Students from Montagnard Dega Association help work in the Dunleith Community Garden in Greensboro. Some of the Backstrap Weavers help out in the garden as well. We will try growing cotton, flax, and some dye plants in spring 2012.
The women help each other as a team.
Mulch being applied to eggplants.
text
These Rhade and Jarai women wear their traditional handwoven clothing at an award ceremony in June.
This Jarai woman takes pride in her weaving.
These are textiles made by Broih H, who participated in several Backstrap Weavers events. These designs are derived from her Bahnar tradition. She warped these herself using the portable warping board.
This Jarai weaver shows off her new loom, courtesy of the Backstrap Weavers. She had not been able to weave since she left Vietnam.
Our portable warping board is available to any woman who needs to warp and can easily be set up in small apartments.
Here is the finished textile from the warp above. Knitting yarn was used for this piece.
Ju Nie gets this newly warped loom ready for the first weft. After she weaves the first few rows she will roll it up and send it off to a weaver in California. Interested people from across the country have requested looms and clothing from the Backstrap Weavers.
Before adjusting the tension Ju exchanges the warp rods to the shorter loom rods.
She continues to adjust the warp threads so that they will not be tangled. Her warping board is just beside her.
Ju's heddles are always a contrasting color to the main color of the textile. This helps visibility for older eyes!
Ju opens her shed and puts the bobbin though.
The first few rows of weft are finished. Next she will roll up the entire loom and we will send it off in the mail in a mailing tube.
On Veteran's day I took Ju to Fayetteville to sell her clothing during the big parade. This is Montagnard style commerce, spread it all out on a blanket on the ground.
We bumped into some of the Bunong weavers who were participating in the parade with the Save the Montagnard People and Montagnard Dega Association. They performed music and dance routines for the crowds the day before.
Shirts and vests are popular items sold amongst American Vets.
We had a local craftsman help one of the weavers by making a full sized warping board, larger than the portable version we used in 2011.
This is the first step in the Montagnard warping process, setting up the heddle thread on it's rod. The ball of thread usually sits in a pot to keep it contained but sometimes the women just let the ball roll on the floor!
This weaver is warping a skirt on her new warping board. She pushes the threads down to the bottom of the poles to allow her to expand the threads almost three feet upwards.
After a break we share a bowl of rice cooked with some of the fresh greens we have picked from one of the community gardens. One of the neighbors is inspired to take notes on her newly learned weaving words.
When the warp is finished and set up on the loom, master Weaver Ngach helped her Jarai friend warp this traditional design for a skirt. Warping a pick-up design is best done by the master!
As Ngach helps with the early stages of the skirt her friend whittles the tip of a piece of bamboo, to be used a a temple. I make notes about the weaving and about the Jarai language as I document their progress.
The temple is placed into the loom to keep the sides even and to keep the textile from pulling inwards.
A weavers eyes must be sharp enough to count the individual threads for this pick-up pattern.
Ngach guides her friend along with the design.
The weaver models the finished skirt. She sewed two lengths together to make the skirt long enough.
During one of our warm December days I posed with these Jarai women after we pounded locally grown and harvested sticky rice.
This is the bottom of the shirt I am wearing in the picture above. In a future project I would like to see if the weaver remembers how to warp this design. I don't see this design very often in Greensboro.
Notice how basket designs are similar to textile designs.
This Jarai design has a striking graphic quality.
During the Christmas holiday/school break, Ngach lost no time getting several projects underway...
...and helped her friend with more weaving projects from some left over thread.
A happy weaver!
I took several of the Backstrap Weavers to the January Triangle Weavers meeting in Chapel Hill to demonstrate the traditional weaving and spinning of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. I showed some video and slides of my documentation from 2008-2011.
Ju rolls up her loom while a Jarai friend inspects the Rhade designs on Ju's textile.
The women collect all kinds of thread and yarn, gifted to them or bought at thrift stores, some of which I can't always identify. This thread in non-mercerized and almost seems to be linen. I'll make sure I am present when this piece comes off the loom so I can see the fabric quality.
