A bit of weaving.

I had the pleasure yesterday to meet up with three lovely colleagues for a little bit of weaving together - working with backstrap loom techniques used by the Maya in Guatemala. 

It was really fascinating for me to see the overlaps and the differences between the other bits of backstrap weaving that I have done. Some things remain the same, some things are done slightly differently, some are very different. I've also managed to do a few of the steps much better than in previous tries - so I was pretty chuffed at the end of the day. 

 I'm especially fond of the super simple way the heddles were made for this variation - they are just loops pulled across the stick, no knots, no nothing, super quick to make. Which was a good thing, because I didn't get the length right the first time around and had to re-heddle, and then there was an error or two so I had to re-do some bits again. And of course there were two errors in the cross (how did they happen, I ask myself, and why did I not catch them?) so I'm planning to do the heddles again next time I sit down with this and return the two stray slackers to the fold. (Also one of the heddles is too long, and despite several tries at adjusting it which is possible in theory, I have been quite unsuccessful.)

So I returned home a very happy lady after that day, and with a few more insights on what is important on a loom type like this, both in regards to the process and the tools. A grand day out indeed!