Weaving the sparrow's head and wings

With my new three part pattern, I discovered that I can weave the top of the head all in one and avoid a tricky curved seam in such a prominent part of the design. To do this I made a narrow strip of plastic to serve as a "spine". I poked holes along it and stitched wool through the holes. Then I fastened it to the paper pattern with contrasting thread which will be taken out later. When warping I strung the warp threads through the wool stitches on the spine. This held the warp threads in their positions across the back and made the spine part of the structure. For the head, I bent the weaving form around and attached the spine through both layers lining up the seam. 

The breast of the sparrow is flat and all one colour so I wove it first to get used to tapestry weaving after not doing it for a while. I did a careful job of the perimeter of the piece, twining the two outer row together. I hope the firmer edge will be easier to stitch to the upper part of the bird when I assemble it.

sparrow's eye

While warping I stitched buttonhole stitches around the eye hole position using warp thread. When I wove the head, I stitched the weft thread into the outer half of the buttonhole stitches all around the eye. 

When the head was done I started at the spine and worked outward building up the wing markings.

Evolving pattern

pattern version 3 not the right shape

The pattern for the sparrow is gradually evolving. I made four versions of the pattern before I realized that the shape was all wrong. 

toile from version 6

I went back to the drawing board and I have developed a three section pattern that works much better. The fabric toile gave me some trouble but once that was done I could see that the basic idea is working and I needed to adjust the head a bit more. 

pattern version 7 ready to add weaving marks

The final version of the pattern is ready and I feel ready to mark the warps on the weaving pattern now. An idea is percolating which would allow me to weave the head all in one piece without the troublesome seams that I struggled with on the robin. I feel happy with the simplified shapes for the wing markings. I have an approach for fastening in the beak and eyes. The legs will come later because the method I used for the robin should work again for here.

Tapestry Sparrow

I've been listening to this theme song these days: His Eye is on the Sparrow. My plan is to make another tapestry bird, this time a female house sparrow. I've spun the colours I need: the two colours from my ryeland jacket, plus some dark brown ryeland wool donated by a friend for this project and a bit of yellowish white from my stash for a patch by the eye.

My starting point was the robin pattern but there are lots of shape differences that I'm incorporating: longer neck, shorter wings, thicker beak, different head shape. The pattern is evolving gradually. I'm going to try to apply the wires to the tail after weaving. I think I've found a good way to render the beak and leg colour with brown water tape.
Before I can begin to weave I still need to do some detailed sketches to observe the placement and shapes of the markings.

Tapestry robin - new and improved

I needed to blend and spin a little bit more of the orange yarn from the dyed combed tops (Shown here with the other colours: white shropshire, and brown and tawny-grey ryeland).

I learned a lot from the first robin and used the same pattern to re-create it. The improvements I included were a better formed eye opening, tiny shaping changes, and simplified edges.

Finished weaving.

I clipped the holding threads to remove it from the backing.

I sewed the dark beads tightly against the inside of the eye openings and darned in any threads on the outside. I fastened a bit of heavy interfacing against the ends of the wire supports to keep them from poking through the weaving. It was then ready to assemble.

I fastened in the paper beak and wire legs, stitched up the seams and mounted it.

3D tapestry bird part 2

Weaving using my hand spun yarn was fun. I'm still refining the length of legs, size of wire feet and perching position. I have a long list of improvements I would incorporate in the next one.

3D tapestry bird

A few years ago I made my first tapestry. I learned a lot and enjoyed it, mostly: it's fun weaving the image but boring weaving the background. Lately, for the guild challenge "Country Garden" I wondered if I could weave a 3D robin. That way I could have the fun bit and dispense with the background! 

My starting point was what I learned from making my sheep (all-in-one-piece sheep experiment).  I made sketches of a robin in the local museum and found lots of web photos and a couple of Christmas cards. I made a series of graph paper models as I gradually refined the pattern.

As the idea came together I made a toile out of felt, colouring the pieces with watercolour pencils. I experimented with embedded bead eyes, a rolled up paper beak, and wire legs. 

I jotted adjustments on the pattern.

Then I gathered my colours and wove a sample. From this I learned that it is not workable to use pin weaving to create such small curving shapes, so I decided to use holding stitches on a stiff background instead (this is a needle lace method). I figured out how to make the holes for the eyes and embed wire for stiffening the wings and tail.

The cartoon (weaving pattern) has the shape of the pieces, the marks for where pieces will join when they are sewn up, the positions of the warp threads, the colour areas, and the places where the colours will have sharp divisions (thin dark lines) or blend into each other (thick dark lines). 

I began to attach the warp. I used lace-making tape around some edges because it is fine and stable. This will serve as a "seam allowance" and save me having to weave bulky extensions.

Two more sheep

I scaled up the pattern and made two more sheep to use up all the off cuts from the jacket project. Each has her own personality.