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Jilly Edwards is an artist working in woven tapestry from the UK. She currently maintains a studio in Bristol. I was able to interview her for my online course, Design Solutions for the Artist/Weaver, Season 2 this spring. Jilly is an inspiring artist who is keen to share her knowledge and work with the rest of the tapestry world. I spoke with her for several hours and as always when I write or talk to Jilly, I felt like I’d just had a heart to heart with the dearest of friends.
Tommye Scanlin has published two books in the last year. Her first book, The Nature of Things, is a memoir about her life and work as a tapestry weaver. I reviewed that book HERE. Her second book, Tapestry Design Basics and Beyond, has just been released by Schiffer Publishing (June 2021).
The word fear in relation to tapestry design has come up a lot lately both in the Design Solutions course and in my own work. I’m stuck and have been for a long time. I thought I was unstuck, but still I haven’t started. There is a warp on the loom and a room full of dyed yarn waiting, but the final design decision is something I keep walking away from.
Partly I keep having new ideas. Since ideas are endless, this could mean the tapestry never gets started, so at some point I have to just settle on one of them. The rest of it is just some unfounded worry about it not being good enough!
A very common struggle among newer tapestry weavers is to keep the weaving square. This is all about weft tension or how much weft is going into your tapestry at any one time. Too much weft and the piece will get wider, too little and it’ll get narrower. I find that most students have more trouble with the tapestry getting narrower as they work. The changes can be subtle! It is easy to weave a whole piece not realizing that over the course of it you’ve drawn in a half an inch or more. The only fool-proof way I’ve found to make sure this isn’t happening is to make myself measure the width of the tapestry frequently.
Many of you are now working through my book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving, and I’ve been answering some of your questions here on the blog. One recent question from Zach was about how much warp you need to leave for various finishing techniques on the Mirrix Saffron loom. This question got me thinking about loom length and the video below was the result.
Loom length is something that I don’t hear tapestry instructors talking about a lot. Those of us who have been weaving for a long time intuitively understand the limitations of a short warp. But for new weavers, it isn’t something you’d automatically think about.
In my continuing series, Questions From The Book, I’m answering questions that come from readers of my newest book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving.
I have spent some time playing with a tapestry technique called pick and pick lately. This technique is a powerful one in the tapestry toolbox because it allows stripes to climb up the warp.
Weaving is the creation of cloth on a gridded structure created by the warp and weft. In tapestry, making horizontal lines in the direction of the weft traveling from side to side across the warp is easy. Making lines that travel in the same direction of the warp is more difficult.* Pick and pick is a fun technique because we get to play with creating forms and color effects in the warp-wise direction.
The video below demonstrates weaving pick and pick and I give a few tips for making things work out neatly and for catching mistakes. The two Change the Shed episodes I refer to in the video are HERE and HERE.
Tuesday was my blog-o-versary of thirteen years. Though it seems like a silly thing to celebrate, the blog was the start of where I am today. It was a wild idea I had one day and a free Blogger blog became a way to test ideas about tapestry weaving. The very first post was about a tapestry called This Time I Dance which was purchased by my partner’s ex. You never know where you’ll find a customer!
But dance I have, ever since. The blog has become a place to explore writing about tapestry weaving and a few other whacky ideas mostly having to do with fiber, though there are some live skunks and knitted chickens in there. As I started teaching tapestry weaving, it became a way to communicate with students about things I was teaching but also about things I was learning. The journey never ends and perhaps the blog never will either.
