Lately I been doing Bible study in colour, following a few themes in Ephesians and painting and writing about what I've learned. I sketched how all these colours could go together in a wavy composition. Then I got inspired to try a tiny tapestry based on the sketch.
I collected a handful of the most brilliant coloured threads I could find (both fine tapestry wool and six strand embroidery cotton) and found crochet cotton for warp.
I used blue tack to fasten the graph paper pattern onto the flat parts of a plastic milk jug, and cut out two identical pieces with kitchen scissors. I cut zig-zags across the top, two per centimeter to hold the warp threads. With wide cello tape, I stuck the two pieces together to form a tube. I flattened the tube with the seams in the centre.
I slipped the tube over a chunk of cardboard and taped the bottom flat. I usually use just cardboard for my weaving form, but for this tapestry, I decided plastic might work better because it is strong and smooth to withstand the repeated beating with the fork and because its springiness causes it to form nice round ends for easier weaving.) I decided to weave free form and experiment with different kinds of shading and shaping.
I taped the crochet cotton to the cardboard to start winding the warp. I pushed pins into the bottom corners temporarily to keep the threads from sliding off the ends. I finished wrapping the warp at the bottom and used it to stitch across the bottom, anchoring and spacing the threads as I went.
Then I began to weave from the bottom, around and around. After a few rounds I was able to remove the pins. As I used up each thread I took it to the back and out through the woven part below. With the new thread, I left an end poking out through the weaving below and brought it in from the back and wove it in with the old thread for 8 or 10 threads.
All these loose ends will be pulled to the back of the weaving after the piece is removed from the form.
I packed the weaving tightly throughout and wove as close to the top as possible. When I took the weaving off the form, I pushed the weft upwards gently and evened out the weaving to cover the loops of white warp thread. I buttonhole-stitched green wool over the edges to hide the last little bits of white that showed around the top edge and at the bottom.
Soon I will stitch in a fabric lining as the last finishing touch.
Here it is!
I wove in the ends of the straps as 4 rows of weft around the top of the bag, starting at each corner and overlapping at the centre of each side and end. I worked a row of soumak stitch to hold the edge of the weaving and then began to weave from the bottom up, following the colour-and-weave pattern in my chart. I carried the different colours up the back of the weaving rather than start a new thread each time the colour changed.
I needed a portable longer-term weaving project for two months away from home. I wanted it without pins so that I could work on it during airplane travel. It needed to incorporate colour-and-weave and be woven all-in-one-piece. I dug through my yarn stash for a set of colours. Then I charted a favourite criss-cross colour-and-weave design.
A conveniently-sized handbag that I already had gave me the measurements. I built a hollow cardboard weaving form and left the pins in while I warped the bag (weaving the bottom as I warped the ends). Then I fastened the warp to the form by stitching through the cardboard and removing the pins as I went.
On the first airplane journey I plaited the two 18" straps. 18 strands used in pairs made a 9 strand braid of the weight I wanted. (Look at a previous post for a quick explanation of this technique). I bound the ends of the braid and left the ends long so I could work them into the top part of the bag.
The first idea for fastening in the straps involved weaving and soumak stitch but after I got one end done, I didn't like the way it looked. This will get unpicked and I'll try another method.
To be continued.
All those colours were so much fun to spin! (see the spinning post) Here are my two favourite projects of the "wild flower meadow" series. In both these projects I was attempting to achieve the feeling of random colour scattered across a blended green background by using a "special" yarn along with the pure colours. The special yarn had elements of both the light and the dark yarn so it blurred the otherwise distinct colour and weave patterns.
The needle book cover has the warp and weft pattern ddl. I combined my different blended greens for the dark in both warp and weft. The light in the warp was "special": yellow and green plied together. Then I used a variety of pure colours for the light yarn in the weft.
The zipped bag has the pattern dl in the warp. I used the "special" variegated yarn as the light strand. I didn't have quite enough, so you can see where I switched to pure yellow part way along the bag. I interspersed groups of three threads of pure colour in the mostly blended green weft.
My friend's tartan cushion looks great among her sofa-full of hand made cushions. She machine zig-zagged the edges of the squares together and attached it to a fabric back with a zip along one edge. (See the post from 25 May for the weaving of the squares.)
While I was doing the first colour and weave experiments I was also travelling in western Canada. I got glimpses of verges and fields of wild flowers with brilliant spots of colour scattered across the mixed greens of the plants and grasses. To see if I could get that effect with weaving I bought some colours and began to spin. The first job was a selection of pure bright flower colours. I also made a ball of variegated, spacing the pure flower colours between sections of grey green to see if that will work to make the colours appear randomly across the weaving.
Then I began to create mixed variations of greens.
Here is my first sample to imitate the colour scheme of a field of flowers using the pure colours. I have yet to try the variegated and the full range of the greens.
