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A tapestry project for the holidays

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A tapestry project for the holidays

This time of year I start asking myself serious questions about the holidays.

Do I really want to spend half of my Thanksgiving vacation at Dallas/Fort Worth International potentially sleeping on the floor with thousands of other people who were trapped due to a freak snowstorm in New England and the resulting air traffic nightmare? 

Do I really need another stack of things to take care of in my life or could Christmas money go toward helping others or purchasing experiences? (I'm no saint. Santa already told me he is bringing me a drum carder. But he needn't bring anything else. I have plenty of fleece, thanks.)

The holidays are certainly a time where I love cozy time on the couch, good food, friends and family, twinkly lights, and a mug of hot chocolate that might just have a little cake vodka in it. In my head it feels like it should be a time of love, expansion, and joy.

But in reality, the holidays are often a time of tension and of unattainable expectations from others (and ourselves if we're honest).

I think we should use making and craft as a gift to ourselves. Sure, we can make things with the expectation that the final product will be a wonderful gift for someone we love. But make the process of creating it a time for you to experience the joy of making. Have you ever experienced that state your brain enters where you lose track of time and are just enjoying the thing you're focused on? Some people call it flow. Tapestry weaving is especially well suited to creating this state. And we all need a little bit of this in our lives every day and more so during the holidays. 

Three minutes of inspiration

Three minutes of inspiration

It has been one year since I opened my online class, Weaving Tapestry on Little Looms. The class has been enjoyed by many hundreds of people so far. My goal in creating the class was to make something fun and accessible for people who have never woven tapestry before but also provide information valuable to people who understand how weaving works.

As I look back over the last year of weaving from this class, I wanted to put together a video showcasing a small portion of it. There were far too many images for me to choose from, but this video is a start.

It is also a little Happy Holidays video from me. I feel that it is far too early in the year (though it be November 8) for a Carol-of-the-Bells kind of video, but here it is. Enjoy the beauty of the season, pick up a little loom, and make something fun. I have a holiday weave-along coming soon that will tell you just how to do that in case you're stuck.

Dessert in the desert

Dessert in the desert

I just got home from my last travel teaching trip for the year. It is fun to visit different places and meet new people, but there is nothing quite like home. Especially for an introvert. 

I taught tapestry techniques in Las Vegas, NV and Las Cruces, NM. I was fascinated by the desert landscape and the amazing plants I saw in both places even in the city. I enjoyed hearing all the different ideas the participants had about fiber and tapestry weaving. And I'll admit that I enjoyed the warm weather (even though the people there thought it was freezing at 65 degrees).

Some optimism remains

Some optimism remains

Spinzilla 2017 came and went and I didn't reach my goal but I did have a great time and my spinning improved.

I showed you my pile in the "An Optimism Problem" blog post so I thought I'd better fess up and show you how the week ended.

I made a rather random goal of spinning three miles, forgetting that in the past I had only spun a bit more than one mile in a week. I came a bit short of two miles and nowhere near three. Next year, in case you hear me say otherwise in which case you should remind me, my goal is two miles.

How to mount small tapestries so they look great and sell well

How to mount small tapestries so they look great and sell well

My studio table has been covered with mounting projects for a few weeks now. I sold a handful of small-format tapestries and not all of them were mounted. I also finished a small tapestry that was a donation to Petrified Forest National Park from my artist residency last November. (Read about that HERE.)

I have been posting photos on Instagram as I worked on this but thought I'd show you the steps all in one place.

Layers: the tapestry for Petrified Forest National Park

Layers: the tapestry for Petrified Forest National Park

Tapestry weaving is a slow process. The image is built slowly in layers, one bit at a time. My process of weaving felt very similar to the geologic processes that created Petrified Forest National Park. In my month in the park, I hiked as much of it as I could and I was constantly amazed at the beauty of the layers in the rock. I also thought a lot about the span of time represented there.

My work often addresses the nature of time through the influence of landscape. In some ways, being able to look back at events that happened hundreds of millions of years ago in the rocks and petrified wood in the Park helps put our daily human struggles into some perspective. In a world full of short term gratification and goals, taking the long view, whether it is through appreciation of how the landscape was formed or through slowly building up a tapestry image in yarn, helps shift perspective and can even provide hope for the future.

An optimism problem

An optimism problem

I signed up for Spinzilla this year. I'm on Team Shuttle Spinners. That is the team of my favorite weaving shop, Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins in Boulder, CO. It is owned by the marvelous Maggie Casey who, against all odds, has managed to make me a mediocre spinner and is working on making me an excellent one a little at a time (it would help if I practiced more, so don't blame Maggie--she has worked miracles already). Spinzilla is an opportunity for me to improve my skills. I am just a tad competitive, so having a challenge to spin as much as possible in one week does get me to spin when I might have otherwise opted for a glass of Pinot Grigio on the couch with a novel.

In case you've never heard of Spinzilla (and why would you have if you're reading a tapestry blog?), it is a week-long spinning challenge set up in teams all over the world. It is run by TNNA, The National NeedleArts Association, and the proceeds benefit youngsters learning fiber arts.

My goal this year was to spin three miles. There are 1760 yards in a mile and I thought certainly I could spin three times that... but my performance so far has not been as expected and because I'm trying to be more focused about goals and marking my daily "progress" through life, today I looked at last year's take to see what I was able to do. The truth was a little discouraging: less than a mile.