Getting unstuck when designing for tapestry

Getting unstuck when designing for tapestry

Last week Kathy^ asked a question in the Design Solutions class that has gotten me thinking more about the evolution of a tapestry design. After a week of thinking about it, I was still unable to answer Kathy’s question and I believe that is because the answer is different for every artist. She wanted to know where people get stuck in the design process and how do they manage to get unstuck.

Silvia Heyden is a wonderful example of someone who created her own system of weaving and managed to stay unstuck and prolific throughout her career.* Silvia took her inspiration largely from nature and her tapestry weaving style was informed by the structure of tapestry. Her work is abstract, colorful, and exciting.

Seeing the little things. One day at a time.

Seeing the little things. One day at a time.

June has come and mostly gone and the shifting sands of the global “new normal” continues to make time feel like it has tilted off its axis. Sometimes it flows fast, sometimes moments seem to last forever.

Seeing. Being there for the experience. That is my goal this summer. There are long stretches where I have let the running of a business and my propensity for a jumbled, rambling mind to propel me through my days at breakneck speed, scarcely experiencing the moments passing me by. I have taken the opportunity this month to take a breath and it feels great. My focus for the summer is to see what is right in front of me.

I have three avenues in this goal of taking the time to see. You won’t be surprised to hear that the first two are weaving and hiking. The third is drawing.

I had planned to hike the Colorado Trail again this year. I was going to weave as I went—my favorite sort of documentation of my surroundings in my little tapestry diary. The pandemic has squelched that plan. But it has given me the gift of exploration. Instead of walking a trail that will force me into small towns and into contact with many different people over our fragile mountain towns already overrun with tourists, I'll stay closer to home and hike all the trails I can get to easily from my house. The 500 mile plan has become a series of 20-50 mile ideas and that opens up the opportunity for growth. Because I know the Colorado Trail so well I can watch thru-hiker’s videos and tell you where the images were taken. Visiting new places as a solo backpacker is scarier but it also opens me to new experiences and vistas and that seems like something that could remind me to take the time to really see what is around me.

Walking. Weaving. Drawing.

,

My sometimes annoying process of iteration. Some call it sampling.

,
My sometimes annoying process of iteration. Some call it sampling.

I worked on several different making projects this week. I was struck by how much I approached two completely different sorts of projects in the same way. The first was the dye project I talked about last week. The red-orange yarn turned out quite well. I did 22 samples over four days of a color that I had dyed before. In the end, the dye formula I used was the first one—my old tried and true with only two dyes and a toner.*

The final answer was NOT one of those last skeins as I’d hoped in last week’s post, but it was a simple matter of changing the depth of shade slightly before I had it. Matching a color in yarn, including the feeling and depth of that color, isn’t a one-shot deal. Maybe if this had been the yarn I usually dye it could have been, but it was not my yarn. I started by dyeing 8 colors in jars from several different formulas. Some were sort of close, some were not remotely close. In one I inverted the proportion of colors when writing out the formula and ended up with hot pink.

How, why, and when to scour yarn for tapestry weaving

How, why, and when to scour yarn for tapestry weaving

Why would you need to consider scouring yarn for tapestry weaving? And what does scouring mean anyway?

Scouring is simply the textile word for washing. Some (very few) yarns come with machine oil in them from the carding process and that needs to be removed before using the yarn for tapestry weaving. This usually only happens with coned yarns because the yarn goes right from the carder to the spinning and onto cones without any other processing. The oil is added in the picking process so that the fibers go smoothly through the big carding machines.

Nothing rhymes with orange

Nothing rhymes with orange

I’ve been making red-orange yarn this week. According to my dye book, it has been over a year since I did any dyeing and I’ve enjoyed being back in the dye studio (my garage) a great deal. I’m dyeing some yarn for a friend. She might be the only person on the planet who I’d do this for, though no one else has tested it yet. I’m trying to match a naturally dyed yarn that she needs a lot of. Because it is so hard to replicate naturally dyed colors (and she is a master dyer of natural dyes), she asked me to make her this color using synthetic dyes. I can replicate colors without much difficulty and I have a great big pot that I can dye the whole lot at once. I think it will be about four pounds of fiber.

The color is red-orange. I’m pretty happy that I did a lot of sampling of oranges several years ago when I was working on a commission because I learned a lot about orange. I struggled to make it back then, but this time around I felt inundated with options.

The Saffron Pocket Loom has landed

The Saffron Pocket Loom has landed

I have grown quite a collection of small looms over the last few years. I have some favorites and you can see some of them in THIS blog post. But the new kid on the block is definitely Mirrix’s Saffron Pocket Loom.

….

This loom is small. And it comes apart into 3 pieces—the top, bottom, and threaded rod. For most people that might not be noteworthy, but in my life before coronavirus, I traveled a lot. My suitcase space when I’m traveling to teach is precious and bringing multiple small looms actually takes up quite a bit of room. The Saffron is tiny when disassembled which immediately led me to think that maybe I COULD provide small looms for relevant workshops now. Because I could fit 12 of these in a suitcase with no problem. I love this aspect of this loom.

But the real beauty of this loom is that it has tensioning. I don’t know of any other loom this small that provides a tensioned warp. This loom does it really well through a simple threaded rod. After warping, the tension can be increased by simply loosening the top nut and tightening the one under the top bar of the loom. When final tension is achieved, the top nut can be snugged up against the top bar and you have excellent tension. I never thought I’d see a loom of this size with adjustable tension. Being able to adjust the tension on a small piece is so wonderful.

Thanks for rocking my world Mirrix.