Lessons in Technique

Spinning cotton

This small spinning wheel is made out of bamboo. The weaver first beats the cotton with a bow before spinning.


Warping

This weaver sets up her warping structure between a large oak tree and and a post.

Weaving on the Loom

Rhade designs on a skirt.

Ju Nie weaving a skirt on a full sized loom.


Pick-up Technique or Warp Float Patterning

This Rhade weaver begins to pick out her pattern with her fingers.

She inserts a thin pointed dowel or pattern stick to hold the pattern.

Then she opens up her shed with the heddle rod along with the threads she has picked up with the pattern stick.

This Jarai weaver is using the same pick-up technique on a wider loom.

Her pattern stick is already in place above or to the left of the heddle rod in the picture. Instead of individually picking out each thread with her fingers every time she opens this shed she ties her threads up in bundles.

Supplementary Weft

The warp is shown horizontally in this picture. Supplemental weft threads are woven into and perpendicular to the warp threads.

This close up of another supplementary weft design shows how the thread does not go from selvadge to selvadge but only the width of the design. Look carefully and you can see the red thread in the three triangles loop back and forth under the white warp.

On the back side the supplementary weft is not visible.



Kteh

The kteh is an off loom technique employing weft twining. Individual weft threads are tied on at the left and horizontally twined to the right. The skirt is folded and loosely sewn over a bar to keep it from moving.

Several different motifs are placed side by side along the horizontal band. The motif on the far left of this kteh resembles designs painted on funerary poles in a Jarai cemetery, according to this weaver.

The weft threads are wound around small bobbins which help keep the tension tight.

Here she is embellishing the textile with beads after the kteh is finished.

A final knot will hold the bead in place.


Tools, Sewing and Other Techniques.

From bottom to top: bamboo warp beam, sword and two pieces of wood that will become the breast beam. A sharpened pattern stick sits at the top right.

Sword or beater tool showing the distinctive point used to help open sheds and separate threads. The wood must be heavy weight, oak or mahogany, not pine. 

These swords, shed rods and the interlocking breast beams will be coated with wax.

Joining pieces together with a cross-knit loop stitch.

The cross-knit loop stitch joins skirt panels and shoulder straps to bags and is very sturdy.

The weaver passes the thread through the two pieces of fabric

The multicolored threads are a characteristic of Montagnard sewing.