BEGINNER TUTORIAL TWO-WARP FLOAT PATTERNS

This is the chart for the triangle design..I recommend having 16 warps of each color in your pattern area and single color borders of perhaps 4 warp revolutions.

Weave several rows of two color horizontal bars to start.

I am working with back and white here. Finish with an all black row in order to be ready to start forming black floats.

You have just opened up the shed with all the black patterned warps and passed the weft.

Now you are ready to start picking the black warps for your pattern. You need to pick THREE PAIRS OF BLACK WARPS to form the base of your triangle. Counting from the RIGHT you need to keep the first, third and fifth pairs of black warps and drop all the other blacks.

I have separated the first pair of black warps from the second . The first pair is on my right middle finger. I am going to KEEP that pair and DROP the second pair that is on my left fingers.

I will continue...KEEPING the THIRD pair, DROPPING the fourth pair and KEEPING the FIFTH pair.

All the rest of the black pattern warps and the borders are then dropped.

Here are the three pairs (first, third and fifth). The sword is placed under these.

Now I am up to my next row of ALL WHITE pattern warps. What I need to do is ADD these three pairs of black warps to the whites.

CONTINUED BELOW...............................

WARP FLOAT PATTERNING INSTRUCTIONS PART TWO..............

We have just picked up the three pairs of black pattern warps and are now ready to add these to the whites.

Leaving the sword under the three black pairs, open the shed with all the whites

Place your index finger in this shed.                                      We now need to ADD the three black pairs to all the whites. To do

                                                                                                        this, tilt the sword whie leaving the index finger in the white shed.

                                                                                                        Slide the rest of the fingers of the left hand into the NEW shed

                                                                                                        below. Now you can remove the sword and place it into this

                                                                                                        NEW shed.

 CONTINUED BELOW................................

WARP FLOAT PATTERNING INSTRUCTIONS PART THREE..........

Now you can pass your weft through this NEW shed comprising all the whites and the three pairs of black pattern warps.

Passing the weft .                                                                         Now you can open the shed with all the black warps and

                                                                                                         pass your weft.

This chart shows what we have just done. We have just completed row 3.

Now you will pick the black pattern pairs for the second part of the triangle. These two black pairs are located BETWEEN the three pairs that were picked for the triangle base. Add to them all the white warps and pass the weft.

Open the black warp shed and pass the weft.

Pick the black pair that is BETWEEN the two that you picked in the last pick up row. This forms the top point of the triangle. Add this pair to all the white warps and pass the weft. Open the shed with all the black warps and pass the weft. The triangle is now finished.

Here are some additional pattern charts.........having an odd numbered amount of pairs will allow you to have designs centered on the warp. Note that I have not filled in all the horizontal bars on the charts-just the floating warps.

You can see video for this technique on my Flikr page here................

www.flickr.com/photos/39560980@N05/sets/72157622448219980/.

I am going to try these, they look interesting.

Below are views of a project that I just cut off the loom late last night.  I haven't cleaned up or finished these yet.  They are to be belt favors for our local SCA coronation.  I set up the warp with knitting yarn and used small crochet thread to weave with.  Each favor is woven and then separated from the next by about 6 inches of open space for fringe.  The bottom one is what I see as I weave (I drop rather than pick up my pattern). The middle is the 'right' side where the pattern shows up in relief.  The top one is my trying out insetting a 'jewel' in the middle of the diamond for bling (after all, it IS a Royal gift :)).

I do a lot of this diamond pattern, it is easy to keep track of with disruptions and I just treat it like a graph doodle.  Laverne, you are teasing me with these patterns.  The Inkle loom is great for narrow (up to 2 1/2 inches) but I want to get that backstrap running!  Thanks!

Thank you for adding these to our pattern inventory Anne!

Aunt Janet has asked me about the back side of the weaving and I responded to her by PM but I think it is worth posting something about ths here for all to see.

The wefts are exposed on the backside so the reverse is not an exact reflection of the front. You can get different effects depending on what weft color you choose.

Here I am making white floats on a blue                                    This is the reverse-it looks like the opposite of the front but

and white striped background and using                                    a lot of the blue you see is actually exposed blue weft.

blue weft.

In this sample, white floats on a black and                               The reverse shows the exposed red weft.

white striped background and I am using

red weft.

OK here goes nothing.  i'll try to load some photos

Well, it is bigger than I meant to have it, but here is the smallest photo I could get.  The above are inkle woven.  i'll try to upload one of my backstrap bands now.

You can see that I had some interesting probems on the lower band.  I think there was a mistake in the warp right down the middle where there runs a dark line.  then there was a couple of threades that kept crossing.  Otherwise, I like the warp float patterning, and will try some more.

