“By the Sea: Wave”; series of tapestry artist trading cards, woven for trading at Art & Soul in early May. Woven on cardboard loom. Linen warp, cotton weft. 3.5 x 2.5 inches.

“By the Sea: Tidal Pools”; series of tapestry artist trading cards, woven for trading at Art & Soul in early May. I drew on memories of Sunset Beach and Tubbs Inlet for these seascapes. Woven on cardboard loom. Linen warp, wool weft. 3.5 x 2.5 inches.

The next two will be pins:

I’m not done embellishing the one on the right - I plan to bead an edge around it.
Left: Linen warp, cotton, wool, and chenille weft, shells. 3 5/8 x 2 3/4 inches.
Right: Linen warp, cotton, wool, and chenille weft, shells. 3 1/4 x 2 5/8 inches.

“By the Sea: Overcast Low Tide” - I think that we’ll keep this one, as it is too big for an ATC and I’m rather fond of it. The wool for the sky was space dyed leftovers from a weaving years ago. Linen warp, wool weft. 3.75 x 2.75 inches.

Here are the first two small tapestries of a series of four. This is “Earth” and “Fire.” Guess what the other two will be!

I took a piece of the cardboard box that I used for my tapestry bag and decided to work that part of the design in different colors. The loom is just string wrapped around a piece of cardboard with slits cut across the top and bottom - nothing expensive or complicated about that! I used some of the multitudes of leftover scraps of wool yarn that I have hoarded over the years.

These are 4 x 6 inches each and could be used for fabric postcards if I wanted to go that way…I think that I will mount them together as a wall piece though. The challenge is getting them mounted and maybe framed. Once I’m done weaving, it is very hard for me to follow through on presentation. Maybe I’ll do a simple one-color quilted square to mount them on.

I still need to sew together some of the slits from the back and probably will fuse a backing to them.

I wanted to show you my little seascape tapestries, but I can’t seem to get a good photo of them. I’ll keep trying.

My goal today was to complete a woven artist trading card, and I achieved that goal! Well, almost. I have to put a backing on it, but I think that I’m going to wait until I get about half a dozen woven and back all of them at the same time.

Earlier this month, I wove two other little tapestries which I meant to be artist trading cards, but the size was not quite right. The only two restrictions for an artist trading card is that it can’t be sold and it must be 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Think baseball card. So those two will be pins. When I hit the size right, it will be an ATC, and when I don’t, it will be a pin.

The theme of Art & Soul is “By the Sea.” From what I understand, most of the attendees carry with them lots of little handcrafted goodies to trade. I’m weaving these tapesties on little cardboard squares, and they are doing double duty - they will be trades and they are studies for my next tapestry bag.

Weaving these little tapestries is one of the most relaxing things I’ve done for a long time, and it is so easy. Taking photos of the little weavings, not!!!!! Also, I planned to do a lot of beading on my collages and art quilts and fabric journals and weavings. I might need to get my bifocals first - it is definitely ten times harder than it used to be to thread a needle and poke it through those tiny little holes. So, to recap, weaving = fun! Photography and beading = frustration.

I started a project that’s been on my mind ever since I received the book Artist Trading Card Workshop. I want to make my ATCs out of fiber and recycled materials when possible. The section that appealed to me most made nests of fibers on the card and melted them together with embossing powders and fusible webbing tape.

So I have been weaving tapestries from thrums and discarded warps and dyeing mistakes, and now I have a way to re-use the thrums from the thrums. It feels like, I don’t know, like I just found the last piece to a jigsaw puzzle. Ahhhh. It drove me crazy to throw those thrums away. Usually I give them to the birds or toss them in the compost heap when there gets to be too many.

Anyway, here’s what I came up with. Backgrounds for four sets of two cards each.

