You blink your eyes and it is February again. Anyone else feel this way?
Last year I posted the #thetapestryheart project on my blog. To be honest, hearts have never been my thing, but I enjoyed that weave-along a lot. So, since it is already February, I thought we'd do it again.
For those of you who didn't see last year's post, you can find the detailed instructions of how I wove my heart HERE. If you didn't join in last year, maybe this is your year! All the instructions are still there.
Rebecca Mezoff, #thetapestryheart weave-along from February 2017
There were some wonderful things woven in 2017. You can see the ones I collected in THIS blog post. Some of them are below.
A few of the tapestry hearts from 2017. See THIS blog post for more.
So this year I thought I'd resurrect the fun. Consider what else you could do with this form. Did you try using the method I suggested in the original post of cutting out different sizes of hearts and arranging them in layers to see what new forms you could find? I do a lot of designing this way. I'll cut out shapes and then layer them using tracing paper to create new forms until I find something I really like. Then I'll trace it onto one piece of paper. Why not do this with hearts?
Hint: a window can make a good substitute for a lightbox if you want to see your lines through multiple layers of paper.
Another option is to weave a heart sideways. The form becomes quite different when you turn it ninety degrees. You can make the sides smoother and give it some sexy character. Try it!
I never was a real heart girl. On Valentine's Day when I was a kid, I used to wear black. I think it was the mark of a lonely, shy kid. Today I'm a happily in-love adult and I am perfectly willing to weave pink hearts... This year I sat down during the State of the Union address determined to bring more love into the world. No black Valentine's projects. I doodled this little heart-inspired shape and started weaving. The line coming from the left side will be blue because this will be part of my current tapestry diary.
I first chose these lavender colors and started weaving. I got this far before deciding that they were too dark and I was not going to like the result.
Rebecca Mezoff, start at a heart-themed project--set aside as I didn't like how dark these colors were.
Then I warped another loom. I was hesitant to cut the first one off and I didn't want to spend the time unweaving right then. Maybe something would come to me later to fix it. (This is the advantage of having a very large loom stash. I can just get another one out.)
Here is the second try. (Click on the photos to enlarge, hover for captions, use arrows to scroll.) This is 20/6 cotton seine twine on a 6-dent Hokett loom set at 12 epi. Yarn is 18/2 Weaver's Bazaar fine wool.
That piece is clearly not finished. I'll keep posting my progress over the next few days weeks. It remains to be seen if I actually put in the small heart.
If you're not a heart kind of person, what about taking some curved lines as I did and using that as the starting point for a simple design?
In late 2017 as part of my tapestry diary, I wove this little piece with a sideways heart called Sister Heart. This piece is only 2x2 inches, but the possibilities for using this form turned sideways are interesting! What can you do with that idea? Hearts have really nice lines when you weave them on their side.
Rebecca Mezoff, tapestry diary, "Sister Heart" top center.
Send me a photo of what you wove and I'll post the whole collection here on the blog. If you use social media, hashtag it #thetapestryheart. That could be Facebook, Ravelry, Twitter, Instagram, or others that I don't even know about.
Have questions, need encouragement? Post your comments, adventures, and questions below.
Happy weaving!