Aunt Janet

Super! You have done so so well!! Those are terrific bands-you have gotten the hang of it really quickly-nice straight edges and the warp floats have come out beautifully. Congratulations!

Laverne

I think they look good.

Very nice edges!

Have a good day!

hi  laverne, had a question about the backside but found the answer right here.which leads to another one already: if I want the weaving to be reversible then I had to really pickup the black and drop the white instead of taking them together with the white (black floats on black and white stripes)and then you would not see the weft but it takes perhaps more time to weave?

Yes, Jeannine. The complementary warp weaves work that way. Each black warp has a white partner. You pick the black and drop its white partner. The black forms the pattern on the front and the white drops to form the same pattern on the back. You have to have a system to ''tie down'' the floats between pick up rows. Pebble weave is an example of one of these complementary warp weaves. Here is an example of the front and back of a design.

Laverne

I am posting on behalf of our new member in France, bibi who has been working on the warp float project but who is having some internet issues. Here is her first band. Striking colours and beautifully done!

Well done bibi!

Very nice.

Have a good day!

Very nice Bibi! Well done!

Another nice band from bibi!

thanks everybody for encouragements, your works are all great too !

Michelle

Michelle,

Good work!  Hope you are having as much fun as I am.  I love the international study group we have going on here. 

I wrote that Michelle is in France but actually she is in Sao Tome! but going back to France in 2 months. I had to google Sao Tome to find out where it was.

 hi backstrapweavers here are the results of my simple stripes that turned in to a warpfloat project.It took a lot of time to finish because i wanted four selvedges.i had some troubles with the fluf(?)building up in the heddles but could end the project as i wanted.you can see how i made the pattern here:

jskunstweven.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9F13A829247F7571!182.entry

kind regards,jeannine

Thats great, Jeannine!  impressive! Were you able to do some of it without the pattern? How hard was it to make the 4 selvedges?

no i coulndn't weave without the pattern next to me but after a while i could see if i did something wrong or not. the simple cross was without a pattern  ;weaving 4 selvedges was not easy ;first i replaced the shedstick by a thick knittingneedle ,then  a thinner needle ;when it became impossibel to open the shed I removed the stringheddles end wove the remaining part with a weaving needle.

Great job Jeannine,

Very good looking pattern.

That last part with the needle is exactly what needs to be done to finish. It's tedious, but then you have a finished edge without fringe or ends that need to be woven back in.

I found that crossstitch needles are good for finishing. They have a rounded point that doesn't rip/split the thread as much as a pointy end as you weave.   Rounded point is easier to work than a sharp point. They also have a large eye for threading yarn through it.

Also "packing" needles that have a curve near the end are good. You can use sandpaper to smooth off the needle point so it doesn't rip/split the thread as you weave.

Have a good day!

thank you,Franco ;that is just right what you are saying .the very last part i did with a blunt embroidery needle because the thread had indeed a tendecy to split. I made sure to end in the stripes part that was easier to finish.

Here is my black and red band with pick-up work.

and a bag I made with two bands.

That looks great!

Great bands Aunt Janet. The little bag looks an ideal size for a cell phone.

Laverne

beautiful band and pickup pattern; black and red work well together.

jeannine

superbe ! you did work a lot !!! what are you going to put in ?

Michelle

Here is a matching placemat and mug rug set that I took off the loom this morning.

The pattern is done with the warp float technique from this tutorial and I hope it will inspire you all to get adventurous and try some wider pieces on your looms.

Here you can see the mug rug design which I made in double weave to match the ''knot'' design on the placemat.

You can read more about weaving wide things on the backstrap loom and see another placemat and mug rug set I made on my blog.....

backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

I hope you will visit and check it out.:-)

Laverne

Thats great! Looks really good!

Have you thought about the next WAL yet? hehe! Once we have got over New Year?

Yes I have! He he! keeping you in suspense....

 Squeals of delight! we are going to have some back stapping fun in '10!  Love the wide work, Laverne!  Thank you.

Aunt Janet

Hey, you are welcome! here are few things brewing up! Stay tuned.................. :-)

Laverne

I have finished putting the pattern charts for the ''knot'' design on my blue placemat above as well as the design for the bookmark that I featured in my blog post on a new blog page today.

I hope you will use the designs in a project or that they will inspre you to weave wide and create something of your own.

backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

Laverne

I have been warping for a warp float project, and I was just wondering... can I put my loom bar in my new shed, the one I created when I rearranged the warps? Just wondering if that would mess everything up or if it would be okay. Or maybe I'm supposed to do that. lol. Don't know :) 

I have never done that and am trying hard to visualise it. I don't think you can as the colors that are in the shed nearest to you won't be going around the loom bar-only the ones in the new shed will.

