works in progress : Remains of the day(s)

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Remains of the day(s)

The title of my post is about the wefts remaining on the bobbins after I recently completed a tapestry that was on the loom for a couple of months. Those wefts represent the remains of the days I spent weaving that one.

I've been busy with the small tapestry I mentioned in the last post, one that would be using up remaining wefts from bobbins (a few of which are in the above photo) I had wound for the tapestry I'd cut off recently. As it turns out, I have enough warp and weft remains to do another small tapestry and I'm underway with it now.

I always save weft that's on bobbins after I finish a tapestry. I unwind the bobbins, make butterflies with the yarn and store them in zip lock bags. I almost always use several strands wound together as wefts so the colors are mixed. When I unload the bobbins, I don't separate the strands but put the whole bundle into the bag. And then I almost never reuse the same color mixture! Time consuming? Yep. But, after all, one's use of time is relative to the importance of the task, isn't it.

Anyway... quite a few of the bobbins from the big tapestry have now been emptied as I wove the first of two small pieces on the new-to-me loom I recently bought.

Here's the first piece after the weaving was completed:

It's woven at 8 epi on a gray wool warp. The design is based on one of the earth pigment paintings I did while at Hambidge Center last December.

The second piece that's now underway is also based on a painting I made last year, one using black walnut to dye the paper. At the right side of the tapestry I'm weaving blocks of color from, yes... the remains of the wefts.

This is being woven at the top of the warp. To do that, I flipped the loom over and started at the opposite end of the completed tapestry. Sounds more complicated than it is. I find that doing this on a frame loom allows for the most use of remaining warps. Sort of like burning a candle at both ends, I guess.