Backstrap Weaving – Expanding Skills

It’s just a short one this time to show my most recent finished product.

One panel of three that I wove for this project using wool singles in a three-color version of the structure I call Andean Pebble Weave..

I really enjoyed weaving this piece but I think I enjoyed even more figuring out how to use this fabric to make the expandable folder for my pattern charts.

I had woven more grey fabric to add to the sides of this central panel….

Then came the decorative stitching to connect the three pieces. I chose the “quietest” of the various stitches that I’ve been shown by my Bolivian teachers. This particular stitch is used as an edging by my Bolivian teachers. I was also taught it in Peru by the gentleman who taught me sling braiding. He uses it to edge the cradle section of the sling. I stitched it flat in this case in the way my backstrap loom teachers from Vietnam use it. They use cotton. I used wool which I think is more forgiving in that it is better at disguising inaccuracies.

This stitch can be found in some embroidery books as Van Dyke Stitch.

I lined the piece and inserted sturdy card between the layers. I had an old calendar from 2012 with sturdy card pages that my sister-in-law had made for me using photos of my weavings. It’s made with such high quality materials that I’ve been keeping it until the years can roll around and match 2012 so that I can use it again. Well, it’s too bad because now it’s been cut up for this project. The fact that I had written lots of notes on the calendar back in 2012, making it less re-usable, helped me make the decision to sacrifice it.

Then came time to construct the expandable innards and figure out how, once constructed, I was going to stitch it into the folder. There was a lot of back-and-forthing on this.

In the end, I stitched part of it in and then went building the rest in two halves. I glued them together in the final step. Still, it was fiddly and quite awkward at times….but fun! The center fold in the fabric fan is where the two halves were joined. Here it is finished…

I used cotton lining fabric…you may recognize this fabric from some of my other recent projects. I don’t have a fabric stash and it was just pure luck that this print with its little red and green flowers and leaves suited this project so nicely.

The dividers within the folder are made from the same cut-up calendar. There are six pockets and they are currently holding my supply of blank charts. I haven’t yet sorted through my drawn pattern charts and I’ve actually decided that they need a folder of their own…..that’s how much I enjoyed this project! Plus it gives me another excuse to weave something.

A button and braided loop have completed the project.

And so, in preparation for the next folder project, I’ve dyed more of my Petaluma wool singles yarn and am currently deciding on the pattern. I’ll spend time on that. All the number crunching has been done. I already know all the measurements… what size to cut the dividers and the strips of adhesive interfacing that hold them in place, for example, the ideal warp length and width and the number of ends per inch I need in both plain weave and warp-float pattern to achieve that width.

Speaking of width and expandable projects….I’ll include a photo here a little further down the page that I took back when I was weaving the paisley fabric for the larger of my two box-like purses. This is to give you some tips on how to prevent having the width of your cloth expand as you progress.

I always weave a sample when I am about to use new-to-me yarn or if I am going to use a known yarn in a new structure. I get it all figured out and write the ends-per-inch numbers in my notebook so that once I have the warp on the loom I know how to distribute the threads to get the correct width. In warp-faced weaving there is no reed or other implement to hold the threads in a fixed spacing.

Distributing the threads evenly across the beams takes me some time and a lot of measuring and even so, sometimes I don’t get it quite right. I might find that a supplementary-weft motif on the right-hand side of the cloth is more robust than the same one on the left. The overall width of the cloth might be correct but the threads are sitting just that little bit closer together on the left than they are on the right. It can be tough to manage with hundreds of ends of very fine thread! This experience leads me to appreciate even more the skill of backstrap-loom weavers in traditional weaving cultures when I look at the cloth they produce.

The leaves on this piece varied according to how closely the warp threads were spaced in different areas. It’s just one of the challenges of doing warp-faced weaving on a backstrap loom.

The distribution of threads will depend on the kind of structure to be woven. Naturally, threads will be more closely spaced in a section of warp-float pattern than in a plain warp-faced section, for example. If you’ve figured from your sample that fifty ends give you an inch, it’s not enough to check that a section of fifty ends measures an inch. You don’t want twenty-five of those ends to give you three-eighths of an inch and the rest five-eighths. I fiddle around with this a lot before I throw the first shot of weft. This next picture shows how one can easily be tricked about width if you haven’t first woven a sample and done the math.

Outside of my sampling notes, the way the threads lie along the cross sticks is the best indication of how wide this warp wants to be. But even so, the figures in my notebook will more often than not tell me that I need to spread the threads even more before I can start weaving. I have to trust those figures even though my eyes are telling me otherwise.

In the photo I am settling all the warp threads neatly along the beam. The section on the right has been settled, thread by thread, so that none are overlapping. This enables me to create the neatest possible selvedge. You can see that the groups on the left clearly haven’t been settled yet. Once I have made my heddles, those cross sticks are removed and that width reference is lost. See how much narrower the first section of threads is along the beam where pairs of threads are positioned one above the other rather than side by side as they are along the cross sticks. Without having woven a sample and made notes, or noted the width on the cross sticks, one can be tricked into thinking that this is the correct width for that section.

Maintaining width from start to finish.

Of course, I could start weaving the cloth at that narrower width. It would be a very tight warp-faced fabric compared to what I naturally weave and I’ll be fighting with it the whole way if I want to be able to maintain it. The width will want to expaaaaaand. Knowing what width the fabric wants to be in YOUR hands is the key. It will vary from person to person. In short…..I find it so very important to weave a sample first!

This next folder project will put an end not only to the supply of card from the calendar but also the stash of Petaluma wool. The stash bust is going very well! What’s next on the list?….maybe my handspun cotton singles?