You will have like an extra cross in the warp-just ignore that. It will be in the fringe at the start or even if you are using a needle to start on, just rearrange the warps as best you can on the needle. There will be a few bumps where the warps cross each other but nothing serious.

I'm so bummed, I started weaving on the warp I started to do the warp float project, and I am literally unable to pull up the shed stick (the one that's not the string heddles). I'm using the same yarn for my string heddles as my warp string (mercerized perle cotton #3). I do have some 5/2 perle cotton on the warp, but I didn't think that would cause that much of a problem. I know there are some loose warps, too, but I've taken most of that up with dowels.  

Is this the "sticky warps" problem I've heard you talk about? Maybe I just forgot how of weave. This is also wider than a lot of what I've done, but surely its not just that. Do you think its my string heddles? I have some nylon string that I could use, if I could reestablish the two sheds, but its a bit thicker than even the 5/2 cotton. Will that be a problem?

Thanks for your help, as always! 

Tara

Definitely not a sticky warp problem if you are using mercerized perle cotton. A wider warp with finer yarns does make opening the sheds more work but not impossible. Try just getting your hand in under the warps that need to be raised and lifting them up through the heddles section by section. If you still can't clear the shed, then I would say that you have some warps crossed.

If you are able to watch the  videos on my latest blog post you will see how much work goes into opening the sheds. The sheds I have there are particularly hard because it is double weave and there are twice as many warps in a small space.

Watch me opening the shed stick shed and see how I lift  the warps in sections across the width of the warp.

http://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

Hope this helps :-)

Laverne

Oooh I didn't want you to say "crossed warps." :( 

I tried your tactic of raising the warps section by section, and they seemed to slip past a bit more, but they still weren't very open on the nearer side of the loom bar. (Like, the cross barely made it past the heddle strings) So, I started looking carefully at my warps, and they are crossed, and loose. I thought I was so careful when I was warping, but whole sections (when I switched colors) are looser than the others. :( And because I had to rearrange them, with them not being tight they want to go back to their old arrangement.

I tried straightening them out and weaving again, and it is just too hard to get them to work as they are right now. I have wove maybe 6 rows all together, and that spent all my strength and patience. I might try to tension the loom (like between two chairs or something) and try to figure out where the loosest warps are and try to retie them. They are so loose, they are past being helped by a dowel.

The video did help, though :) Thank you! It is good to see someone else working with their loom, definitely, and seeing the work that goes into raising those sheds.

I'm fighting the desire to give up on this warp! I think it would be lovely if it worked and I would hate to not use all that yarn.

Thanks for the help! 
Tara

Well, if it is beyond help, it doesn't mean that the yarn has to be wasted. Just remove the string heddles, lay the warp on the floor and very slowly start winding the yarn back into balls. There will be a few tangles but as long as you go slowly,the tangles won't get into knots.

I wonder why those warps are getting so loose.

Thanks again for your help! Since then, I've taken the wonky warp off my loom and started again. I was VERY careful when I was changing colors to keep the tension the same this time, but soon realized that my warping "pegs" are leaning in on my bookcase! That would have been a big contribution to the last wonky warp. I guess I hadn't had a problem with it before, because when I'm not weaving a wider band (this one's around 2.5 inches wide) I can stick them farther in my books where they are less likely to move. I also think I was putting more tension when I was warping, in an effort to keep tension the same, so that probably made them lean more. So, I'll have to find another place to warp than my trusty bookcase for wider things, but that's okay. I'll figure something out.

I also wanted to be really careful about crossed warps this time, and so far so good! I pulled on the yarns one by one when I was creating the new crosses, to make sure I was getting the right one. And I tried to be really careful when I was making my string heddles too. Which are never even, by the way :) Maybe in time.

All that to say, I let my loombar take up the lopsided tension, and I have successfully woven the foundation rows for my warp float pattern! :) With no silly crazy loose warps or crossed warps :) I can't wait to get to the patterning part, hopefully tomorrow.

Thanks for your encouragement and help! I'm very encouraged to be happy (and not frustrated) while weaving again.

