Friday, November 4, 2011

Backstrap Weaving Workshop Day 1

In April, Laverne Waddington came to teach a backstrap weaving workshop for the Santa Cruz Handweavers Guild. I wrote about that here. After it was over, we decided that a second one in the Fall to follow up would be a good idea. Today, we began our three day workshop, learning new patterning techniques. Wow!

First of all, when you take a class from Laverne, she lets you use one of these beautiful backstraps that she's woven. What a great way to start off.
We are going to learn some Bedouin patterns and techniques.
                         We started the morning with weft twining. It was fun! Here are my efforts.

Everyone did something completely different. Yonat's work was really nice! (Sorry the photo is fuzzy.)

And Ingrid's was amazing, too! 
If you want to know more about weft twining, Laverne has written about it and made some video tutorials here on her blog.

It was a busy day. Here we are making new warps in the afternoon.


The warp substitution was surprisingly easy and enjoyable. I liked this pattern, which is a common element in the Bedouin weavings. It is certain to turn up in a guitar strap at sometime in my future. There is a tutorial for this here.

Tomorrow there is more to come. 

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