stitching together

Handspun, handwoven wool panels I wove, being stitched with alternating colors of handspun yarn.

Sewing a seam to join handspun, backstrap-woven wool striped fabrics.

As soon as I began to stitch a figure-8 seam with alternating colors, these bits of weaving seemed to become a legit textile. This decorative joining stitch made my weaving look a bit like the handwoven textiles I brought home from Damascus and Doha.

Joining stitch detail of a handwoven, handspun camel hair rug made in Raqqa, Syria, and purchased in Damascus in 2011.

Damascus in February, 2011, just because

Bedouin and other nomadic weavers using ground looms tend to weave narrow cloth in long strips that are cut to the right length and sewn together. I’ve always admired the alternating colors on the joining stitches, and knew it required extensive care and time to make these figure 8 stitches so close together. It wasn’t until I started sewing that I understood that alternating colors has a structural function. If you alternate colors, you’re adding strength and protection, because if yarn breaks in one place, it’s surrounded by the opposite color yarn and won’t simply unravel. Traditional methods almost always have a practical, structural reason behind them, in addition to beauty.

Joining stitch detail of an Iraqu Bedouin weaving, purchased in Doha in 2013

Bedouin weaver Noura Hamed Salem Shehayeb working on a small frame loom in Doha, Qatar, 2011. This weaver is interviewed in a film from Qatar Museums: https://qm.org.qa/en/stories/all-stories/women-of-the-desert-video/

Souq Waqif in Doha, Qatar, where I bought the Iraqi weaving and saw many others from Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and the Gulf, 2011

Even this tatreez on linen, a Palestinian fragment that a friend identified as possibly from Bethlehem, shows the dense alternating joining stitches. Makes me wonder if this is a case of a popular technique being used in excess of its structural need. I’m sure this join is stronger than strictly necessary, but it’s definitely beautiful. The artist experimented with another type of joining stitch in the area on the left.

Palestininan cross stitch panels with intricate joining stitches

Now I'm noticing joining stitches everywhere. This is a nice join on an embroidered bag from Gujarat, which I've been using to hold a writing project. It's more of a double blanket stitch, maybe similar to Van Dyke stitch…. I don't know how it's done.

Meanwhile, I carry on stitching my panels together. Looking at the joins on these various traditional pieces, maybe you can see why my own weaving feels more like the real thing when it’s sewn together with decorative joining stitches. And it feels good to make narrow strips into a wider cloth (although I still can’t say what it “is”, besides handwoven wool cloth.) There are times when ‘putting in stitches,’ as my quilting mentor Mrs Graham used to say, feels like the only way to hold it together. I mean that in the widest, most global sense.

How it looked when I first began. The two sewing yarns are both in action, and the yarn is threaded behind to begin the next section of stitching.

I could say deep things about ‘joining together’, but I think the metaphor is already obvious. I continue to not be able to get enough of Abdul-Wahab Kayyali’s oud playing, which moved me to poetry when I heard him live with Les Arrivants last month. Just learned about this powerful project combining music and poetry around themes of survival and devastation (Mafaza project, through Henna Platform). Wishing for more beauty, less bombing.

Another detail of this wonderful Palestinian embroidery, known as tatreez. Check out this website for more: https://www.tatreezandtea.com/

Nostalgic Doha photo of someone fishing, 2008

le guin onion skin all of a piece

A rainbow halo around the sun, over the Pacific Ocean at Kalaloch. Here, because somehow I need to share it, and the focus of my wonder keeps shifting like this, from the vast and epic to the miniature and daily - expanding and shrinking, but continuously stimulating wonder and amazement. (And I saw another one again today while composing this post, a rainbow halo around the sun, following a rain storm on an otherwise warm and sunny day.)

Gathering promise from Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ *Undrowned* and Lola Olufemi’s *Experiments in Imagining Otherwise*

A glimpse of the table. (Handspun continuous cord from cat’s cradle textiles, a bit of fiber magic)

Daily practice of writing, reading, painting, sitting and watching carries on. Interactions of poetry, paper, paint, birdsong, water, weather, war, wisdom and the lack of it, wrangled through arrangements of objects, words, and thoughts.

