Pick-Up Bandweaving Designs: 288 Charts for 13 Pattern Ends and Techniques for Arranging Color. By Heather Torgenrud. Schiffer Craft, 2024.
Heather Torgenrud continues her deep exploration of the technique of pick-up bandweaving in her new chart and photo-filled book.
I am responsible for adding new books to the Weavers Guild of Minnesota library and was excited to add Torgenrud’s second bandweaving book. I asked Keith Pierce–band weaver, teacher, scholar, and member of the “Banditos” interest group at the Weavers Guild of Minnesota–to say a few words about Torgenrud’s classic first book, Norwegian Pick-Up Bandweaving (Schiffer Craft, 2014). He wrote,
Heather’s first book, Norwegian Pick-Up Bandweaving, raised the bar for publications in the textile arts. Even non-weavers will enjoy the beautiful photographs and thoroughly researched history of the design and use of the bands throughout Norwegian culture. But for weavers, the how-to section shines. Heather clearly explains the technique, and includes enough detail for one to learn on their own. When I first encountered the book, I was about to teach the topic at the Weavers Guild. Her exposition was so much better than mine that I spent the night before my first class revising my notes to follow her techniques! I am confident that any of Heather’s future publications will continue to hold to these high standards.
Keith was definitely right about the high quality of her second book. The first two-thirds of Pick-Up Bandweaving Designs is aptly titled “Charts.” On page after page, each of the 288 charts contains 13 pattern ends, always separated by two background ends. Torgenrud chose 13 ends because “thirteen is my favorite number of ends to work with—enough so I don’t run out of pattern ideas yet easy to keep track of as I weave” (p.9).
This is not a “how-to” book, but on page 13, Torgenrud does explain how she positions and reads the charts, depending on whether she’s using a band heddle or inkle loom, or weaving with a pattern heddle. (You’ll find extensive “how-to” information in her earlier book.)
The last third of the book comes alive with Color in Pick-Up with photos of dozens of woven sample bands illustrating Torgenrud’s extensive and thoughtful analysis of, and suggestions for, color interactions. Whether or not you are a band weaver, this part of the book provides insights into color and color theory appropriate for any weaver. She recommends twisting strands of color together or winding yarn wraps to see how colors will interact. She discusses and illustrates the use of color in the background of the band as well as choices of color in the foreground pattern, and shows both the front and reverse sides of the bands, understanding that this is important to weavers trying to learn from a book.
In the section called “Transitions” (pp. 86-87), Torgenrud writes that if the weaver decides not to repeat the same motif throughout the band, any of the patterns in the book can be combined in the same band, since all the bands have 13 pattern threads.
In this section, Torgenrud emphasizes “smooth transitions” and “visual interest,” using words like ‘harmonious” and “graceful” and “pleasing” to describe the weaver’s choice of transitional motifs. I think this gives weavers confidence in their personal choices.
Schiffer Craft and Heather Torgenrud have produced a beautiful book. Torgenrud’s bands are meticulously woven. The photographs show clearly each individual background and pattern thread, as if the weaver were seeing the band in person. And like her first book, this book contains so much information so clearly presented that it is destined to be a classic in the field of bandweaving.
The tone of the book is informative and generous with a sincere regard for her readers and even with an appearance by a family of trolls at the end.
Visit Heather at norwegianpickupbandweaving.com.
Mary Skoy is an occasional band weaver, long time knitter, rigid heddle and Compu-Dobby loom weaver, member of the Weavers Guild of Minnesota since 1972, and admirer and friend of Heather Torgenrud since meeting on a Vesterheim textile tour to Norway in 2007.