth which was the amount I had calculated as being necessary for my purse. I did not have a pattern for the purse and made up something very simple that is not all that different from my shoulder bag shape, except for the absence of pleats.

**Rapid progress on the loom. The coil rod, unfortunately, is out of shot.**

All my weaving friends will understand the reluctance to take scissors to a piece of your hand woven cloth and so it won’t surprise you that I had to let this cloth just sit about for a few days. In the meantime, I had to scale down the paper pattern I had made for my shoulder bag.

**The finished one meter of ikat cloth.**

I sewed a dummy purse, minus flap, to see if the shape I had drawn worked. I felt that it did and was able to use that dummy piece as the drop-in lining. It’s chocolate brown and I guess I was influenced by these naturally-dyed quilting pieces from Threads of Life in Ubud, Bali when I came up with my combination of colors. I have also seen ikat work in Guatemala that combines natural indigo blues with chocolate brown.

**Hand-spun, backstrap loom-woven cotton pieces from Threads of Life…swoon.**

Sadly, I neglected to take in-progress shots of the sewing part of this project. I wove three bands, one of which became the sides and base of the purse. The other is the strap and the third is the tubular edging on the flap. I was pleased that the pattern on the flap lined up quite nicely with that on the body of the purse and I used a magnetic clasp for the flap.

These are sloooow projects but I find the slow hand-sewing so very relaxing. I posted my cloth in an online weaving group and one member responded with something like….”That looks like so much work!” I was kind of surprised. That’s the kind of thing that non-weavers say when I do a demonstration of backstrap weaving at an event. I have always felt that weavers, on the other hand, just get it!

A benefit of slow projects like this is the value you get from a relatively small amount of yarn! It has certainly kept me out of trouble for a good while. It never fails to tickle me that the bits that you see below can be transformed into a patterned purse.

**20/2 mercerized cotton thread, dye for cotton, and ikat tape.**

Next up…an attempt to make a small zippered coin purse in warp-faced fabric as a way to test my hand-spun Sea Island cotton. My teachers in coastal Ecuador used hand-spun cotton singles doubled rather than plied, and not sized, for their warp-faced weaving. My singles have stood up well to a balanced structure in an early test sample. Warp-faced will be a different story all together with all that added abrasion. Why am I using singles? I guess it’s only because I want the thread to be that fine. I may be completely misguided in this but we shall see what comes out of this next small experiment. I don’t think I will be wasting too much thread while learning these lessons. If my single thread stands up to the abrasion it just might be because I have put in too much twist and perhaps robbed it of its rustic hand-spun qualities. There are so many lessons to learn!

**Mariana weaving warp-faced fabric for a double-pocket saddle bag using doubled hand-spun cotton singles, coastal Ecuador.**

In my next post, I’ll have photos and information that my online weaving friend Christina has shared with me on her experience studying with ikat weavers in Mexico in 2019 as well as some images by another online friend who was in Ecuador interacting with ikat weavers in the 1970s. There might be a little something to report on my cotton coin purse project. I might even get to use my cochineal and alum.

And speaking of the red color of cochineal, here’s a teaser from next week’s post as the weavers in Mexico remove an ikat wrap to reveal one tiny part of the overall pattern…just in case you have seen enough blue for today! (Note that these weavers were using synthetic dye for their large production runs of 90-meter warps but use cochineal for their single unique backstrap-loom-woven pieces).

**Photo courtesy of Christina Palafox.**

Until next time…

Backstrap Weaving – Making it Work

The bag is done! Phew, I made it work. Actually, I lie…it isn’t quite done. I still have to apply the magnet snaps…one to close the mouth of the bag and one to pin down the flap. I put the word out that I was looking for the kind of round magnet snaps that you see here and, like magic, a friend who happened to be out and about this morning found them. While I do enjoy an excuse to poke around the street markets, it is also nice to have the goods just handed to you like this…almost like shopping online! I am so grateful. The street market that is three blocks from my place has one whole section dedicated to fabric. That’s where I eventually found the fusible interfacing. Just beyond the market is a street of leather and faux leather supply stores. In amongst them is a fabulous store called “Hebillandia” which would translate to Buckleland. That area would have been my first stop on the search for the magnets.

Looking back through my photos and notes, I see that this bag project sort of got started way back in January with this….

**3-color reversible pebble weave in 8/2 tencel.**

This was an exercise in getting my head back into three-color reversible pebble weave after a break of a few years. I guess I will always associate this particular band with Covid as it was during this project that I got infected. I had to put it on hold until the brain fog had cleared.

But going even further back, you could say that it started with this….

**Yarn that I started spinning and plying while enjoying covid Zoom gatherings in 2020 and 2021.**

The idea was to weave an item with my hand-spun wool using the 3-color pebble structure that would allow both faces to be seen. I decided to weave a strap. The bag idea grew from there.