Yay! You can set up your far loom bar lopsided to compensate for the lopsided warp as you have done. Sounds good-you are being very careful with all the steps having learned lots of lessons from your previous experiences-great :-)

Maybe you should start thinking about buying some dowel and a length of wood to make a warping board. Sounds like you will be weaving many more projects and it will be worth it.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Laverne

If you don't have dowels available for a warping board, or don't have access to a power drill, you can use "L" brackets or braces to do the same thing and just screw them to a flat board. (now the posts are straight and perpendicular!) My biggest problem when making warping boards and stuff, was that I could not drill a hole 90 degrees perpendicular to a board with a hand-held drill. It always, no matter how hard I tried, ended up wonky and crooked!  Buy some sandpaper, or use an Emory board to smooth the edges of the metal braces to make sure that there are no rough edges.  The red dots on my sketch are the holes where screws go into. If you set the braces a little bit  in from the edge, and use a bookshelf board, the warping board can live in your bookshelf when you aren't using it!

As Laverne has shown ; a well wound, good warp is the start to a successful project.

Ooh...I LIKE it! I think even I, the power tool challenged , could make that. Then you don't have to worry about getting the dowels firmly wedged into the holes.

Another possibility is an arrangement used a lot by tablet weavers.  C clamps are put upside down on  bench, table, counter top (whatever).  The shaft of the clamp works as a post, and with just 2 of them you can still make a cross.  You have to tighten them hard so be aware that they might leave marks unless you put something between to protect your surface.

Bonnie.

I have used that often.. but...

1) be sure to put a folded paper towel on BOTH top and bottom of where you are going to clamp; because unless you tighten the C-clamps to the point they leave marks, they will lean in to each other, especially if you set them more than an arm's lenght apart.     I have yet to wind a cardweaving warp where the left side is not a different length from the right side. Because I normally mount the cards in a table loom setup and tye off the ends in a conventional weavers knots and use header sticks, it doesn't matter to me if its uneven, but it would make any backstrap warp un-manageable.

2) any thread smaller than 'yarn'.. ie. that is 12 tpi or so... has a tendancy to get caught in the 'screw' part of the clamp.

If you are going to buy  brand new "C"  clamps... be sure to get at least the 4" clamps,  because the most common arangement you find is a 2x4 forming a ledge for a table (like a picknick table). a 2x4 is 1 1/2" on the supposedly 2" edge, and then you have a countertop (another 1/2" normally) on top of that.  (says the person who's clamps did not open wide enough for a demo, and had to find anther solution.)

If you keep your "C" clamps with your loom, you have an instant place to 'tie off' your loom in most city parks that are all grassy without any good trees. A 'normal' picknick table made out of metal or wood is generally heavy enough to anchor a loom to.

Thanks for those ideas about creating warping boards. The L-brackets seem like a great idea. You don't have to work to get those perpendicular :) 

I thought I'd show you some pictures of my warp float practice which I just took off my loom. It um... well it doesn't quite look like it should. To be honest, I even have a hard time seeing the pattern and I'm the one that put it in there. I think its a combination of things, like the warp that's floating is bigger than the background warp. And that section of yarn is just looser than the other two sections, so it really floats away from the background. And my rows are too "tall" - I mean I should have decreased tension and beat harder. But. It's done. And I'm happy-ish with it, even though it not quite right.

Ps. The pattern is supposed to be the last on on the right here:

Hi Tara,

Your floats are super long and that's why the whole thing is so three dimensional and "floating  away" as you say.

Looking at my example on the right ,you see that a pair of red warps simply floats from one red horizontal stripe over the white stripe to the next red stripe and there it stops. Your pink floats look ike they are floating over two or three teal stripes before stopping. The next shot might show it more clearly.

Pssst...I know you are trying not to think about this anymore but your edges are looking really good!

Laverne

Hmph... I wonder what I'm doing wrong then. Weird. When there was more than one row of the same warp being picked up on the pattern, that's when it floated over more than one teal stripe. So apparently I'm missing some step when that float should be going back into the purple stripe before it floats over the teal stripe again. I'm going to watch your video and again and try to figure it out.

Nope, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. I watched your videos twice, and read through the tutorial twice and I can't find the step I've missed, or what I have out of order. :( I tried to go back over the steps I went through when weaving and... nope. Can't figure it out. It seems like... I'm missing some step where the previous row's warp floats should be transferred back under the teal... :( I don't know. I hate it when I make fundamental mistakes like this.

Any thoughts? 

:) Thanks, though, for the edges complement! Its amazing what happens when I don't worry about them.

let's see if I can explain it here....

STEP ONE-Open shed with all pink warps and pass weft.

STEP TWO-Select the pairs of pink warps that you want to have floating. Save these warps on a stick.

STEP THREE-Open the shed with all the teal warps.

STEP FOUR-Add the pink warps that you are saving to the shed with all the teal warps and pas the weft.

