Bands with traditional motifs from Sulawesi, Indonesia

This band shows traditional double-faced motifs of the Mamasa Toraja. I used the graphs in Marijke van Epen's book, Special Tablet Weaves, for most of the designs, and drew a couple of them from the photo of the man's betel bag which is shown in Marijke's book. There is a photo of a similar bag in The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, by Peter Collingwood, Plate 129.

This band is woven in the usual way with light threads (white) in two adjacent holes and dark threads (either black or red) in the other two adjacent holes. In the motifs, the smooth edges of diagonals are always on the front of the band.

This band shows traditional double-faced motifs of the Sa'dan Toraja. A band with these designs would be sewn onto the edge of a skirt of undyed cotton.

The design tablets carry two red threads in opposite holes, one black thread, and one thinner white thread. The warp-twined borders would traditionally be woven separately and sewn together later, but I wove them along with the double-faced section as one piece, with the border tablets in a separate pack.

Graphs for all of the motifs on this band are in Marijke van Epen's book Special Tablet Weaves.

Perle cotton and embroidery floss, 2" x 41-1/4" plus 5" fringe on each end, 2000.

( www.lindahendrickson.com)