Hi there -

I am primarily a Navajo weaver but have dabbled in backstrap because of the pattern possibilities.  I've taken several beginning backstrap courses so I do have the basics of warping and weaving but I have never gotten to the part at the far end where you turn the piece around and weave from the back towards the middle to end the piece.

Does anyone have experience with this?  I've not been able to find instructions published anywhere.  If anyone has details, I'd appreciate some info and (when I get back to my backstrap projects) I'd appreciate being able to Email for help.

Thanks,

J -

(in northern CA)

Comments

bolivian warmi

Hi Jahn,

i learned my backstrap weaving here in South America where Ii now live and have made a few pieces  with 4 selvedges-turning the piece around and weaving in from the other end-slowly finishing off row by row with a needle when you get to the middle so i can help you with this. Here are a couple of pics....

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I learned this on the staked out ground loom above but I  weave at home on a backstrap loom-it's the only loom I have. here you can see the two ends about to meet in the middle. we are about to remove the shed rod and continue with only the heddles, weaving in the wefts in the shed rod shed with a needle.

Finally the heddles were also removed and we slowly wove each row in with a needle. my teacher and I took it in turns. So close to finishing and yet so far!

I have a couple of other photos which I will upload in a minute and I can mesage you my email address if you like.

Laverne

 

bolivian warmi

Here are a couple of other pics.The first is another project made with the above teacher-I wove a rectangular piece and folded it in half to make a bag-the plain striped area is where the two ends met and had to be needle woven.

Here's the whole bag

And finally here is another bag I made at home showing the termination area for the two designs. One design was easier to carry on right until the very end than the other.

When I learned to weave in Guatemala last year we also turned the warp around and wove from the other side but when I took the unfinished pieces home I decided just to cut them off the loom and have a braided finish rather than 4 selvedges. I weave most of my things that way-with only 3 selvedges.

Laverne

Virag (not verified)

Two questions (or maybe more):>.  What fibers are you weaving with in the photos?  What kind of e.p.i. are you dealing with?  Also on the ground loom how many yards would someone usually weave on it?  Thanks:>.

Virag (not verified)

One last question..how in the world do you get the pattern to meet up in the middle on the ground loom piece and are all these beautiful and complicated patterns memorized by the weavers?

bolivian warmi

The pattern doesn't actually meet up in the middle-you always  end up leaving off the patterning and just weaving plain stripes at the end. My teachers told me that a ''lazy'' weaver will stop picking the pattern early and have a long termination area of plain stripes-the sign of a good weaver is as short a striped area as possible. 

My teachers in Potosi had many of the patterns memorized but they also had a collection of what they call ''sacas'' and I kick myself for not having taken photos of them. The ''sacas'' are small squares woven with a single figure in very thick yarn. When they want to weave this pattern they go working a needle along with the weft in the ''saca''-that way they can see which warps need to be picked.-all the ones that are lying over the needle.

My teachers in Huancayo, Peru were mother and daughter and wove side by side competing to see who could weave the little figures we were working on faster and  more correctly-they were constantly good naturedly quibbling over it!

I have a ''saca'' from Ecuador, although there they just call them ''muestras'', or samples-here's a photo.This is made of handspun cotton

The yarn in the two first projects above is acrylic bought in the Potosi market and overspun. The final project is made from leftover Navajo warp that I had and which I dyed. The pick up on the wider pattern was relatively easy so i could carry it on almost to the very end. You can see one very thick weft pass there where I just couldn't manage to needle weve any more. The blue design was a bit more complicated so I stopped that sooner and went to stripes.

Laverne

francorios (not verified)

My first backstrap loom woven piece is finished.

The ends were made with twined edge cords so the piece comes off the loom finished on 4 sides. I put tassels on the corners because of the edgecords. When switching warp color, I change at the end where I tie a square knot and weave the ends into the piece. The edgecord also helps hide the knot.

For weft color change, I change over in the middle, overlapping the thread. I am thinking I should change color at the edge rather than the middle. I think it would look better, but not sure how to hide the knot.

If someone has a neater way to switch colors, please let me know.

Peaches & Creme cotton worsted yarn warp/weft white
Sugar & Creme cotton worsted yarn variegated black/white for borders

Sett 8 per inch. Woven size was 16 x 24, but off the loom it is 13 x 21,
before wet finishing which should have another 10% shrinkage.

Have a good day!
Franco Rios

More details on my blog
http://francosfiberadventure.blogspot.com/2009/07