I’m reading Ursula K. LeGuin’s Always Coming Home, a rich, indulgent tome of her brilliance and insight. So much resonance with the backwards-headed people, for those who know this work! I don’t have the capacity to get into it, really - the post title was a working title, but I like it so much I’m just going to leave it at that, with hopes of revisiting the LeGuin when I can be coherent. Let your own mind make the necessary connections in the meantime…

Having cooked two more stitched salvage sketchbooks with onion skins, I once again took an indulgent number of photos while opening them up. The unrolling is the most exciting part, because the colors are most saturated when wet. Each segment has its own serendipitous story to tell, and the unexpectedness of it makes each book a thrill (as I’ve mentioned before). Above and below are all unrolling images from the same two stitched books, as I gloried in the effects, both bright and subtle.

Spiraled to dry in my studio, they look like like a huge rose, and I hate to even move or fold them….

The books, these stitched rolls of paper that are colored and folded and written and painted, keep shifting and growing, in the manner of lichens: multi-textured, slow, subject to weather, force, accident…. One thing I love is the way paper changes when it gets wet, and the way these books can accept water, unlike most books. The texture will change, and things may get very blurry or mushy or require reinforcement, but that’s part of the never-ending assembly project that they are.

The focus on slow growth in silence and solitude is my way of being with the world right now. With offerings of awareness and acknowledgement to Arab women and everything being asked of them. It’s a couple of years old, but I’ve just seen a video highlighting Bedouin women, which features an interview with my weaving mentor from Doha. I knew her as Umm Hamad, but she introduces herself as Noura Hamed Salem Shehayeb in this film. It’s wonderful to hear her stories - we did not have enough language in common for me to hear them when I was there.

Working on a handwoven camel halter in Souq Waqif, Doha, Qatar, 2011

I believe the film accompanied an exhibit at the Qatar National Museum:

Qatar Museums film Woman on the Move

And another beautiful Arab woman whose work I know and admire was interviewed here (Instagram link - the Lebanese film maker’s profile on Vimeo is here). Widad Kuwar’s Tiraz home for Arab dress has been much on my mind, given the continuing destruction of Palestine. Memories of visiting Jordan and seeing the bounty of textiles ten years ago…. there was definitely a sense of needing to preserve and hold the knowledge, history, and beauty of these things, but it did not feel as desperate as now. Nothing from a few years ago feels as desperate as now - is that the right word? It’s a feeling of having the wind knocked out of me, a kind of continuous shock, where it’s impossible to accommodate the understanding of what is actually happening.

But, given that I have the unutterable privilege of peace, home, food, love, and solitude, I make use of it to grow on behalf of all of us, and as I wrote at the beginning of some time alone in February, “The details of things gather around me like patient friends, offering supportive gestures in their mute beauty.”

finishing, and other distractions

We are getting into seriously lovely afternoon and evening light time.

This tiny snail was on the stem of my CSA broccoli, and I remembered I have a camera with a good macro setting. So I was diverted by looking at the snail and taking lots of photos as it scooted around on the stem. I called this one Snail Side-eye. That shell! The delicacy was entrancing. The shell is only about 1/4” wide, maybe 5mm.

You know that thing I said last time about how once I’ve finished something, it already seems old? That may be one reason why it’s hard for me to get around to sharing Finished Object photos. The other is the distraction factor, because the thoughts and images that elbow their way to the front of the queue are never exactly what I thought I might intend to talk about. Witness, the tiny snail.
But anyway, this weaving is finished, except for the fringe/edge treatment. I’m still undecided on what I’m doing at each end, but here’s three panels, joined with figure 8 stitch. It has been incorporated into the textile array in the low seating area that we call the majlis, our couch, where I am currently ensconced among weavings and pillows.

Bedouin style weaving, from handspun Navajo churro wool, 3 panels stitched together.

Now, I meant to include this next item with the petticoat details in the last post, because they are related. The Sarah-dippity skirt is, at long last, finished. The picture below is from nearly a year ago (this has been a long-running project). I tried it on when I had finished knitting the panels and put buttonholes in the last panel, whose shaping was made with short rows - and yeah, I could use some short row shaping finesse, but I decided what’s a little hem wonk among friends?

