finished first sampler

Here's my finished first sampler showing regular and irregular hatching at the top:

I could have cropped the picture so it didn't show the bulgy sides but this is a course after all and hopefully a record of my progress. I'm currently working on a weaving which will finish this first part of the course and will try very hard not to let the sides bulge!!

tapestry weaving again

I'm so excited - I've just started Rebecca Mezoff's online tapestry weaving course. I admire her work so much and as far as I know this is the only online course of its kind. It's no lightweight but a serious course taking the art of tapestry weaving right from the basics. Until now I've tried to learn from books but believe me, there's nothing like having someone in front of you (even if it's electronically!) showing you how it's done.

This is my sampler so far. It's far from perfect but it's not too bad I think.

Workspace

This is my absolutely unprofessional workspace:

The frame is warped. The orange at the bottom is cut up Sainsburys carrier bags and it's used to form a nice straight base. Above that is a row of twine and then it's ready to start weaving. The cartoon is clothes pegged to the warp and I have a selection of wools ready. I'll have to combine some of these to achieve the shades I'm looking for. The tub on the right holds my bobbins and beater. The frame has to sit on top of a couple of blocks of wood until the weaving gets higher, otherwise I'll be bent double trying to weave the bottom few inches.

No excuses not to start now. I registered my entry on the 22nd December so I'm committed. Here goes...

heathland colours

I picked these few heathers and grasses on the Ashdown Forest at the weekend. The colours are soft golds and greens mixed with vivid heathers and as I wandered along I thought how I could translate these into a tapestry piece.

So today I translated this into paint in my sketchbook so I can start finding yarns and thinking about composition. Unfortunately the photograph of the grass and heather doesn't show up the vibrance of some of the colours properly. Put that down to lack of photographic ability!!

progress report

Well, it's got a little further. I have no plan and am just playing, led by the yarns I have and serendipity. I put a few rows of sumack in with a cotton tape in lovely sludgy reddy, browny tones. There seems to be quite a lot of warp showing and this needs to be solved some time. Not now though. I haven't quite got to grips with warp size, epi etc. yet!

weaving again!

My wrist's out of plaster and I can weave again :-)

Typing is a real problem still but tapestry weaving is OK and probably great physiotherapy! So I've got on with my sampler which is just my way of playing around and trying different techniques - so far, colour blending in the weft and also in the weave. I'm sure there are technical words for this sort of thing but they escape me without looking them up in a book! I didn't really mean to make such a definite change of colour with the red - my intention was to progressively subtly change the natural shades but I just love red!

There's a delicious little gap which shows up in this photo - probably a case of not beating down tight enough but I don't care - this is a labour of love, not perfection. Thinking about varying the colour of the warps and leaving gaps in the weaving and ... oh, all sorts of experiments.

Tapestry Landscape

I've finally started weaving my first tapestry. I had a problem right at the bottom (or the start of the weaving) with the weft not covering the warp properly but I think this was because I had the weft pulled too tight as it seems to be better as it grows and as I get used to it. I'm not sure at this stage whether I'm pleased with it or not and until I get more weaving done I won't know. I marked the design on the warp to make it easier for me to follow and then put a sheet of black paper behind the warps so I can see what I'm doing. The bobbin on the table at the left is my prized possession - it has a brass tip and it feels so much nicer to weave with than the all-wood ones. It was hugely expensive though so I'll have to collect a few at a time and put them on my birthday and Christmas lists for years to come!

A close up of progress so far.

Tomorrow I have a day off work and I'm going to the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy. I can't wait; I'm so excited - all that wonderful colour!

NEW YEAR'S JITTERS

After seeing pictures of several of my blog friends' studios I decided the time had come to 'fess up to the mess I work in and post some photos. Here is my desk/work table:

It shows my tapestry sampler in progress which restricts the amount of space I have left to work on as it attaches to the table on clamps for comfortable working. The monitor belongs to my old PC which I rarely use now as I have a Mac notebook which I love. But I still need it for a few things so I keep it.

This view is the wall behind my worktable:

I've been careful not to include the floor area in the photograph because there's a lot of stuff down there that REALLY needs to be tidied up! The two collages are by a favourite artist of mine, Nagib.

This wall has my project/inspiration board and containers below for art materials and yarns.  My studio also houses our wine rack which can be seen bottom right! How's that for good planning :-)

This was a great opportunity to use my 20mm wide angle lens which I don't use that often. It also reminded me that I need to tidy my camera equipment away somewhere in this room.

I found taking these photos and writing about them quite emotional. It confirmed my worries about the fact that I'm such a butterfly, moving so rapidly from painting to embroidering to drawing to photography to weaving and on and on without really settling on one thing, making it my own and developing it properly. This actually worries me a lot - it seems to me that it's a big flaw in my character and something that I need to do something about. With another New Year nearly upon us I find myself thinking a lot about these things and wondering what I can do to change. I'm not a fan of new year's resolutions, but I do certainly get that feeling at this time of year that if I need to make changes now's the time.

But how to make them is the problem...

TAPESTRY WEAVING SAMPLER

Tapestry weaving is a new thing for me. I'm learning from a book and this is a sampler I've started. It's very therapeutic and I can't wait to have a go at designing something of my own and mixing colours on the bobbins. But I need to learn the basics first!