Yarn

Choosing weft colors for tapestry weaving: Overcoming choice paralysis!

Choosing weft colors for tapestry weaving: Overcoming choice paralysis!

I was chatting with an online student this week about what colors she needs to jump into the Warp and Weft course. Choosing colors can feel pretty daunting especially if you haven’t worked with color a lot. And color use in tapestry weaving differs from other art mediums because of the nature of the material (yarn) and the structure of the weaving.

When you’re new to tapestry and faced with so many color choices, how do you pick those first yarns and how many do you need? A commercial yarn line might have 60 colors or it might have 400. Both of those can feel overwhelming.

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A fleece followed me home... wool fumes overwhelmed me

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A fleece followed me home... wool fumes overwhelmed me

Last week I took a two-day workshop with Maggie Casey as part of the Estes Park Wool Market. All in all I spent four days up in Estes Park immersed in wool, sheep, yarn, and making. By Sunday afternoon I found myself driving down Big Thompson canyon with a huge smile on my face, wool fumes from the four fleeces in the backseat wafting around me. Even dodging the tourists stopped in the middle of the narrow, winding, road to look at bighorn sheep didn’t penetrate the wool bliss.

I love diving into materials. And wool is a material that can do so much. I didn’t know this until I learned to spin.

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Heaven is where yarn is made.

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Heaven is where yarn is made.

I taught at Harrisville Designs last week and had a wonderful time. I wrote more about it on the blog this week (link in bio). I haven't taught that much since my book came out in late 2020 due to Covid and it is really fun to see a copy on all the student's tables as well as all over the @harrisvilledesigns retail shop.

The workshop was called Learning to See Like a Tapestry Weaver. It was a techniques class where we looked at applying the techniques we were practicing to our weaving. Of course we could have used another few weeks and perhaps in the future I’ll pick just one technique to focus on for a bit.

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Tapestry weaving on a budget

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Tapestry weaving on a budget

Historically tapestry weaving was a trade. In the middle ages (and even through present times), weavers were skilled technicians weaving large designs created usually by painters. Today tapestry weaving has become an art form that is often practiced at smaller scales by people who are designing and weaving their own work.

Tapestry has a wealthy past as patrons funded the workshops that wove those large tapestries for their castles and country homes. Today tapestry weaving can be for everyone.

It is true that purchasing equipment and materials for any new art form can be pricey. There are many tapestry looms for sale that for many people are just too expensive to consider. And tapestry yarns can also feel out of reach when you have to purchase large amounts in many colors. But there are less expensive ways to find the materials and equipment needed.

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The Tapestry Discovery Box

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The Tapestry Discovery Box

I’ve been working on a fun project in collaboration with Gist Yarn. And this week, it is ready for the world. The Tapestry Discovery Box has launched and I’d love to share it with all of you. If you’ve ever wished for an ongoing community of tapestry weavers to talk about and troubleshoot technique and design problems with, this subscription course might be exactly the thing for you.

Skeletons, Wisconsin fall colors, and spinning for tapestry

Skeletons, Wisconsin fall colors, and spinning for tapestry

Last week I had the joy of teaching at SOAR. That stands for Spin Off Autumn Retreat. This is a small conference that has been running for something like 30 years albeit with a hiatus during one of the times Interweave had been sold to another company. Spin Off magazine is now owned by Longthread Media. One of the co-owners is Linda Ligon who is the person who started Interweave magazine (soon to become Handwoven) in the 70s. Linda was there along with mastermind Anne Merrow and they pulled off a beautiful event (along with Spin Off editor Kate Larson and a fantastic team of organizers).

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Unusually spontaneous: Taos, churro fleece, and a textile show

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Unusually spontaneous: Taos, churro fleece, and a textile show

I took a trip to New Mexico on the spur of the moment last weekend. It is unusual for me to decide to take a trip that involves 6-7 hours of driving each way at the last minute, but the stars aligned, and off we went. We had some friends who we wanted to see who were there visiting from Europe and the first weekend of October is Taos Wool Festival weekend. Yes, I know that this festival left Taos and was held in Santa Fe. I didn’t go to the renamed Mountain and Valley Wool Festival partly in disappointment at it leaving Taos, but also because I was tired of driving and didn’t want to go all the way to Santa Fe when Taos was so beautiful.

Instead, I haunted Taos Wool’s pop-up shop and gallery show. One of the highlights of the weekend for me was hearing Connie Taylor speak about churro sheep, wool, and uses for their fleece. Connie is someone I met in 2005 when I was a student at Northern New Mexico Community College in the fibers department. At that time she had a big flock of churro sheep and was making 14 different colors of natural wool. (That fact still astounds me, but I saw it for myself and know it to be true.) I purchased her wool for my saltillo project. In Taos, she had her shade card with her, pictured below, along with a wide range of natural churro yarns.