Complete (almost!)

The end came...and went...doesn't that just seem to happen over and over?!

I frantically called Pat on Thursday to see if we could postpone the photo session since I was still weaving hem at 11:30 a.m. and I needed to leave for her house with the piece by 1. Without aliens who are helpful weavers suddenly landing and pitching in, I knew I wouldn't finish, cut off and do the rest of the needed hiding of loose ends before then! Luckily, the photographer was able to reschedule for Friday morning and so I began to breath a bit easier. It took the next few hours to do what needed to be done--in fact, I didn't cut the piece from the loom until around 3:30 (of course, since we'd rescheduled I took time to have lunch!).

I've added some shots to the earlier slide show album, showing some stages of the design steps. I left out the shots of the tapestry in progress that I've been posting, but put in photos of the (yikes!) almost broken warp thread, cutting off, finishing beginnings, and the piece hanging as it was being photographed yesterday.

This has been successful process in several ways...and tells me much of what I wanted to know about this new/old loom I bought in September. I wanted to test the full width capabilities of the loom but didn't want to take a lot of time with a piece, in case the loom wasn't up to it in some way I couldn't anticipate from just a visual assessment. I also wanted to work at 6 epi again since the last piece was a 8. I also wanted to see if I could complete the weaving of a fairly large (for me) piece in a couple of months.

The next few days will now be spent in really doing the finishing (I hid ends for the photo session with masking tape and turned back the hem edges at the sides with big basting stitches.) This is the point where my hands get crapped out from the motions of stitching with a needle and thread so I'm going to move slowly with this step. My goal is to complete all by the 27th so I can take it to Winston-Salem for the new members show at PCI.