Here's a view of my work table as I prepare my small tapestry to send to the British Tapestry Group exhibit,
Weaving Within, to be held in Stirling, Scotland in September. I reframed the piece on a different color of mounting board, then spent several hours getting it ready to mail. Small tapestry but lots of bits and pieces needed to package and ship it--and none of them in the same place at the same time. Oh well, now I have a brand new roll of package wrapping tape and know where my bubble wrap stash is stored!
I recently joined BTG when I learned that membership was open to other areas of the world. I'm now a member of
Canadian Tapestry Network,
American Tapestry Alliance, Tapestry Weavers West and, of course, Tapestry Weavers South. I'm also a member of
Surface Design Association. Am I an organization groupie? Not really. I just want to be informed (all have newsletters or other publications) and to be able to take part in exhibits that might be sponsored by these groups. American Tapestry Alliance website has a good listing of organizations at this
link.
Weaving Within is a non-juried show. I know from years of experiences in participating in non-juried exhibits that the works that are shown are often as good as those selected for juried exhibits--and sometimes even more exciting in the grouping that comes together by happen-stance. While it might seem that a non-juried exhibit would turn out to be like that at a county fair--with the good, the bad and the ugly all mixed together--more often than not the works are quite credible in technique and in design.
Now... other things underway. The large tapestry continues, growing by slow inches now. I'll post a photo in a few days before I roll the tapestry around the beam a bit.
The tapestry diary is getting longer by the day... at the highest point on the left side it's at 25 inches.
Here's the beginning end rolling around the cloth beam...
This year-long journey is giving me ideas for the next time-passages piece. Next year, possibly I'll simply weave a small square every day of the year without any marking of date. Maybe seven across instead of the ten across that I decided upon this time. Maybe with different texture of yarn for each day's square, cotton floss one day, soft wool another day. Maybe limit my palette to three or four colors and randomly select those for the day's weaving... put balls of the yarn in a covered box and shake it up every day before I pull one out to weave with. So many possibilities with this simple concept!
Some might say, "How do you keep at this tapestry diary all year long? How do you have the discipline to do it?" Well, I really only have to be disciplined for about 5 minutes each day to do it, don't I?! It's not a masterpiece that's being created--just something to get the weaving fingers moving. Maybe next year I'll put the piece on a frame loom so I can take it with me whenever I'm out of town, like I did the one woven during the
month of May last year. So much to think about!
In the meantime, at home in the evenings I'm working on new rag rugs for our kitchen. There will be two of them, each 26" wide x 40" long. I'm using a three-end block weave for the rugs with a different arrangement of the blocks for each rug.
