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Micala Sidore has done it again. This book is similar in style to her first book, The Art is the Cloth. Both of these books are stuffed full of images of tapestry weaving. Sidore has done us a huge favor by collecting these images in one place.
Here are some of my thoughts about Tapestry Talking: Understanding the language of handwoven art with 326 works from around the world.
This question used to really bother me but now I love it because it gives me an opportunity to think about why I weave tapestry at all. The answer also relates to almost everything else I do for fun: knitting, drawing, birding, hiking, reading…
For me weaving my tapestry diary or sketch tapestries is all about the process. My tiny tapestry diary or sketch tapestry pieces are often just 2-4 inches and they’re too small to hang on the wall without being mounted. It is about slowing down, paying attention, and making something with my hands. I’m the same with knitting. I have piles of shawls I’ve knit because I love the process. I can’t possibly wear them all so sometimes I give them away, but the making of them is all that I really care about.
I’ve been talking about sketch tapestry and weaving simple things about our experiences for awhile here. I always do this time of year because I run an online class called Summer of Tapestry. I thought you might like to see some of the warm-up tapestries the class has been weaving. The header photo of this post is a color tapestry I wove after seeing a lazuli bunting at my bird feeder for a few days.
The warm-up for this class is always about color. Honestly, I think you could have a weaving practice where you just wove the color of things you experienced without much attention to form and you’d have a marvelous collection of tapestry memories. I challenge the group to focus on the colors of something interesting and weave them without worrying too much about the forms they’re using. Stripes, eccentric weaving, or simple forms make the weaving easy and allow us to focus mostly on color. The results can be really beautiful and the weaving is simple and fun.
I pulled out my tapestry diary this week to reminisce about some of the small sketch tapestries I’ve done over the last ten years. I teach a class using this idea of sketch tapestry every year and I also needed to find a couple examples for the class.
I had so much fun looking through my weavings that I made a little video for my Patreon supporters. I’ve excerpted a bit of that below for you all as well. If you want to see the full video, it is available on my Patreon for paid subscribers.
Summer of Tapestry 2026 is ready for registration. This is the fifth year I’ve taught this class and every year it is my favorite. I think that is because this practice of weaving quick things from something that caught my eye has been so beneficial to my life. Seeing people all over the world join in and share their experiences and woven renditions of their adventures is heartening and makes me feel like I’m part of a global fiber community. I call this practice sketch tapestry.
The rest of this post is about this practice and the course. If you’re ready to join, just click the button below!
I’ve been a sketch tapestry practitioner since 2016. I started making these small pieces which reference something I experienced when I was at an artist residency at Petrified Forest National Park. I had so much fun weaving simple things each day of that month-long residency that I have devoted blocks of time to doing them ever since.
Read the rest of this post for more about the free mini-course and sketch tapestry in general!
Do you have a closet full of various looms but you struggle with choosing the right one for a project? Or are you a beginner and need some help choosing the right loom perhaps after choosing one that isn’t working?
The answer I find myself giving first for so many questions in fiber art is: It depends.
