Colors of the Harvest Moon

I have the loom warped, the hem woven and the cartoon ready...now if I could just figure out the colors. I have spent much time trying to figure this out. I know exactly what the moon looks like...I can see it vividly in my mind. The sky I can visualize somewhat...and the dunes...who knows.

I spent Friday picking out colors...moving colors around...allowing various colors to talk amongst themselves to see if they could figure it out for me. This morning I took my coffee to the back studio and played with color cards for about fifteen minutes and voila!

Here are the colors of the harvest moon over Death Valley...



I spent the rest of the day dyeing some yarn to fill out my palette. Once I have them all dry and balled they will pose for a photo.

Studio Tours

I had the opportunity last weekend to go on a studio tour of four tapestry artists in the Bay area as part of the ATA Silver Anniversary Celebration. It was fun seeing how other artists set up their studios.

We went to four studios...

Christine Laffer, who had what looked like a twelve foot weaving width Shannock loom! It was the largest loom I had ever seen. Looked like you would have to stand on a ladder to warp the loom. The interesting part was how she used mirrors attached to music stands to view the tapestry as she wove back to front.

Jan Moore, who had completely converted a garage into a fiber studio with a more familiar looking six foot weaving width Shannock loom. One wall had a huge window made of those clear blocks of glass - which allowed the light in but no direct sunlight. There were also a couple of sky lights on the roof. It looked to be a beautiful place to weave while it was sunny...potentially a bit dreary on a cloudy day. Her tapestries are shaped - not the traditional square or rectangle. She sews in a hard backing into her pieces so they retain their shape and look quite crisp on the wall.

Tricia Goldberg, who taught the workshop I took a couple months ago. She had a separate studio off from her house where she had a lovely old wooden upright tapestry loom along with smaller ones for her students.

Jean Pierre LaRochette also had a separate studio from his home. He actually has another South of the border where he spends half his year. Most interesting, he will do perhaps four renditions of the same tapestry in the same colors to maximize the work he can exhibit. He also sees it as a challenge to see if from a technical standpoint he can make each somewhat different yet the same.


So what did I get out of my Sunday fieldtrip?


First - a strong feeling I need focus more on my weaving and less on the Guild stuff that has been sucking up my time.

And second - a renewed desire to do a tapestry on my big Shannock from back to front. And to accomplish this, I would need some sort of mirror to view my tapestry without having to go around to the back of the loom. A quick trip to Ross and for less than twenty dollars I now have a mirror hanging on my loom.... check it out - -

The Maze

I have finished the maze portion of my little tapestry for our group project.


It was particularly gruelling to weave since each warp end of each shed had to be exactly the 'right' color or the error was quite obvious. It was somewhat like painting by numbers...where each shed/warp end had its own particular color. This was not a weaving where I could could go to that 'weaving zen place' for long periods of time ... no..no... this was an intense exercise in focusing.


But I do like the result.



For the last part of the weaving I am going to have the grid deconstruct - to shoot into many pieces and a Hershey's Kiss should magically appear. Now that I think about it, this sounds harder than the maze to weave since I am not quite sure how to make that happen...I guess that makes it the fun part.

Another thing I will have to think about is how to hang this piece. There is a huge amount of ends on the back behind the maze but little behind the bottom part. It's really really thick. Thicker than I have ever had on a weaving - particularly this size. Ah something to think about.

Dots & Desserts continued

I worked on my Dots & Desserts project, In Search of a Kiss, at our tapestry group last Friday. I finished the solid gray part with the dotted path.

This week I spent a couple hours on Tuesday and maybe four hours yesterday working on the maze. And this is all I have...in fact there is a small error in the second row so I will be ripping that row out and starting over.

Let's see, the furthest I have gotten is four rows of the maze. At that point, I didn't like the height of the rows and felt it would look much better if they were wider. Of course, I had ripped out the second row, at least two times and the third row at least four times...

The maze is a quite a challenge to weave. The maze is designed with twenty seven columns each consisting of three warps. If and when there is a dot, it must be close to the middle of the row as well in the middle of the column. Sounds quite logical...in taquete it would be a breeze. On a tapestry loom. weaving back to front, upside down and with bobbins is entirely a different matter!

My DH has suggested this is a perfect project to take on vacation. Hardly need to bring any supplies, since all I do, is weave a bit then rip out the same section, weave a bit, rip a bit...etc.

Dots and Desserts

I helped warped two looms this weekend. They were not my own looms and this inspired me to start working on my projects.

One thing I did was warp my Baby Shannock so I can start working on my tapestry for our group project. Our tapestry group is working on a group project called Dots and Desserts. We are to weave a tapestry which is 8 by 8, 8 by 4 or 4 by 8 inches with at least a quarter of it being grey. The theme is desserts and we need to incorporate in a visible and obvious way dots - - the tapestry technique of dots.

I have several ideas for the piece but am moving forward on the one with the 4 by 8 maze on a 8 by 8 background. The cartoon is complete and sewn on the hem.

For this weaving I am trying lots of new things. I am using a new warp - some Finnish cotton warp I got from Shannock for my big loom. I am weaving from the back. I am using bobbins. And I am trying a 10 epi sett with four threads as inspired from the tapestry workshop I took many moons ago.

The twining and the hem is already complete along with two rows of single soumak. I just couldn't figure out how to get the ridge on the soumak weaving from the back so I simply turned the loom around and wove on the side I wanted the ridge on and then turned it back. I have even inserted my first dot!

I am also using my new bobbins that I just bought. I didn't like the unfinished look and feel of them so I am staining them with a water based white wash and putting on a semi gloss finish. I tested the white wash stain and finish on three bobbins. I like the result - seem much cleaner that the unfinished ones. I think two coats of the semi-gloss is in order.