Weaving ley pallay

[watervole]

 I've been learning a new style of weaving - well, strictly speaking a variation of a technique I already knew.

When I was at Winchester Mayfest earlier this year, I saw a guy with dramatic bird pattern on a hatband.  It instantly caught my attention, because I'm a sucker for any form of narrow band weaving, and this was a style I hadn't come across before.  I asked him where it had come from, and he said he'd bought the hat in Peru.

He kindly allowed me to photograph the hatband on the outside and the inside- it looked like this 


It took a lot more time and effort than I originally expected to work out how to reproduce this pattern - I'd done related stuff in the past, but this was on a different scale.

When I'd finally worked it out with the aid of other weavers on Ravelry.com it was still a major effort drawing up the warping chart and stringing the loom.

photos.app.goo.gl/45Zyg2wmWiqGd8RUA

MY first attempt was full of interesting mistakes, but by the time I was on the second bird, I'd ironed most of them out.

photos.app.goo.gl/zRviZiz9mDx87gFK8

By bird three, I'd pretty well cracked it.  I'd managed to find some other variations on the pattern on the web, and cheerfully juggling bits from several of them, I managed to reduce the number of long floats (if you've ever done narrow band weaving, you will know all about the evils of long floats...), improve the shape of the bird's head, and convert the odd shaped mounds at the bottom of the original (almost certainly there to help avoid the aforementioned long floats) into claws.  I changed the stilt like legs in the original into a decorative tail (took several attempts to get that to come out right).

 

I was very happy with the final version, but at around 2 hours of work per bird, I'm very glad that I was only weaving a hatband and not a long belt!

photos.app.goo.gl/26MeMabPtBq7U2nMA

 

Should you wish to know how to weave ley pally (either on an inkle loom, or as simple backstrap weaving), just ask. I'm always happy to infect others with the band weaving urge!

Comments

[pensnest]

Very clever! I admire your determination.

[watervole]

I'm not quite sure whether it's determination or idiocy! It takes about two hours to weave each individual bird. But on the plus side, I quite enjoy the challenge - and the close focus required helps me relax.

[kerravonsen]

Yay!
Any chance of a photo of your new improved bird?

[watervole]

The one at the bottom is the new improved version.

See how many differences you can spot... (Ignore the border)

Some changes are pretty subtle, some are far more obvious.

[watervole]

I've done an edit to try and show some photos that you probably couldn't see. Try and see if you can see the improved bird now.

[reapermum]

I don't know why, but only the first picture is showing for me. The other three are only "no entry" signs.

[watervole]

Bloody Google photos... I was hoping I could link to images from there. Last week, it was Ravelry refusing to have working photo links...

I'll see if I can edit in some links. Take a look after you read this.

[kerravonsen]

Okay, yes, I can click on the links.
I do like the last one, the whole claws/legs/tail thing looks much better.

[watervole]

Thanks! I was inspired by the eagle on the German flag. Those dramatic sticking out legs. And they worked perfectly. A part of the original design that had only been there to remove long floats, suddenly (with some small tweaks) became claws.

It took several attempts before I got a tail that I liked, but I'm quite fond of this version.

[reapermum]

Thank you, I can follow the links to see the pictures now. And I like your final version.