STEP FIVE-Open the shed with all the pink warps and pass the weft.

STEP SIX-Select NEW pairs of pink warps that you want to have floating. The pairs that you selected in STEP TWO will NOT be selected again this time. You will probably be selecting pairs that are adjacent to the pairs you selected in STEP TWO. (or whatever the pattern chart dictates)

For example, if you slected the 2nd pair of warps in STEP TWO, you might select the 1st and 3rd pairs this time but NOT the 2nd pair again.

Continue now with steps THREE, FOUR and FIVE.

See if this makes sense Tara.

Let me know if it doesn't and I will get some photos together for you.

Laverne

There's nothing different in my process (from what I remember, at least) than yours.

Maybe I'm reading the pattern wrong! If the pairs I select should not be selected again in the next row, then I'm DEFINITELY reading the pattern wrong. Should I be kind of skipping a line? ... If that makes sense. Like, I shouldn't be picking up warps for every row in the pattern. Every other row should be the all pink row. ... is that it?

My chart here is for black and white warps. Let's call the blacks pink and the whites teal.

So you see the first row is a normal all pink shed-NO WARPS ARE PICKED UP. Pass the weft.

After you have passed your weft select the pairs for the float pattern-in the chart above they are pairs 1, 3 and 5. Put these on a stick. Now open the shed with all the teal warps. Add the selected pinks. This is the second row on the chart. Pass the weft.

The third row is an all pink row. Open the all pink shed Pass the weft.  You have now completed row 3 of the chart.

Row 4 is the all teal shed plus NEW PAIRS-the 2nd and 4th pairs of pink warps- select and save them with a stick BEFORE you open the all teal shed.

Remember, every time you go to open a teal shed, you are going to add pink pairs to it but each time they will be different pairs of pinks.

Thanks for your explanation :) 

So, on the pattern I used, do I "skip" picking a row (the all pink row taking up what was in the pattern for that row)? 

Let me see if I can explain in a picture...

Am I thinking about this the right way now?

yup you are thinking the right way!  Here is my picture, a little different from Laverne's, but esentially the same information. (I have only ONE weft, for each of the "pattern" blocks, she has a PAIR, or 2 wefts for each "pattern" block.)

Don't feel bad about not quite getting the warp floats, I had to weave one of the samplers for a "S" pickup design 4 times before I got it right, and that was only after I did the diagram similar to below! (And I had already woven a whole bunch of other pick-up  designs out of Atwatter's books !)

In my diagram, "white" is shown as gray, and "dark" is shown as red, as using 'true" wite and black, and white for the weft, would just make a mess of a diagram. Your weaving will not show the weft sticking out inbetween the warps on the front side, I did that for clarity, so you could see how the heddle and open threads (the dark row, and the light row) interact with each other, and that the first threads in each row are not 'truely' on top of each other the way that they are conveiently diagramed.

Wow, nice diagram! :) Thanks for showing this. That is pretty clear. Did you make that yourself or was it generated? I'm very impressed if you made it yourself, because I just thought it was easier to draw pictures on paper, and I'm even a web designer lol.

And thanks for the encouragement not to feel bad. :) I feel a little silly. But really I should have known when I recharted the pattern for ease of use, adding the horizontal striped parts, and thought it looked so awkward and not quite right lol. Oh well. Good learning experience, which is what all my weaving seems to be :) And I think my awkwardly long floats will still make a nice gift for someone lol.

Thank you!

Tara

I can see that you have got it now Tara. Your drawing on the left shows what you were doing wrong and why your floats were so long.  Rememeber you are just weaving a series of horizontal stripes with pairs of warps jumping over a stripe. You have it sorted on your chart on the right-now you should weave it to see if it all falls into place.

Laverne

I was looking hrough some stuff I got in Guatemala and found this really long belt with simple warp floats. I noticed this part of it where the weaver has used floats alternating from one color to the other and thought it was interesting. It kind of plays tricks on your eye.

Laverne

Whoa, that's so cool! Very trippy. It does play a trick on your eye. Thank you for sharing this! 

So neat!  I was playing around with switching warp float colors on the piece I'm working on right now, but took it out because I couldn't get it quite right.  I love this example - thanks for sharing!

Here is a picture of the 'actual' warping board/loom.

You can check my blog: for more info on how/why.

http://goldielocks-garden.blogspot.com/2010/03/indoneasian-inspired-warp-weighted-loom.html

So here's my contribution from this lesson.  I seem to be weaving ahead and posting pictures later, but whatever.  The colors I chose were inspired by my newest book "Weaving in the Peruvian highlands".  I've eyed this book since it came out, and am thrilled to finally own a copy!  So many patterns to play with!!!

