Tapestry Diary plans for 2015

Well, 2015 is well underway and so is my tapestry diary for the year.  Seventh year of this daily obsession!  I'm changing approach a bit this year.  I'm still marking each day that I'm home by weaving an individual bit.  But for this year I've decided to do something each week, as well.

I make a lot of drawings and painted studies of things I'm considering for tapestry.  Most of the time those don't make it into anything other than a portfolio for storage.  I'd made several small drawings and paintings when I was at Hambidge in the fall and as my idea about something weekly began to develop I looked through those.  I noticed that I had several variations of individual oak leaves that might be useful for starting the weekly approach.  I used Photoshop to crop out the leaves from the larger sheets on which they were done and sized them to not larger than 6" in the longest direction.

Here's what the diary looks like today, January 10.  The first oak leaf was finished up at the end of the first week; there are squares and bands of color that indicate the days that have passed.  I'm beginning the second leaf and will finish it by the end of week 2 of January.

My "rules" for the year are now set--a weekly something combined with the individual day parts.  And one continuing restraint--use from left-over wefts from other tapestries.  And do I ever have loads of those!  Possibly there will be some times in the year that I'll have to take something from a fresh skein--but I don't think much of that will have to happen.

Just a few of the containers of wefts from the past!

You might be interested to see how a couple of other people are approaching this daily madness.  Here's a link to Janette Meetze's blog where she described her plans for the new year.  And here's a link to Janet Austin's blog post in which she's showing 2014 and discussing what she has underway for 2015.

And if you out there--you know who you are--have ever considered doing a "tapestry diary"--I say, DO IT!  Even if only for a week.  Having the daily challenge is enlivening, weaving just a small amount for which you don't particularly have a plan.   And yet you  remember that only you are making the rules.  And you can always say to yourself, "I'll do this today, or not.  And whichever I do, it's OK!"