At the beginning I jumped into the American Tapestry Alliance’s postcard exchange this year with glee. "A new project!"

In the middle I had an idea I liked better but didn’t have time to execute it.

At the end, I was rushing to finish the original weaving started in ~~May or June~~ July.

The title of my postcard is Waypoints. I’m including photographs here because I don’t think they’re going to make it into the ATA show which is quite disappointing actually… but entirely my own fault.

I started this piece forever ago. With the intention of actually finishing it of course. I was planning ahead, sure I’d get it finished and mailed before the end of the summer, determined not to be the last person in the show to mail their card. Partway in I had an idea I liked better for the theme but I was lucky to get this one done, so the new design will have to wait.

I determined, mostly from photographs I took likely with this very blogpost in mind, that my original intention was to finish this piece that is on my biggest copper pipe loom before starting the postcard for the ATA exchange. I do remember looking at this piece, thinking that I didn’t much want to cut it off but neither did I want to finish it (because I still can’t, after a couple years, decide how to do that), so instead I went to the garage and…

Rebecca Mezoff deciding whether to finish this piece so she could use the loom or make a new loom.

I just made a new loom, same dimensions. I had the parts and it took less than an hour even with soldering. I’m not sure if this is smart or just super lazy. I do think it points to a certain amount of hutzpah however.

Making a copper pipe loom specifically for the postcard exchange piece.

The making of the loom took place July 13th (according to my camera). And I warped the new loom the same day. How efficient of me!

Warped loom for the Here and There ATA postcard exchange.

The below photos provided further evidence of work on this project. These photos are dated July 19 and 20 and are taken in my studio.

The date on the image below is August 9. It is the last photo before the September trip that I can find with this weaving in it. See it at the back of the picnic table? So it started it’s life on a new loom, then got dragged along on a camping trip before circumnavigating Massachusetts. I wove some of it in the woods of Colorado, but clearly didn’t finish it, being much more interested in some smaller weavings.

Rebecca Mezoff, tapestry weaving in the woods

The tapestry is woven on black cotton seine twine with weaversbazaar 18/2 wool and 30/2 silk. I wanted to make a zig zag design in the black so I used black wool and black silk on black warp. Here I am attempting to weave at night on the couch. The socks say “Breathe” and I was using them to remind me not to fling the black on black on black weaving across the frickin’ room because I couldn’t see it. (Cheeky tapestry was trying to tell me I was getting old.)

Trying to weave black on black in the dark. I was not weaving with my feet however.

I’ll never do that again. If I were 30, sure, but I could not see this for the life of me. Finallly I figured out that if I wove it in the direct sunshine, I could see what I was doing. And that is how I finally got it finished. (Also, this taught me that I desperately need better task lighting in my living room because weaving is done there.)

Rebecca Mezoff, Waypoints in progress. Finally able to see the weave in the sunshine.

The pipe loom is strapped in behind that Mirrix in the left passenger seat. The rest of that mess came from three weeks living out of this rental car.

I dragged the pipe loom this piece was on to New England when I flew for the Vermont retreat and the lengthy photoshoot for my book. Since I stayed in 8 different places in those three weeks, this loom got a lot of abuse. The warp was screwed up repeatedly and the kicker is, I never worked on it the whole trip. I thought I would need the loom for the photoshoot and that would be incentive to finish it so I could re-warp for a photo in the book. But instead I bought copper and made a loom there. (Yep, those are the lengths I’ll go to—and you shouldn’t be surprised given the above story.) I didn’t have time to finish this weaving anyway.

In the photo below in one of my hotel rooms, there are at least 5 looms visible. But the one with this piece on it is at the end of that arrow. About half done which is how it stayed that whole trip. Incidentally, the running shoes didn’t get much use either.

And below you can see what happens to a Fringeless piece when you cram the loom into various suitcases, buckle it in and out of your rental minivan, carry it from hotel room to hotel room whilst trying to balance a couple suitcases and a box of tapestry yarn AND trying to get the little plastic opener to trigger the outside door of the hotel without dropping it all. I am actually surprised this thing survived at all. At least in this photo you can see the black silk and wool which is monumentally difficult to photograph due to the white wool also needing to be exposed correctly. I took this photo as I was taking the piece off the loom back at home.

Rebecca Mezoff, Fringeless technique and what happens when a warp loomed gets a great deal of abuse over many weeks. Unfixable, but in the end, charming. (?)

I did the finishing of the piece three days before the images were due. (Well, actually they were really due earlier because I was supposed to send the postcard to my partner so she could photograph it in its arrival condition.)

And finally it was finished. Lumps and bumps, which I am totally blaming on the travel abuse and not on the weaver’s skill or lack thereof.

Rebecca Mezoff, Waypoints, 5 x 7 inches, wool, silk, cotton

The addressed but not-sent postcard.

And, go figure, people who allow themselves to be rushed and don’t read the instructions carefully might well misunderstand that the postcard is intended to be mailed to a recipient who is supposed to photograph it. I’m pretty picky about my photographs. If it is something small like this and I’m not going to have a professional photographer take the shot, I take many photos with various lights and camera settings with my DSLR. So it just didn’t register in my brain that ATA wanted someone I don’t know to take a photo of my work for an online show. But those were the rules and I messed it up.

Because I didn’t finish the card until October 13 and the 14th was a federal holiday and there isn’t any way a postcard is getting from Colorado to Michigan on the day of the deadline even if I was willing to send it overnight (because there were no “nights” left). I did go to the post office on the 14th with the intention of buying postage from the machine and putting it in the mail slot with crossed fingers. Mostly I just wanted to get a photo of the card with postage on it and a selfie before dropping it into the slot. I fully expected it to be returned to me because I’m not sure my post office will allow this to be mailed unclothed. But I figured there was a better chance if I didn’t hand it to a postal employee. They are very attentive to the quality of their work at my post office and I am pretty sure they wouldn’t want this going in the mail naked.

But apparently half of Fort Collins needed to mail something and forgot that it was Indigenous People’s Day and so the line for the self-service machines was at least 20 minutes long and that was too much for me. Frustratingly, when I got home and attempted to upload the photos myself, the ATA site wouldn’t take my submission either (which is likely an issue with my browser, not the ATA site but I couldn’t troubleshoot it).

So, the moral of the story is, plan ahead. If you jump into a project with joy, joyfully finish it months early if you have the opportunity. Here is the postcard in my car waiting for another chance to go to the post office. It is anyone’s guess when that will be. But it will get to you one day Shanna!

The saga of the tapestry postcard

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