Saturday, June 11, 2011

More quilt design, tapestry diary and four selvedge weaving going on

My days are filled with weaving.  Still in creative doldrums but have decided to use this time in a fractured way by having several tapestry things underway.  In the last post I mentioned the quilt design tapestry and it continues to grow, piece by piece (do you think a pun is implied there--or does one "imply" a pun)... anyway, here's where it stands today:


The tapestry diary is continuing each day with a shape and its color and background color selected by a roll of a die.  Six colors and shapes are assigned to each spot of the die.  The background is black, gray or white, with a roll of 1 or 3 being black, 2 or 4 as gray, and 5 & 6, white.  This is a simplified variation of something Archie Brennan mentioned in the recent workshop where he used a deck of cards to determine shapes and colors for a tapestry.  Here's what it looks like on June 11:


Then there are the four selvedge weavings... I just finished the eighth one today and it's now washed, pressed and pinned down to dry.  Today I realized I could probably use the 100% Spelsau wool as the warp rather than the 12/6 cotton seine twine.  I was hoped it would be strong enough for the tapestry warp, especially for the small sizes I'm doing right now.  So I tried it and it held up just fine during the weaving.  I think the loops at the top and bottom will become more invisible--at least that's what I'm thinking will happen.  I'll know more about that tomorrow when the piece is dry.



I still learn more each day about warping with this method.  Susan also has an alternative finish noted at the website and I'll give it a try, maybe tomorrow.  At this point, though, I feel comfortable to have this as my primary goal during the next two weeks of residency at Lillian Smith Center--weavings daily with inspiration drawn from the property at the Center.  



1 comment:

  1. your small landscapes are like tiny gifts to Nature, quite delightful.
    i learnt a form of 4 selvege weaving many, many years ago, said to be the Navajo way.

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