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One strand at a time

Jason Unrau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 23/04) - "I was one of those people that was born 100 years too late," said Jessie Clemans while weaving her latest Metis sash in the exhibition hall at the Great Northern Arts Festival.

NNSL Photo/Graphic

Metis sash maker Jessie Clemans holds one of her "triple arrow" patterned creations, a style of sash allegedly worn by General Brock the day he was shot on the Plains of Abraham. To make her sashes, Clemans employs the age-old, yet time-consuming technique of finger weaving.


Clemans' personal observation may be the reason she eschews the loom in favour of employing the age-old method of finger weaving.

Carefully working one strand of wool at a time -- known as weff threads -- through the vertical warp threads, Clemans says it takes roughly 75 minutes to add an inch to the length of a sash.

Though she uses a portable device crafted by a friend, which allows her to peg down each end of a sash-in-progress, all the equipment necessary for finger weaving is the means to attach either side at fixed points.

Going through her collection of literature on the subject of finger weaving, Clemans points to old photographs showing Metis women finger-weaving with sashes nailed to the floor and tied to a chair at the other end.

The sash was an indispensable trade and personal item to the fur traders and light canoe men or voyageurs as they came to be known. Clemans says there are proven traces of the sash's use in Canada dating back to 1750.

"We can thank the North West Fur Company and the Hudson Bay Company of the 1700s and 1800s for the survival and popularity of sashes," she said.

Before the introduction of the loom, demand for sashes resulted in its mass-production at a finger weaving site northeast of Montreal.

Paid 30 cents a day for their efforts, Assumption ladies finger wove sashes that would retail for around $15. One of Clemans' more intricately patterned sashes -- the triple arrow -- is worth $1,400.

"I'm more interested in teaching people to do this than selling my sashes," she said, adding that it is often hard for her to let a piece go.

As far as keeping the tradition alive in the 21st century, much recognition should be given to Clemans. However, the artist from Montana credits renowned Edmonton sash-maker Jacques Burrell with much of her success.

"I was 60 before I started doing this stuff," she said of her finger-weaving passion. "And to try and learn how to do it, I wrote a lot of letters to provincial museums asking for any information on sashes. I guess one of my letters got passed to Jacques Burrell and one day he just showed up on my doorstep ready to teach me how to do it."

Since that encounter and the time Clemans took to perfect her craft, she has travelled North America and beyond to share her skills.

"Yesterday, there was a gentleman who came in and said my sashes reminded him of his mother making him wear a sash to keep his clothes snug in winter," she said. "It's moments like those that I really enjoy."