Backing up as I realize I may never have shared the in-progress bits, possibly because I was waiting until it was finished…..? Sigh. However, this is backstrap-woven fabric, begun in October 2019, 100% Harrisville Shetland wool yarn in a random stripey warp that was a bit of a circus act to wind, but satisfying to weave. I knit the intervening panels with the same yarn, using up the dark brown cone. I was sewing the panels together in February 2020, prior to knitting the final front piece. My waist-to-hip ratio required some more radical deductions in fitting the wedges to the straight pieces, which added to the delay in getting through that phase.

Shetland wool stripes in progress on backstrap loom, leather backstrap of unknown origin in foreground. Handmade bamboo reed in use.

Shetland wool striped fabric finished - about 8 x 100'“

What the skirt really needed, to be finished, was some elastic in the back half of the waistband, which I inserted in a sleeve of brown wool, a remnant from my lovely long skirt. And the buttons were pulling at the knitted fabric, so I wanted to add button bands. Another job for my new best friend, handwoven tape! I had some handspun tussah silk yarn in appropriate colors handy, and got to work. the cool thing is, being custom-made, the tape has woven-in buttonholes.

Hanspun tussah silk yarn, in natural, rust, and bronze.

I kept the skirt in my lap as I wove the buttonhole band, and buttoned each button as I went, so that the length between would be correct.

The skirt has already been recruited into use, but I don’t have fully-done photos yet. I’m sure you’ll see it underneath some weaving in progress eventually.
Meanwhile, how about some sleeve gussets? The next FO is actually a radical mending, or a reboot. A linen dress I’ve had for a very long time, love dearly, and never liked the fit of the sleeves. In sewing a linen shift, I learned a thing or two about gussets, and I wanted to apply that to this dress. But the sleeves were joined into the princess cut in such a way that merely adding gussets in the underarm was not enough. I had to cut the whole sleeve off and insert a wedge at the shoulder.

The linen dress on my work table, one sleeve reconfigured. The original sleeve is angled so low that anytime I raised my arms, it was too tight around the upper arm. Simply adding room below did not solve this problem - I had to reduce the angle from the shoulder, make it nearly straight out.

I’d been searching for linen of a harmonious color for these insertions, but my smart friend Ann suggested using a print fabric that shows right up, and carrying the insert all the way to the sleeve hem. Which sent me stash diving and gave me the joy of using more long-held fabrics to not only enhance function but jazz up this dress.

Whee, freedom of movement! I’ve worn it many a day since making this change. Seen here with a necklace made of weaving-enhanced driftwood, work of my friend Tininha.

It’s interesting to think about what counts as ‘finishing’ in my little textile world. I meant to show things that are done, wearable, no more work left until they need mending. But I realized that each plied ball of handspun yarn is also a small finished object. There are many stages of finishing, and the sense of accomplishment comes whenever I wind off a ball or a skein of yarn.

Four balls of handspun yarn, from top left cotton 2 strand plying ball, Corriedale plied, Coopworth 2 strand plying ball, Gnomespun dyed Gotland 2 strand plying ball. All of these have been plied since the photo - woot!

My life is filled with balls of yarn like this. And I never know what will strike me when sorting, or moving, or plying, or grouping them. As it happened, I went through the main ‘weaving yarn’ bin the other day, and found the Syrian silk in there. This stuff is heavy, in more ways than one. It has weight. Just holding three skeins’ worth was like a presence - I held them against my stomach, as if carried in the womb, and I remembered the market in Damascus. The Souq al Hamidiyyeh, a huge covered arcade of market stalls where I searched for the yarn shop a friend in Doha recommended.

I was there the end of February, 2011, only months before the rapid disintegration of what was then normal life for Syrians. It is sobering to think of these places now, and the yarn holds all of that.

Shelves of the yarn shop where I bought my silk, Souq al Hamidiyyeh, Damascus, Syria.

I wove some of this silk once before, along with some textured corespun yarn in the warp and an additional wool yarn in the weft. The resulting scarf was sold to a friend at an art fair in Doha.