**Lining cloth in doubled 20/2 cotton.**

I’ll say it again…I don’t need a bag. I just like to weave and this project has kept me weaving and out of trouble for some time. I also knew that it would teach me a lot. For example, I learned about fusible interfacing: what it’s called in Spanish, the difference between woven and unwoven, the various weights, how to apply it…most importantly, where exactly I can get it in the street market (although I think that I have bought a lifetime’s worth in three different weights!) Things can just inexplicably disappear from the stores here, like the alum that I had suddenly found so hard to find. I figured I should stock up on interfacing! I learned what makes a good DIY reed-threading hook and about doubling threads in dents. People do think that I am quite mad for weaving the lining fabric for the bag but I did learn a lot from that experience, used up some stash for which I had no other use, and I really like knowing that I wove absolutely every part of the bag (except for the interfacing).

I learned that with determination, or some might say stubbornness, I could make some things work. I might just happen to stumble upon the right way to do things. If not, I learn what not to do for next time. I did try to cut down on the “fails” and “do-overs” by asking for advice in online groups.

I had read about procedures for adding lining. One way is to sew it to the outer fabric before sewing the body of the bag together. Another way is to sew it on its own and then “drop” it in later. It seemed to me at first that the former would be easier and so I am glad that I asked in the Many Shuttles Handwoven Bags Group that Kathrin Weber started on Facebook as the majority of responders seemed to favor a dropped-in lining. I got the tips I needed. It would never have otherwise occurred to me that the lining should be sewn in exactly the same size as the outer fabric. I chose to ignore one tip that I had been generously given and regretted it. Hence the lining had to be dropped in twice. I learned that my “make-it-work” hand-stitching is hard to rip out!

Here is the flap fabric that I showed you last week and some of the other pieces…

**Lining fabric, intermesh sides and base, strap and warp-faced plain weave body fabric.**

I had so much fun weaving the flap fabric. I think that much of that came from the sheer relief that it was going to work. I had had some serious doubts about the 20/2 wool being able to stand up to this three-color structure. I only broke one thread. Strangely, I broke two when weaving the much simpler intermesh band that encircled the mouth of the bag. I needed that band to cover the top of the pleats that I had placed in the body of the bag. The pleats are supposed to make the whole thing slightly less box-like.

One of the scariest, and subsequently most fun, parts was finishing the flap. I had planned it to be twelve inches wide and that’s precisely what it ended up being. However, when I placed it on the bag with its strap sewn in place, it turned out to be too wide. I had to cut off the natural selvedges which, along with the curve that I wanted to cut into it, gave me way more raw edge with which to deal than I had anticipated.

**I applied interfacing to the flap fabric and a hand-woven backing fabric. I sewed a line of stitches just to the inside of the proposed cutting line. Then I cut and applied the tubular band.**

I love using woven tubular edgings! The raw edge is entirely enclosed within the tube and well protected. It goes on like magic! I hope that you can make it out on the curved part of the flap in the lower right image. It’s such a neat finish which also serves to strengthen the edge. The very top pattern on the flap fabric is the part that sits on the back of the bag. I have a tutorial on cutting a curved flap and applying tubular bands here.

So, after all this explanation, here is the finished bag. The first shot is the only one that shows that there was an attempt made to shape the bag with pleats. My pleats were probably too small. I’ll show the bag with open flap once I have the magnets in place. Lets see if I can make that work without having to gouge holes in the fabric.

All notes were recorded in my Weaver’s Journal, of course! I used my drop-spindle-spun yarn for the strap and the tubular band. The lining was in 20/2 cotton and a balanced plain weave. Everything else is in the 20/2 worsted-spun wool (that you can see in the skein) in tight warp-faced structures.

What’s next? I think that a couple of days of cotton-spinning on my takli are needed to clear my head. I am thinking about using it in a balanced plain weave (not yet in the open sheer cloth that I have mentioned here before) with some tiny bits of inlay in natural green and brown cotton. I might weave a fairly short piece to use as something very light that sits around the neck. I have decided that I am done with scarves…all that length and those ends flapping around to deal with…they annoy me! Maybe you have to have been raised wearing scarves to have learned to deal with that. In all the years that I lived in ski resorts and Patagonia, I never once wore a scarf. Nevertheless, I won’t be cutting down the ones that I have already woven. Tour de Fleece spinning teams are starting to form on Ravelry. I won’t join a team but I will follow along with my cotton spinning.

**My slow-growing takli-spun cotton stash.**

I would also like to use some of my hand-spun wool to weave a three-color camera strap. And then there’s a wool Finnweave project calling to me for which I am gathering ideas and a silk ikat with thread that I dye with cochineal…. and maybe a hand-spun cotton ikat?? if I can find cotton dye. That’s plenty to keep me out of trouble!

I will tell you which of these has won top position next time.

Backstrap Weaving – Pieces

I am still working on the bag project! But I do believe that I have just warped the very last piece of the puzzle. Then I will be hand sewing everything together. I’ve already made what I feel is a good start on that. While sewing, my mind will be free to start thinking about which project comes next.

The last piece is a band that goes around the mouth of the bag to cover the small pleats that will be in the main body. I really wanted a bag that is less box-like than the usual things I put together with my woven cloth. Using pleats seemed like a way to create a slightly more interesting shape.

