What do you do after your tapestry comes off the loom? There are many ways to finish a tapestry, but my favorite thing to do is steam it.
The finishing chapter in my book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving, talks about using steam as the final finishing of a tapestry (see page 265). Recently, students in a couple different online classes* have asked me for a video showing how I do this, and so this blog post was born.
Making the tapestry flat: do you need to?
Having a very flat tapestry is not everyone’s goal. It is currently one of mine though and steaming is a marvelous tool to that end. I use cotton seine twine warp and this material does shrink a bit with the wet heat produced when steaming.
However, tapestry is fabric and art made of fiber does not necessarily need to be flat. If your personal goal does not include a flat finish, then you can skip the steaming completely.
Steps to finish your small tapestry
Prepare your tapestry once it comes off the loom. This is my process:
Give the piece a quick vacuum to remove any wool fibers or other matter clinging to the surface of the work. For very small tapestries this may not be necessary as you’ve probably picked the cat hair off as you were weaving.
Finish the weft tails. The back of my tapestries are clean, so I cut off splices and stitch in tails.
Sew slits you didn’t sew on the loom and fix any other irregularities in the weaving such as weft floats that may have been missed on the loom.
Steam!
Finish off any hems or other hanging methods. If the tapestry is fairly square you can do the hems or edge treatment such as a plait or braid before you steam. If you think the tapestry needs to be shrunk significantly in some areas and you are going to attempt this through steaming, you should do the steaming before doing the selvedge finishing.
Steaming steps
Emergence VII lying face down before I’ve finished the tails on the back.
Lay the tapestry on a surface that can handle high heat and moisture. You can steam the tapestry with it face down or face up if your backs are finished flat (no tails).
Heat the steamer (or steam iron) until you can see steam coming out of the steamer wand.
Apply steam to the tapestry liberally. The video below shows you how long I steam a small piece, but don’t be afraid to get the tapestry quite wet. You can also try to steam an area that has gotten wider in the weaving more than a narrower area to even them up a bit. This is much easier to do with a steamer than a steam iron.
If you finish your tapestry backs so they’re clean, you can flip the small tapestry over and steam the other side. With large format tapestries, I do not do this. I usually steam the tapestry face up and leave it to dry completely.
Allow tapestry to dry usually overnight, but at least for several hours. For large tapestries, give them plenty of time to lay flat.
Video of steaming tapestries
If you get the blog via email, you won’t see the video in your email. Please go to the video on YouTube HERE to watch.
How are large tapestries different?
The steaming steps are not really different. It is just important that you have a surface that is heat resistant that is large enough to support your whole tapestry. That might be your kitchen counter or perhaps a very large table. I do let my large tapestries dry overnight lying flat on a large surface. I do not move a wet large format tapestry because I can’t support it adequately, so plan to leave a big piece where it is until it dries.
Tips for steaming a tapestry
My Jiffy Steamer wand and the ceramic tile I steam small tapestries on.
Do not use a steamer on a plastic table! You’ll melt it. Find a surface that can withstand high heat and moisture like a glass or laminate-topped table, a kitchen counter, or a large flat space on a concrete floor that doesn’t have a fancy finish on it. You want the surface to be absolutely flat. For my small tapestries, I steam on a ceramic floor tile left over from a bathroom remodel.
You CAN use a steam iron especially for smaller tapestries. Fill the water reservoir, turn the steam all the way up, turn the temperature all the way up, and then hover the iron very close to the tapestry to drive the steam into the tapestry. If I have to use an iron instead of my steamer, I also use a fairly wet thin pressing cloth over the tapestry and put the iron right over it. You can touch the iron to the pressing cloth (just a thin piece of cotton fabric like a thin dish towel) lightly, just don’t squish it hard into the tapestry.
Use distilled water in both your steamer and your iron, especially if you live in the western USA where we have a lot of salts in the water. This protects your device from getting clogged up with white salts.
It can be harder to get a flat result if you are someone who leaves the tails on the back of your tapestries because getting the steam to penetrate the tails when the tapestry is lying face down is a bit harder. In this case, using a good steamer is probably preferable to a steam iron. If you steam the tapestry face up, you can get a good deal of steam and heat into the fabric and if the tapestry is small, you could steam it face up and then turn it upside down, apply more steam through the tails and then leave it to dry face down so the front remains flat.
Illustration from Untangled: A Crafty Sheep’s Guide to Tapestry Weaving. Book by Rebecca Mezoff, illustrations by Molly McNeece.
*Interested in joining any of those online classes? We’re talking about finishing in Summer of Tapestry 2023, Design Solutions for the Artist/Weaver, and the Tapestry Discovery Box. And there is always finishing information in Warp and Weft: Learning the Structure of Tapestry.
Do you steam your tapestries when they’re finished? Do you have a different way of doing it? Let us know in the comments!