I've already warped up for Lesson 3, and I'll post pictures from it eventually.  Weaving time has been limited lately (as has knitting, spinning, and everything else-time).  Such is life.

My band: woven in 5/2 cotton from the weaving store.  It pilled on the heddles a little, but not so much that I couldn't weave, I'd just have to clear them once in a while.  I had a warping error on each side of the red/white color change to stripes that I just decided to deal with, and you can see it as a bump in the red on the right.  Overall, it was fun and pretty, and I think it'll be the strap to a bag (unless my son claims it for a belt, which is highly possible!).  I'm making a habit of making lesson bands really long, both for practice and for getting something useful out of it.

The colors are more true in the first one.  The second one shows the popsicle-stick technique for making the sheds.

I'm a little disappointed that my selvedges went wonky during the second weaving session - the first day they were all straight and tight, and after that they started wandering.  I'm wondering if the warps might have changed tension when I rolled it up and put it away?  Maybe I need to be more careful about re-setting it up?

I think your band looks wonderful, and I love all those bright colors! Your edges look just fine, a little bit uneaven proves that a human wove it, as opposed to a computer/robot.

Actually, on one of the 'tips and tricks' in TWIST, they say to check the tightness of how  you pull the weft with your fingers, not your eyes.

And, In my experience, pickup weaves do distort the edges a little, and it is necessary to have a plainweave border in order to keep the weaving even.

this  band is looking good! I like the bright colours very much.   the selfedges don't look to bad to me. in general i have the impression that my selfedges never are the same as i have to restart on another day. so I keep an eye on that and try to make them as even as possible. But it is handweaving and  selfedges which are sligtly uneven is one of the trademarks I think.

Thank you!

I really enjoy this type of weaving, and have so many ideas.  I'm trying to keep myself to only warping one project ahead of the one I'm weaving, but with the ideas and such, it's hard to not start a new one every day!  But then, time constraints help kep that in check, too  :-/

I recently visited my "local" weaving store and bought a selection of 5/2 cottons in fun bright colors along with the basic white and black.  if I don't use them for this, they'll end up in towels on the big loom at some point, but for now I have a wonderful selection of colors to play with!

Your bands are sooo pretty-what gorgeous colors!! The edge warps get slack. You can just untie the knots at your far loom bar and retie them tighter or place bamboo kebab skewers, toothpicks or thin dowels under the slack warps to take up tension. Slip the sticks under the loose warps at the far end of your warp and tie them to the loom bar. Good to have a collection of sticks of all thicknesses to deal with warps that are a little or very slack. Don't worry. this is a very common occurence.

May I show off your work on my blog next week? PLEASE! Do you have a blog?

Laverne

I'd be honored if you showed it off!  Thank you!!

And yes, I do have a blog, but it's been pretty quiet lately: historicstitcher.blogspot.com.  Life has interfered with posting there, and every time I want to post, something else interrupts me and it doesn't get done.  Forums are SO much quicker to post in! 

Great. I know what you mean about posting in forums....Picture, hey look what I just made!! end of story!

PS I just noticed that you are floating single warps instead of pairs which is perfecty fine-the technique is exactly the same. I was just wondering if there was a reason you chose to do that.

This is a great tease. I must go to your blog and find out more about this!

I was looking for the more delicate strings of color that come from fine or single warps.  I wanted a lighter look, like the ones in "Weaving in the Peruvian Highlands".  I guess it's just me.

This is beautiful! Your colors are lovely! And your selvedges are actually pretty nice. Good job! 

Hello! I just thought I'd post a picture of my finished (all be it messed up) warp-float pencil pouch. I used a button hole stitch for the end of my warp, and the triple cross knit looping to finish the edges of the pouch.

Tara!! It' looks great. I am so happy that you used the cross knit looping. May I put this on my blog? The sewing across the turned over edge looks nice in the contrast color too.

Sure you can! If you'd like to :) I liked doing the cross knit looping, even though its not all that consistent :) Thanks so much for that tutorial! 

I made this cell phone pouch from a band made with simple warp floats. This is the same technique that is taught in this tutorial except that the entire surface is covered with warp floats so that the horizontal stripes get hidden. I started off with white and red horizontal stripes and then made floats with both colors.

You can read more about this on my blog today and the yurt bands that inspired the design.

backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

There's a braid tutorial and a new pattern chart for simple warp floats too.