Handspun yarn and Syrian silk scarf, modeled on the roof of my Doha apartment, 2011.

As I realized then, this silk (I call it silk, it may have some viscose in it, but they said it was silk, even when my Arabic speaking friend bought it,) needs something to stabilize it, something less slippery and lighter weight. It occurred to me to try weaving it with plain, white, handspun wool. This juxtaposition of flashy, shiny, bling yarn and earth-grown, undyed sheep’s wool parallels what I encountered in Arab culture. There is a deep history of pastoral connection to land, animals, and hand-worked materials, which coexists with a love of gold, sparkling jewels, and lush adornment. Very broad strokes here, but I could give examples if this post were not already getting lengthy. Suffice to say, this combination felt right, as an honoring of the yarn’s place of origin.

Syrian silk yarn and handspun CVM/Romeldale cross wool from Bellingham, WA.

I probably want to make something large-ish, as the yarn allows, but first I needed to sample my idea. I spent much of a day working up this sample, and I can’t even express how much I adore the fabric.

The sun was shining on this day, and I enjoyed the glint of sunlight on silk immensely, broken up with all the little dashes of wooliness.

A small sample, a tiny little piece of fabric, but I love everything about it, the hand, the texture, the rhythm of bright and matte surfaces, and the way the light shines through.

The rug in the background is also from Syria, bought on the same brief visit. Through my own weaving, my heart honors and hopes for the place and the people, that they (and we all) may thrive in some new form.

weave on

Sunlight on a warp of gold cotton with my bamboo reed and a sword beater carved by Allen Berry.

As long as I have one, or two, or maybe more, weavings in progress, I feel secure in the knowledge that I have Something to Do. I can always put in a few rows or inches, especially if one of the projects is plain weave. I was happily, if slowly weaving along on the gold warp with a mishmash of weft yarns, destined to be several yards of 15” wide cloth for sewing, when another project suddenly took hold.

Double decker weaving. When you have one tie-up spot for larger pieces, they have to make way for one another. The gold warp is chained and secured at one point, so it can move side to side. I weave it while sitting in the rolling chair. The wool wa… — Double decker weaving. When you have one tie-up spot for larger pieces, they have to make way for one another. The gold warp is chained and secured at one point, so it can move side to side. I weave it while sitting in the rolling chair. The wool warp is secured on a loom bar, so it faces the tie-up (antique treadle sewing machine, that is) directly, and I sit on a cushion on the floor to weave it.

It all started with this Navajo churro fiber that Ameila G. was unloading before a big move. I happened to mention that I like that fiber, and a huge box came home with me. I spun the white and dark brown a few years ago, and the medium grey-brown just recently, a soothing pandemic spin. I had the skeins posed on my table to share a photo with my weaving friend.

Three shades of Navajo churro fiber, from the large stash I acquired thanks to Amelia Garripoli, spun and plied on my Louët S10 wheel.

Well, backing up, it all started when I had the idea to try to do a Bedouin-style weaving with the churro. Back in 2017, I started weaving the side panels - two strips that would mirror each other, with the patterning of al ‘ouerjan. The plan was to have a center strip with the shajarah supplementary warp technique, an improvised pickup which allows for the choice of dark or light color in each pattern warp in each shed. I’d learned the weaving methods while living in Doha, Qatar, through a combination of visiting Um Hamad, a Bedu/Qatari weaver in Souq Waqif, and consulting Joy Hilden’s book, which gave me the vocabulary to talk about the techniques with Um Hamad. I set up at home using my backstrap arrangement, rather than the ground loom or frame loom typical of Bedouin weavers, and while I wove a few practice pieces and made some projects with al ‘ouerjan, I only ever did the shajarah once, on a band which I later gave to Joy Hilden. So this idea for a larger weaving came from an urge to give “real” Bedouin weaving a try. What I mean by that is to use handspun wool of a heavy carpet weight, to do a warp-faced piece with multiple panels, and to use both types of supplementary warp technique. The pounds of churro fiber I had handy were just the thing.

