I’ve been racing to get small tapestries off looms. I said on Change the Shed that I was clearing off looms. That wasn’t a lie, but the reason I am cutting tapestries off looms is that I have to move them. It seems smarter to finish tapestries and cut them off the loom than try to protect them in progress. Thus the cutting off of five tapestries last month with one more to do.
The moving truck(s) are coming and all must be packed. We have lived in Fort Collins for over nine years now and I lived here for three years when I was here for graduate school. It is time to move away from the Front Range of Colorado. Fort Collins is a beautiful place and an easy place to live, but we’re tired of driving through the traffic of I-25 every time we want to see friends and family all of whom seem to live on the other side of the big cities.
So we’re packing up and moving on. I’ll have more details about all of it in a few weeks when the dust has settled. Packing is no picnic and the dogs seem to be perpetually worried they’re going to end up in one of the boxes. The new studio is full of sunshine and has room for me to work. The image in the blog header is my Harrisville rug loom taken apart and partially ready for the move. I have since put most of the pieces in boxes. There are three more huge looms besides this one!
Here are the tapestries I cut off the loom in the Change the Shed episodes from September 20 and 21 which are HERE and HERE.
A detail of a mushroom. Sketch tapestry woven as an example for Summer of Tapestry 2023. This piece was actually finished for the class but I never cut it off the loom!
The sample on the left below is with weaversbazaar heavy yarn. A student (thanks Sybille) from the UK had been using this yarn in one of my online classes. I have used WB fine and medium yarns extensively and love them, but I’d never woven anything with the heavy yarn. It has a different character from the thinner yarns, but the result is beautiful. It has a glow to it and makes a nice fabric. I enjoyed using this yarn and will use it more! I was using one strand at 8 epi. It is a little thin so you could add a strand or two of the fine yarn to it if you want some color variation. Woven on a frame loom sold by weaversbazaar.
The sample on the right was woven with Jamieson and Smith knitting yarn. I like that this yarn comes in so many colors and is often available in knitting stores in 25g balls. It is a little bouncy for my tastes, but if you want a knitting yarn to use for tapestry weaving, this is definitely the best I’ve found. Woven on a Mirrix Lani loom with warp extenders and the Shasta combs.
This is one of the samples for the Taos Wools class I am teaching this week. You saw this photo last week of Sal trying to help me with my photography. Stay tuned for a post about the class next week. This was woven on a Mirrix Saffron loom.
Taos Wools churro on a wool warp. Sal is helping me take photos.
And the bird tapestry! I wrote a blog post about this a few weeks ago, It’s for the birds.
Rebecca Mezoff, It’s for the birds!
Notice I did not say that I did the finishing?! These pieces are off the loom which means they can be thrown in the bin with other tapestries that still need to have the actual finishing work done. My goal was to get them off the looms so the looms can come apart and go into boxes. Mission accomplished….
We’re moving to another town in Colorado which is not on the Front Range. I will not be sorry not to have to drive through Denver and Colorado Springs any more to see my friends and family. I’ll have more on my new studio once we’re settled and I can give you a studio tour of my new place! As always, I’ll be answering questions in the online classes and reviewing your work, but it may take me a bit more time over the next couple weeks. It is almost a decade since we’ve moved and things are more than a little discombobulated! Plus at this point, I’m just tired.
Kaffee und kuchen, some tea, and weaving another sample for the Taos Wools Festival class on the deck. Yarn is Taos Wools hand-dyed churro in chica weight. I’m also testing out the Chloe loom and you can expect more about that on the blog soon!
As for making moving decisions, that is maybe where most of the fatigue comes from. Every single thing has to go in a box and every single thing I pick up means I have to make a decision… pack, donate, discard…. that is my new mantra.
pack, donate, discard, pack donate discard, packdonatediscard?????
I’ll just say that there is about half a truck full of yarn and fleeces going. I could justify that by saying it is part of my buisness (true!), but maybe we should just try to forget how many of them there are. The new house has a fleece attic instead of a fleece basement (with a nod to Maggie Casey and her fleece basement!).