Here you can see the warp for the 1 3/4″ band that will encircle the bag. I haven’t yet put in the two sets of string heddles for this sturdy intermesh structure. It’s a dense (complementary-warp) structure of three-span warp floats that can sometimes fool the viewer into thinking it’s plain weave. I might edge it with plain-weave tubular bands when I am done. If I decide to do that, well, I guess that means that this isn’t the final piece after all. There’ll be two tubular bands to warp and apply. I love those tubular edgings and am always looking for an excuse to use them.

The odd-looking thing to the left of the band warp is the left-over warp from the three-color flap piece. I had given myself a bit more comfort room than was necessary in the length of the warp and I am finding it hard to throw this away. I guess I will put it in a bag with the idea of maybe using the yarn for tassels, extra fringe etc. some day. Six months down the track I will discover it in the closet, realize that I am over my attachment to it, and throw it out. Surely I am not the only one who does this kind of thing!

This is what the warp for the flap looked like on the loom. I was setting up for 3-color Andean Pebble Weave using 1476 ends of 20/2 wool spread over 12 inches…dense! I enjoyed creating the warp but once I was sitting at the loom I couldn’t help wondering what on earth I had let myself in for. I had used the same 20/2 wool for the front, back, and sides of the bag and knew to expect it to be challenging in this warp-faced structure. It is certainly nothing at all like my hand-spun wool that I used for the strap. It had behaved so beautifully! Still, I tend to forget and it’s always a bit of a shock when I attempt to open the very first shed. It was a beast! but I know how to adapt and soon there was a rhythm and I forgot all about the beastliness and just enjoyed watching the little hummingbirds appear.

I didn’t break any warp threads. Dust bunnies appeared on the floor beneath the warp where they caused no harm, but not in the heddles. I used DMC #12 cotton for the heddles.

I plan to cut the end of the flap into a curved shape. It’s easy to say that now and we will see how I feel once I am hovering over it with scissors in hand. I have to tell you that I am loving fusible interfacing. It helped me to bravely cut away at the gold lining fabric that I wove. However, this flap fabric with its three colors is super dense and I am not so confident about the interfacing’s ability to hold everything together. I don’t know if it is considered a “cheat” using the fusible interfacing in this way. I am just making this up as I go along! This is another piece of the bag that I plan to edge with a plain-weave tubular band. It will reinforce and cover the cut edge. I have used it before on shaped pieces like this in cotton.

**Curved flap edged with a tubular band.**

I have a tutorial on this blog for doing this kind of thing.

**The last repeat before weaving the pattern that will appear on the back of the bag.**

Quite a lot of people have been asking me about the reversible three-color pebble weave…

**Reversible 3-color pebble weave. The lighter reverse shows up a mistake that the dark side hides petty well. Oops!**

I don’t plan to write a tutorial until I have had a chance to teach it in person several times. I find that kind of experience absolutely invaluable when deciding on which aspects I need to focus when writing it all down. I feel that I need to be able to see it through a student’s point of view and feedback from a wide variety of students who have different learning styles is golden. It is quite a step up from the basic two-color structure to the reversible three-color version that I have been doing. What I will say for now is that I have spent YEARS happily exploring the basic two-color version. There’s much that you can do to turn a piece with just two interacting colors into something that looks spectacular and complex. Clever use of color can make it seem like there is just so much more going on. For example, let me show you the beauty that Fenny in the Netherlands has created using the basic method…..

I really don’t believe that weaving that pattern in the three-color method could possibly improve on what Fenny has created. The block-style pattern chart for this pattern is in my More Andean Pebble Weave Patterns book. It was my attempt to replicate the very first piece of weaving that I had purchased in Peru back in 1996. It was a scrap of band that was being sold on the street and had been woven in natural wool colors. It is not a faithful replica because I hadn’t fully understood all the possible structures at the time. Still, I liked it enough to include it in the book and I continue to weave this version rather than the entirely faithful one which I have also charted in a different publication.

And if that hasn’t convinced you, I will also pull out this example again with its clever use of color because I love it so much!

Priscilla has taken several of the most basic shapes that are charted in my Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms book to create her own unique pattern. Her beautiful use of color makes this band even more eye-catching. Again, I can’t imagine the three-color technique being able to improve on this and I love the fact that she has taken these basic building blocks and used them together so creatively.

I will leave you here with a reminder that the following are my two “gateway” books to this technique. The one on the right is for those who weave their bands on standard inkle looms and includes access to video clips. The other one is for those who use ANY kind of loom to weave their warp-faced bands. You should be able to competently weave plain-weave warp-faced bands on your loom of choice before attempting this. There are detailed descriptions of the books on the Taproot Video website as well as a chance to “look inside” at some sample pages. The books are available as PDFs or as spiral-bound books.

LINKS: Andean Pebble Weave on Inkle Looms Complementary-warp Pick-up

Complementary-warp is the name of a category of woven structures in which the two faces of the cloth are structurally identical with colors reversed. Andean Pebble Weave is a complementary-warp structure and just one of the varieties that sits within this category.

Until next time, when I will hopefully be able to show you my finished bag.