Laverne

Here is a new cell phone pouch that I have made using the border design from a yurt band. It is done in simple warp float technique with some of the warp floats overlapping. I have done a tutorial on this border design on my blog today as a warm up to a larger yurt band design next week. Get familiar with the technique so next week we can weave this motif....

http://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

Laverne

The yurt obsession continues as I run into more and more resources online. A wonderful gentleman in Beijing has shared some pieces from his collection and given me permission to show them on my blog so go check them out-they are gorgeous. One of them has the "S" design that is in this week's tutorial on my blog and another has the border design that I taught last week.

Here is the "S" woven in two columns and mirrored-just the right size for a belt.

And in contrast to this black and white there are lots of colors from Guatemala this week too...

http://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/

Laverne

Here is what I am working on right now.

The warp is knitting wool, and is very sticky... I found it as sticky as using the sugar and spice in a very tight double weave band. The pattern area is 24 warps (12 pair) wide.

Hi Sharon,

More details please! what technique is this and hat are you making? Does that loom have adjustable ension-is this one of your ingenious designs?

oh yes... the adjustable tension is done by loosening/tighthing the screws on the bolts.

the pattern is the 'birds' from your book, (I just got started, you can see the start of the pickups on the top if you squint).

as far as 'My design"... no, not really, I have seen similar designs all over the place in various forms over the years. all I did was drill holes in the end pieces. The wide ends allow the warp to be higher than the sides, so my fat fingers can reach the warp without running into the sides of a frame.

I have tried and tried to do the 3rd chart but do not achieve what I'm supposed to. Instead I have warp floats that appear way too long.

The triangles are no problem so I don't understand what is going wrong.  I put my dark shed on top and put the weft through. Then I pick up the darks and drop the lights. 

I put my stick under the picked up warps, put my index finger in the shed, turn the stick, and put my fingers in the new shed. I pass the shuttle and then beat. 

I change sheds to the dark shed and pass the weft.

Is there something I'm not getting right? 

The only part that you say that doesn't make sense to me is...

"Then I pick up the darks and drop the lights."

After passing the weft throught the dark shed, you keep that shed open and keep the dark warps that you want to have floating. There are no whites there to drop.

This chart with the horizontal bars drawn in might make it clearer for you. I have also written the numbers of the pairs that you need to keep from each dark shed.

NOTE: I had to delete an original comment with this pattern chart as there were errors in the chart and, as the comment had been replied to, I could not edit it. Deleting the comment also deleted the replies. Sorry about that.Many thanks to Sweet Annie for studying the chart and finding the errors!

Laverne

The chart worked for me and I finished with weaving it! 

I am on to warping for the bird. I went back to my version of the chart to color in all the horizontal bars so I won't fumble about again but I am studying how the chart looks without them colored all the way across. After all, I can't ask you to customize all the charts for me! 

It turns out that my comment of 'drop the lights' is something I was repeating from watching one of Laverne's videos where she was using black and white warps and was dropping white ones. Since I'm using colors I should just think of dropping warps, not lights. 

I haven't learned how to post pictures here but if/when I do I'll show my humble beginnings! 

That bird is lovely and no one that I know of has woven it yet. I am so happy that you want to weave it. THis is what it looks like woven as a double image with a little tree. Let me know if you would like to do this whole pattern and I will chart it for you. the bird motif is from cotton saddlebags woven in coastal Ecuador and I copied it from a photo of one in the journal of the DC's Textile Museum. THe flower below it is a motif used by the saddle bag weavers with whom I stayed and studied also in coastal Ecuador.  They repeat the flower along the whole length of the piece and so program the design by setting up the warps to be picked up 11 sets of string heddles!

I wove one bird! 

Now don't tease...where's the photo please?

PS...How come Ravelry gets an avatar and we dont? :-)

Mmmmmm, I would have to agree with the last comment, and it would be lovely to see what you have done!

 I agree, too! It would be better of me to take a picture and learn how to post it (thanks for the link to the directions, Laverne!), and have a picture of something, anything! (I'll try that soon!) 

Do you all know what the plant Sweet Annie is? It's in the artemesia family and in the right amount of light it can grow very tall. It has tiny little yellow/green flowers when it blooms. It's very delicate and it has a wonderful fragrance. 

I first discovered it while residing in Ohio where people make dried wreaths with it - cutting the plants just before the buds bloom. I found a couple of plants at a nursery around where I live now and was told to let the plants go to see and I wouldn't have to buy any more of it. 

I let some of it seed itself every year and when the seeds grows the next spring I then transplant the little plants to where I want them and also give some away. This year I have a lot more of it and I am going to try growing it in more locations on the property. 

So, if you want some Sweet Annie I'll have to send you seeds in the fall! 

