In this week’s episode of Change the Shed, I cut off the Handbasket tapestry. I am reasonably pleased with this tapestry in large part because it was so much fun to weave! I wove much of it on Change the Shed over the last 9 months. Those of you who follow that program have seen it grow, experienced the decisions I made moment to moment, and in the live event yesterday, heard me talk about the things I might do differently as well as what I liked about it.
Change the Shed started as a daily check-in with tapestry weavers. It was a chance to talk about tapestry weaving online and keep each other inspired. At the beginning I did it every day because I just couldn’t imagine the pandemic going on for more than a couple months. Of course I was wrong about that and I eventually ended up doing the program about every two weeks.
There is a summary page on my website that mentions what I talked about in each episode with a link to the YouTube video. Recently I’ve updated the YouTube videos with screen shots of what I was working on that day so if you want to find something quickly, you can scan the photos and come closer by looking at the loom and tapestry I was using. More information is available in the YouTube description on each video and on the website page here: https://rebeccamezoff.com/change-the-shed
Rebecca Mezoff, Handbasket tapestry ready to cut off the loom
Handbasket is the tapestry I’ve been working on the longest on the program. It is a double sett piece, 16 and 8 epi woven on the Schacht Arras tapestry loom with Harrisville Koehler singles and weaversbazaar yarns in wool and silk. The piece came from the saying “Going to Hell in a Handbasket” and was a direct reference to the struggles of 2020.
The image is of a large person walking out of the frame of the tapestry to the left and a basket that she has dropped that has a tiny person falling out of it face down. The text says, “I was told there would be a handbasket.” This tapestry was something fun to weave during a difficult year. The weaving was varied and interesting enough to make episodes of Change the Shed educational and hopefully fun to watch.
Around the New Year 2021 when I started to feel like things were looking up with vaccines and that maybe we would see the end of the pandemic at some point, I decided to alter the top right corner of the tapestry to include a butterfly and blue sky. This represents hope as we entered 2021 and vaccines started to appear. The butterfly is the same one that appeared in the Hot Flash tapestry.
The piece is 14 x 14 inches. I wove it at two setts, 16 and 8 epi. The weft is weaversbazaar wool and silk and handdyed Harrisville singles. Warp is cotton seine twine.
Below are some detail photos of the raw tapestry right off the loom. There is a lot of finishing to do, but I’m pleased with how flat it is and once the ends are finished and it is steamed, it’ll be completely flat. I’ll be adding a braided edge as I did on Hot Flash.
I really enjoyed weaving this piece. I thought of it as a tapestry diary piece and a demonstration piece and that took away any worry about the outcome. I talked about a few things I would have done differently in the video, but in general, I’m pleased and just think despite the circumstances, it is a funny little thing. I call these two tapestries my Pandemic Diary series and would love to weave one more so they could be shown three together. After all, I can’t leave this Arras tapestry loom empty for long!
The gallery below has more images. These were taken with the tapestry just off the loom. From here the tails will be clipped, tied, or sewn in, it will be steamed, and the edges will be finished with a braid.
Click to enlarge, hover for captions.
Change the Shed going forward
I am going to take a couple months off from doing Change the Shed. I’ll be back in the fall. I’ll have more specifics for you in next week’s blog post. And of course you can always check the NEWS and Change the Shed pages of my website (which is tapestryweaving.com if you forget how to spell my name!).
I will be back in a couple months. In the meantime, keep weaving!
In the meantime, there are 66 episodes to watch.