Sketch tapestry

Most of my small format tapestries take the form of a tapestry diary. I also call the practice of making small, quick tapestries, sketch tapestry. It consists of wandering somewhere and paying attention to my environment. I love to camp and backpack and often these small tapestries are done in the summer outside. I take photos, do some sketches, simplify the idea a lot, then weave a tiny tapestry about it.

This practice started when I was an artist in residence at Petrified Forest National Park in November of 2016. I wove a 2 x 2 inch tapestry every day I was in the park. You can see the whole series in THIS blog post. Selected images are below. I teach a class every year called Summer of Tapestry about sketch tapestry.

The Petrified Forest AIR tapestries were in a show called Time Warp in 2017 in Athens, GA. The image below shows how I mounted them for that show.

Rebecca Mezoff, *Layers,* each tapestry is 2 x 2 inches, wool, cotton; collection of the artist

If you’re interested in seeing more of my sketch tapestry work, please visit the tapestry diary category of my blog.

Pandemic Diaries

2020 brought the COVID-19 pandemic and I started a series of tapestries which I mostly wove on my free YouTube program, Change the Shed.

As of 2026, I’m still working on the third one and the first two have not yet been mounted. I’ll update these images when they are completely finished. These pieces are what comes of a pandemic, political unrest, and peri-menopause. Change the Shed is a program that happens twice a month and these were tapestries I wove most frequently on that program. They were an excellent way to illustrate various ways of weaving and it gives weavers window into solving tapestry problems in real time. You can watch all of the past episodes linked on my website HERE. All three of these pieces are double sett meaning they are woven at two different setts, in this case 8 and 16 epi.

Rebecca Mezoff, *Handbasket,* 14 x 14 inches, hand-dyed wool, wool, cotton

Rebecca Mezoff, *Hot Flash,* 10 x 10 inches, hand-dyed wool, wool, cotton

This last piece is still being woven on my Schacht Arras loom. As of July 2026, I only have a few inches left and the most recent Change the Shed episodes show me working on it.

Rebecca Mezoff, *“It’s Fine”* in progress, 14 x 14 inches when finished

Other small format work

Cherry Lake was a tapestry about the aspens changing colors around a lake I hiked to. I wrote about it in THIS blog post.

Rebecca Mezoff, *Cherry Lake,* 13 x 8 inches, hand-dyed wool, cotton, 2012

Periwinkle’s Romp was named after the sheep the fleece came from. This tapestry is all handspun and hand-dyed. There was an article about creating this piece in the Spring 2017 issue of Spin Off.