Tapestry progress

The tapestry I've been working on since April is coming along pretty well right now.  It's taken awhile to get back into the flow of the piece after having a busy earlier part of the summer.  This is what I always find -- if I stop working on a tapestry every day I have to reacquaint myself with it.  What was I doing and why.  If I know I'm going to be away from the loom for awhile I try to leave it at a point that I can do some almost mindless weaving for a day to get readjusted into the image and ideas I'd been having about it.  But I'm not always able to do that and this was the case with this bloodroot tapestry.  So it and I have had some serious discussions in the past ten days as I'm trying to find the flow once more.

Here's where I left it yesterday:

The top of the cartoon (which is really to be the right edge of the tapestry) is within a couple of inches at the left.  I've gotten through the next hard part, the second blossom.  Today I'll work on the middle to build it to a point that I can begin to weave on the right.  The stem for the blossom will be critical as I build the underneath side for it as I move from middle toward the right. 

Here's the image turned 90˚ and the way the piece is intended to hang:

One of the nice things about digital photography is that I can take photos and rotate in the screen to see how the piece is actually looking whenever I'm weaving a design that is turned.  I can also shoot details and analyze if what I think is happening is actually occurring in effect.

Earlier in the spring I did a couple of samples of this image to see what warp sett would give me the amount of crisp detail I was hoping to achieve with the blossoms of this delicate plant.  Here's one in process that was sett at 10 epi; the image is turned in the direction the image would be seen when finished:

I'd earlier done a sample of one blossom at 8 epi and I realized when seeing both 8 and 10 epi that I needed a closer sett, hence my choice of 12 epi for the final version that's on the loom now.  Do I always sample with sett?  No.  This is the first time I've felt strongly enough about how I wanted the image to be controlled that I've taken time to do it.  And I'm glad I did.  The small piece at 10 epi turned into a nice little tapestry that holds its own just fine.  In fact, it's now mounted, framed and sold.  

Back to the loom now!  Maybe I can meet my goal of having the piece finished and off the loom by the end of August.  Maybe!