In sending the photo to my friend, I then got out the side panels to show her what the yarn was for. And with everything sitting out and looking tantalizing, it was only a short step to winding a new warp. (This is why it’s important to have weaving friends.)

Brown and white wool side bands, and the three colors of yarn in the middle. Yeah, I can’t really figure out why the patterned bands are so different in these two, but I’m ignoring it. Symmetry is not my strong suit.

It had been so long (and had predated the sensible weaving notebook I now use) that I did not remember what length I had wound for the two warps. I decided, based on finished length, the most likely answer was “the full length of the table” - which is a standard unit of measure, at least in my studio.

Should I have put this behind a spoiler, for those who are made twitchy by the sight of a hectic warp? Sorry, this is my M.O. I wound in three bouts. I fixed tension issues in one set of white warps later, while getting set up on the loom bars. Joy… — Should I have put this behind a spoiler, for those who are made twitchy by the sight of a hectic warp? Sorry, this is my M.O. I wound in three bouts. I fixed tension issues in one set of white warps later, while getting set up on the loom bars. Joy’s book is open to some *shajarah* designs, to help me decide on the number of pattern warps to use.

For this supplementary warp technique, you wind one of each color held together for the full number of rounds equalling your desired pattern warps. I went for 30. Each shed thus gives all 30 warps, with the option to choose either dark or light for each one. Much improvisational freedom, with an emphasis on the smooth diagonal lines that are easy to achieve. The textiles I’ve seen seem to show a disregard for long floats on the backside, but I find myself designing in order to catch floats before they get too long. And as I wove, I realized this could explain the role of a certain type of framing I see in the pattern bands of Bedouin weavings. See Um Hamad’s work, below.

The very beginning - working out some kinks. A simple repeated hourglass pattern gives me a feel for the numbers and the pickup method, as I try to snug the warps closer together in the pattern section.

Um Hamad points out the patterns in a weaving. The rows of black diamonds seem to make boundary lines between designs, and would also serve to catch any long floats.

A weaving Um Hamad made in 2011, spinning and dyeing the yarn before weaving. Repeated rows of black diamonds again frame improvised sections of pickup.

The back of Um Hamad’s handspun piece, showing the floats in the shajarah section, and the bright orange, blue and red of the narrow stripes - dyed with packaged dyes from India, in a loosely plied skein. The yarn is plied tighter after dyeing. — The back of Um Hamad’s handspun piece, showing the floats in the *shajarah* section, and the bright orange, blue and red of the narrow stripes - dyed with packaged dyes from India, in a loosely plied skein. The yarn is plied tighter after dyeing.

Bedouin traditional looms have string heddles that are raised on props, with a shed stick behind them. The shed is opened in opposition to the raised heddles with a wide sword, or simply punched down, leaving the heddled warps raised. Raising my heddles with my hand and punching down the wool is a physically satisfying experience, getting me deeply involved with the wooly, three-dimensionality of my warp.

Having an improvisational design entices me to weave, with the promise of the unknown and the chance to experiment. This weaving has been a good place for me to settle during the past month.

More thorough explanation of Bedouin weaving as seen by me in Qatar, and lots of pretty pictures here.

Woven cloth with pickup design in the middle, grey stripes to either side, white borders that will join the white of the side panels. String heddles and shed stick behind. Heddled shed is open, design is picked up.

Souq Waqif rug arcade, Doha Qatar, 2011 Layered examples of different weaving styles.

practice

I love watching this pattern take shape. Warped up a quick band of al'ouerjan, just to make sure I could still do it. I tend to combine Joy Hilden's instructions from her Bedouin Weaving book, and Laverne's tutorial to remind myself of the slightly odd warping technique. (The beautiful little sword is one that Laverne brought from a maker in Bolivia - adds joy to the process!)

Having woven a bag with this pattern, which I'm proud of and use so much it's nearly wearing out, I wanted to revive my familiarity with the lovely dotted strips.

I've already written about why I like it so much, so I'm going to link to my old blog post celebrating al'ouerjan.

I didn't consciously reverse the colors of the diamonds in the new band - they just happened that way. we will see where this leads....