Backstrap Weaving- Andean Pebble Weave-my ebook

Well here’s a surprise midweek post!

Syne Mitchell, editor and publisher of WeaveZine, after working closely with me for quite some time, announced last night that all was in place and ready to go on the WeaveZine site to sell my first ebook tutorial on my number one favorite South American pick up technique…(now available at Taproot Video.)

ANDEAN PEBBLE WEAVE

Today was a travel day for me – I took  the train down from Humboldt County in Northern California with its majestic redwood forests and turbulent rivers through wine country with distant snow capped peaks to bustling San Francisco  so I had to wait all day to be able to tell you all about this.

Andean pebble weave – this was the first pick up technique I learned with my  teacher Margarita in Huancayo, Peru back in 1996 and it really is my favorite for the flexibilty in the designs you can create as well as for the fact that it weaves up a lot faster than the other pick ups that I know.

It is partly loom controlled so only every second row requires a manual manipulation of the warp threads.

You will recognize pebble weave easily by its spotty “pebbled” background on which the indigenous weavers of Peru and Bolivia place a myriad of traditional and contemporary motifs.

It is also double faced so that both sides of the textile show the same motifs with their colors reversed.

You may remember from my blog post last week that this was the technique that I taught to Juan in Salasaca who wanted to learn something about his Bolivian weaving heritage and now I get to teach it to all of you.

The e-tutorial is really crammed with step-by-step photos – once I decided that it would be an ebook, I went to town with the pictures! There are over thirty pattern charts too.You can see that it is too huge to have here on the blog – it just kept growing!!

I have woven it on my backstrap loom, as Margarita taught me, as well on my rigid heddle loom by lashing the warp to the warp sticks. For some time I was lashing the warps to my Navajo loom in Chile as you saw in my last post. More recently I have been playing with it on an inkle loom using my fingers as a picking cross. Once I get home to Bolivia and unpack my inklette and get it set up I will see about installing two sets of string heddles and see how it goes – shall keep you posted on that.

So, it can be woven pretty much on any kind of sturdy frame that allows for tension adjustment and gives you enough working space to get your hands in to pick the pattern warps.

My e-book shows you how to wind the warp and arrange the threads in a cross ready for weaving. It is then up to the reader to decide how they would like to suspend and tension the warp. That could be by attaching one end of the warp to the body and the other to a fixed point (backstrap-style) or by lashing the`warp to the frame of a rigid heddle or other loom.

This is what Andean Pebble Weave looks like with its spotted or “pebbled” background…

Pebble weave Guarani designs from lowland Bolivia that I wove into a guitar strap.

A pebble weave motif from highland Peru woven in my handspun llama fiber. This was made into a shoulder bag.

I have used it on very narrow and wide pieces like guitar straps, belts, bag straps, purses, bookmarks, keyfobs, table runners and wall hangings. The e-tutorial takes you through four lessons from the narrowest plain bands to introductory patterning and then on to wider pieces with more detailed motifs and leaves you with pages of pattern charts of pre Columbian and contemporary designs.

My friend Janet inside a redwood!

I am still on the road with lots to tell which I am saving for Friday’s post – a new braid tutorial along with some other great videos and photos. I have had all sorts of unexpected weaving encounters up in the redwood forest area of Northern California with my buddy Janet and now find myself with a little quiet time here in the Youth Hostel in San Francisco. Just what I need to get all my pictures together and write my post.

See you all on Friday. I hope you like my e-tutorial and I get to see your own pebble weave projects soon. 🙂

Thank you to all who have downloaded it so far.