Oh my but I get this question a lot. Should I weave from the front or the back? Or if you’re brand new to tapestry weaving, your question might be, WHAT??? What does that even mean, weaving from the front or from the back?
I’m spending some time addressing questions from readers of my book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving on the blog, and this is one I get not only from readers but from students in my workshops and online courses.
What does it mean to weave tapestry from the front or from the back?
I demonstrate this in the video below, but the short answer is that the side of the tapestry that will be showing when hung on the wall or used in some other manner, is the front. Tapestry is a one-sided fabric in almost all cases* and it is important to know which side of the weaving will be showing when it is displayed.
So if I’m “weaving from the back”, what will be the front of the tapestry is facing away from me. For example, in the photo below, I’m weaving Emergence VII on my Harrisville rug loom. You can clearly see the tails that are on the back of the tapestry. The image next to that is the front side of the weaving which was facing down as I wove it.
Rebecca Mezoff’s Emergence VII still on her Harrisville Rug Loom. Woven from the back.
Rebecca Mezoff, Emergence VII, 45 x 45 inches, hand-dyed wool, cotton
If I were “weaving from the front”, the cartoon and the way I was weaving it would have been oriented as we see in the finished tapestry in the image at right. All tails would have been tucked down as I wove and I would have had to fish the butterflies I needed next from where they were hanging under the fabric.
I talk about more reasons for weaving from the front versus the back in the video below and in my online course, Warp and Weft: Learning the Structure of Tapestry.
Who weaves which way?
It is very common among tapestry weavers in the USA to weave from the front and these are the people who tend to imply that I’m a little bit odd to weave so much from the back. I’m here to tell you that there is a long, storied tradition of weaving tapestry from the back and that that is the tradition that is still followed in most of Europe. Weavers in France almost exclusively still weave from the back as they have done for centuries.
Other workshops such as the Dovecot Studios in Scotland and the Australian Tapestry Workshop in Australia used to weave from the back until Archie Brennan turned the weaving over. Brennan, a giant in the tapestry world who we lost in 2019, often said that tapestry weaving done from the front is image-based and done from the back is technique-based. I think that is a pretty accurate distinction. I talk about that some more in the video below.
If you get the blog via email, you can go and watch the video on YouTube HERE
As I was writing The Art of Tapestry Weaving, I had one of those moments of reckoning from which one can never turn back from. I was about 2/3rds of the way through writing the book which I intended primarily for US audiences to being with.** Since Brennan did such a thorough job of influencing US tapestry weavers to weave from the front, there are more people in this country who do so than those who still weave from the back. Don’t get me wrong, the from-the-back weavers are a mighty and strong force! But they are in the minority.
There was a day I remember well when I was working on Chapter 10 about angles and writing about hill and valley threads. This concept is particularly linked to front versus back because how you make a hill or valley is reversed in the two ways of weaving. I could no longer pretend tapestry was completely reversible. I had to choose how I was going to teach this throughout the book.
In the end, I had to admit that I was writing this for beginners who might not have any other teacher than this volume. Weaving from the front is a much easier translation when you’re new to tapestry. So, I decided to write the book with the first set of instructions always provided as woven from the front. That definitely meant I had to do some rewriting! But it also made the images clearer than they would have been if they were taken of the back of the weaving.
In the book, wherever it matters, the “from-the-back” version is included. I hope that there are tapestry weavers in the USA who consider trying weaving from the back. I now do both and it is a great skill to be able to weave either way depending on the subject matter I’m weaving. As a teacher I need to be able to do this, but as a practitioner it is also a worthy skill to cultivate.
I learned tapestry working as an apprentice in the studio of a tapestry artist who was committed to weaving from the back and so, that is my most comfortable way of weaving. French-trained artists such as Jean Pierre Larochette and Elizabeth Buckley will also almost always be found weaving from the back. People who were more heavily influenced by Brennan and his teachings will probably be weaving from the front.
Which way should I choose?
My final word on this is to remind you that both ways are just fine. There isn’t a right way in any circumstance and if you love one way over the other, keep using your favorite method.***
Which way do you weave? Is there a reason you do so? Let us know in the comments.
*The structure of tapestry dictates that the weft usually goes over and under successive warps. The wefts change direction to create areas of a color which is how we make images. When the wefts turn or relay, they are wrapping a warp in one of two ways. The two ways that happen look different, so the front of the weaving will always look just very slightly different from the back even if you needled in all your tails and sewed your slits invisibly. And of course you probably intend the image to look a particular way. It will be mirrored on the other side of the weaving. Thus it is important to know which side of the tapestry will be the front when you are done.
**I believe this book will be translated and is already available world-wide in English.
***And if you choose from-the-back and someone gives you trouble about that, tell them to come talk to me.