A Slow Start

Whew, sure has been hot. It has actually gotten up to 87 here...fortunately the high pressure system is moving away so the off shore flow will be back. By the weekend the high temperature should be back to a respectable 65 degrees.

I did start to weave. But it took much longer than I thought. I forgot that I was using bobbins so I had to fill them all with the required colors. Of course, this required that I create a bobbin holder since I had so many bobbins in varying shades for the moon. Plus, I ended up changing the colors a couple of times to get the right value scale. Here is the result -

I got the bobbins underway but then had to figure out how or whether to use the cartoon I had developed. The cartoon has about a third of a full harvest moon rising of three sand dunes. I am trying to weave what the moon actually looks like, with the craters, mountains and oceans in the right places...so a map/cartoon seems like a must.

But then, I am trying out weaving from back to front on the big Shannock. Using this method I will easily be able to do random dots which will be a nice touch for the harvest moon. Unfortunately, this means I must keep dropping the cartoon and looking in a mirror to see how things are progressing. My cartoon is somewhat unwieldy measuring 36 by 36 inches.

I finally decided to divide my moon cartoon into a grid of 5 by 7 inch rectangles. I made color copies of the bottom row...which is actually the top since I am weaving it upside down too. I sewed on the bottom row to the hem in three pieces so it is easy to raise and drop the cartoon to peak into the mirror. It works well.

My cartoon shows the moon's mirror image so that when I weave it, it will come out looking right on the front. It's a bit tough...looking at the cartoon and the back of the tapestry- it looks one way. In the mirror is looks a bit different. Should something shift a bit more to the right...now is that the front's right or the back's right...good grief. Since I want good placement of the key locations on the moon, I figured I had better do more preparation. I also made several copies of the actual moon map [and it's mirror image], added the grids and identified all the key locations on the moon.

After all this trouble of making sure I have the correct view of the moon from the back and the front and ensuring I can get the identifiable locations on the moon onto the right spots on my tapestry..I sure hope my moon map is not one taken from a telescope which inverts the image of the moon! I seem to recall at some point having that thought and checked against a photograph that someone had taken of a moon over a mountain. So I think I have it right.

Weaving is anticipated tomorrow...