I’ve been talking about sketch tapestry and weaving simple things about our experiences for awhile here. I always do this time of year because I run an online class called Summer of Tapestry. I thought you might like to see some of the warm-up tapestries the class has been weaving. The header photo of this post is a color tapestry I wove after seeing a lazuli bunting at my bird feeder for a few days.
The warm-up for this class is always about color. Honestly, I think you could have a weaving practice where you just wove the color of things you experienced without much attention to form and you’d have a marvelous collection of tapestry memories. I challenge the group to focus on the colors of something interesting and weave them without worrying too much about the forms they’re using. Stripes, eccentric weaving, or simple forms make the weaving easy and allow us to focus mostly on color. The results can be really beautiful and the weaving is simple and fun.
The first prompt and the true beginning of the class starts tomorrow. If you’d like to join us, there is more information at the end of this post.
The images below are warm-up tapestries and their inspiration from the current class. These people wove these tapestries in the last few weeks focusing on the color of whatever they were inspired by.
Anne Sanderoff-Walker’s piece is about sunrise at the beach. She said, “A watercolor sketch when at the beach at sunrise. And my sketch tapestry woven on my Hokett loom using sample Faro yarns from Mirrix.”
Anne Sanderoff-Walker, Sunrise at the Beach
Cindy Kew’s piece was about a sunset at the Washington coast. She said, “The inspiration photo was taken last Christmas on the Washington coast. I loved the colors, so used it for my warm-up piece.”
Cindy Kew, Sunset at the Washington Coast
Cindy Kew, sunset inspiration
Cheryl Wurzbacher used a tulip tree blossom as an inspiration. She said, “I thought this tulip tree blossom just begged to be woven as a wedge weave. Once I wove the first wedge pair I started altering the position and adding gradations, just playing with it.”
Cheryl Wurzbacher, color warm-up of tulip tree blossom
Cheryl Wurzbacher, tulip tree blossom
Eva Pintado’s color tapestry came from a sketch she made. She said: “I based the warm up exercise on a sketch I did during a hike last week (in North Wales UK, where I live).”
Eva Pintado, Colourful Hills
Margaret Jago said this about her tapestry, “I’ve been photographing tulips a lot this Spring. These ones were in Bishop’s Palace Garden in Chichester in England.
I’ve been playing with pixelation of images at various levels of detail, and chose to weave the smallest number of pixels that I’d generated for this image, since this was a quick project and my 8 inch Mirrix Lani was the only loom available. The pixels are each woven over 4 warp ends and there are 80 pixels. It’s woven at 8epi in Appleton’s crewel and I interlocked the verticals.”
Margaret Jago, Bishop’s Palace Garden
Margaret Jago inspiration for the tapestry
Irene Evision used a gorgeous rock for her inspiration. She said this, “With the prompt of colour in my head as I was out running the other day, a rock in front of me on the path caught my eye. The colours were enhanced by moisture (up in north west Scotland, we're only just now playing catch-up on the heatwave that's been engulfing England and Wales in recent days). When I look carefully at the rock, I see so many different colours.
I've often played with just colour in small tapestries, but in this one, I decided to let myself run with a very free interpretation, not worrying whether my yarn bundle was giving an exact colour representation but instead just enjoying what happened. I want to explore more about what I could do with the pick and pick technique, but I haven't used it much and I need the practice, so that's why I chose that approach.”
Irene Evision, A rock that caught my eye
Irene Evision’s rock
These are just a small, random selection of the warm-up tapestries that are appearing in the class. I love seeing what everyone is seeing, experiencing, and weaving from all over the world.
This is the class you want in Pathwright, my online course software.
The first prompt for the class opens tomorrow. Now is the perfect time to join us if you’ve been wondering if this class is for you. I have lots of people join the class who don’t do all four prompts during the 8 weeks of the main class and that is fine. The class is a lot about inspiration, the community aspect, and finding a little time during the next two months to weave something for yourself. You have forever access to the class and you can come back to it whenever you’d like. Find out more on my website here: https://rebeccamezoff.com/summer-of-tapestry
When you sign up, make sure you take a moment to click on the course that is for 2026. There are now five Summer of Tapestry courses. They’re different every year, but if you want to join the current community, choose 2026. The course art looks like this photo.