Well now we see why I was asking for the avatar...you always have such interesting ones. Your description of your user name just has me begging for more pictures! How about bird weaving and sweet Annie together?

Here is mu first time trying this technique, Laverne's videos were a great starting place.  The warp sequence is from Mary Atwater's monograph on Inkle Weaving.  Used #10 crochet cotton.  They are for a bookmark project at the guild.

.

Very pretty colors. The turquoise down the middle makes all the difference.-very southwest looking to me.

VERY nice! Well done Sweet Annie!

Wow, I just look at the picture and I can smell Sweet Annie.

My start of a band with a warp float pattern.  I am using the inkle again as my support instead of trying the backstrap (but I will try it soon!)   At first I thought there wouldn't be enough contrast, but the heavy yarn sits up on top well.

The pattern is adapted from Byways in Handweaving, by Atwater

Handcrafter cotton by Bernat - Aran-Worsted weight  at   12wpi, variegated blues and an unknow white of similar weight I had on hand.

Looking good, Evelyn. I think it's geat to show people that these things can be easily done on other looms too. I have never thought to use a variegated yarn. I really like the way it looks.

Thanks Laverne!  I like the weight of the band and plan to use it for the band on a bag woven using rag strips. 

It took me awhile to wrap my head around the pick-up technique and the shed openings.   I also was confused about the "pairs" of warp floats.  Then I realized that as this isn't structural than one or an odd number was o.k. and that the pattern shown in the book was o.k.

The way you describe doing the pattern picking is  so much easier with the pattern warps up, instead of fishing around below the ground warp the way it is described in some books.  

more on my blog -

http://evelynoldroyd.wordpress.com/2010/...

I sometimes pick singles...it depends on the motif. The brown and beige example with the little birds on the first page of this tutorial is done in singles rather than pairs although you will have to look really closely to see it .

I checked out your blog...OMG the strawberry cake! It's 11.30 pm and now I'm hungry! Thanks for the links!! :-)

Hi Laverne (and everyone)!

My name is Tonya and I found your blog, and then Weavolution, a few weeks ago when I decided that backstrap weaving is for me.

As a total newcomer to weaving, I've been absorbing tons of information and trying my hand at a few things, and your tutorials have been so instrumental to my success:)

There's just one aspect that I'm not understanding and perhaps you or the other fabulous backstrap weavers here can help...

I see the roll-up stick pictured as a backstrap loom component, and I even see it in use in the tutorials ... what I'm not finding is any instructions on how to add it to the loom when you're ready for it.  I thought I got the concept from the pictures, but every time I've tried rolling the work onto it, the work has just un-rolled when I put tension on the warps.

My solution thus far, when I get to the point of needing to roll my pieces up, I've just hopped over to my sewing machine and temporarily hemmed the section closest to my work (allowing me to slip the loom bar right in) ... It works; but the roll-up stick looks way cooler, and I wouldn't have to pick out the sewing thread afterwards:)

Thanks in advance for your help!

Oh, and I've posted a picture of a few pieces I've been working on...  The backstrap turned out to be much smaller than I needed, so I'll have to make another one; which will be much easier to warp now that I've used Rose's L brackets concept to make myself the start of a fabulous warping board:)  Thanks everyone here for sharing!

Tonya

Hi Tonya,

Your backstrap came out so well!! Congrats and welcome to the group. The best way for you to see the roll up stick in action is to watch one of the videos in the WeaveZine article. It's the first one on narrow warps and the part about the roll up begins at minute 4.15. You are probably rolling up correctly but not placing your backstrap cords over the bars in the correct position. Here is the link to the video. You coud also look at this photo and see how the strap goes over the bar nearest to you and around the farther bar. When you roll up it doesn't matter which bar ends being closest to you. Make sure the roll up bar goes under your weaving and roll under. Hope thi helps!

Laverne

Thank you!  That's exactly what I needed:)  Now to make my new backstrap...  Hope you're having fun on your trip!

Tonya

I am so glad someone said that!  I find it very difficult to pick up from the ground warps on the bottom.  Makes so much more sense for them to be the ones in the top shed, the way Laverne explains it.  I have just about lost my mind trying to understand it the other way.  I am fast learning that some people explain/write instructions better than others.  Lots of confusion out there to be had.  I have decided just to stick with Laverne's system.  Once I get some consistency I will branch out.  I have also learned that the way I have to warp my loom, it has roller beams and texsolv heddles so I use a warp board, is very different than the way it is done on an inkle loom alot of the time.  But I will persevere.  Have done tapestry to alot of years so I am finding the warp face weave a bit difficult to understand at times.