I had no freakin idee whut I wuz doing. I just played. If you were around in September when I began to have my meltdown, you know that this was a major goal for me. I’m a planner. It’s my personality. Weavers generally have to be. I needed to learn how to play. Squirt had a lot to teach me about that in his last year. He became more playful than he ever had been in his middle age.

I was so afraid that I had lost my mojo for good. Now I’m in the middle of four projects! Whee!

First there was the photo, taken at Healing Ground in Oak Ridge, North Carolina.

Then there was the idea and the cartoon…

Then there was a long period of dithering because I couldn’t decide between two approaches. One was to make the “path” blue, the maze white, and sew on buttons or smooth worn pieces of shell.

The other was to use all these little samples of handspun, natural or naturally dyed wool that were given to me along with the used loom I bought eight years ago, and make it more realistic.

I decided to start with the more traditional tapestry, and if I’m hungry for more, weave the other one.

Update:  I’ve added a place near the top of the sidebar where you can see the latest progress on the tapestry.

I finished the tapestry bag on Sunday afternoon. The closure is a drilled pebble button, and there is a piece of cardboard in the bottom to hold its shape between the lining and the bag.

Don’t…ask…how I did the lining. Dumb luck with much cursing and sticking pins in my fingers. It was a lesson in persistence and pain, and I finally resorted to an iron and Stitch Witchery.

Next time, I will make the lining darker, although it does help me find things in my bag. Also will make the inner pockets bigger. The straps are perfect!

Dimensions: 6″ wide on short sides, 10″ wide on long sides, 6.25″ tall.
Linen warp, wool weft.

The weft is mostly discarded wool given to me by other weavers or weaving teachers. Much of it is the product of beginning dyers, as there are many spots where the wool was tied too tightly in the dyepot and it created a resist. I decided to use these random spots as abstract sparkles in the water or reflections.

Here’s what the inside of the box looks like. I really love the backs of tapestries, so it’s a bit of a shame to line this, but I’ve decided to make it a functional handbag. The lining will be attached with velcro so that it can be removed and laundered.

Left to do: Weave two straps from the brown wool on my inkle loom, and sew in. Figure out how to sew lining. Sew lining. Attach lining. Attach a stone button for the closure. Maybe embellish with a few more stone buttons. Wear with joy and attack every day with a lint roller to keep the cat hair from embedding in it.

Tapestry - in terms of time, it may be the ultimate “slow” cloth. Especially for artists who raise their sheep, shear and spin the wool, dye it, and weave it.

There’s a wonderful interview on the latest podcast of Weavecast with my very favorite artist, Sarah Swett, she of the instructions for the tapestry box below and many, many exquisite tapestries. When you visit Sarah’s virtual gallery, and really you must, be sure to move your mouse around the tapestries and click on any spot where your cursor changes. It will take you to a close-up of the spot. Every tapestry is a glimpse into a different world.

So much of what Sarah said in this interview resonated with me. Tapestry is one of the most mindful arts there is - it is plain weave, simple stuff but so complex. You do not undertake tapestry if you are in a hurry to finish, but if tapestry undertakes you, you will live in every place that you lay the weft.

I just read a little book called “Craft to Heal.” The author talks about flow, the state you find yourself in when you are so totally absorbed in the present moment that time disappears. That is what I often experience when I am weaving a tapestry.

Listen to the podcast even if you are not a weaver. If you are a creative soul, it will speak to you.

Here’s the latest progress on my tapestry box! Whee!

(This project is following the instructions for a tapestry box or bag woven on a cardboard box, as written by the marvelous Sarah Swett in the Jan/Feb 08 edition of Handwoven magazine.)

The yarns sticking out are where I sewed the ends back in behind with the needle. I snip these tails off. It’s easier to pull the needle out through the fabric that to try to poke the weft ends down behind the tapestry.

Progress up the sides of the box. This is the FUN part! I am having a blast, and it is hard to tear myself away from it.

About the yarns: most of these yarns were given to me by a weaving teacher. Apparently what happened was that a student had wound the warp for a large rug, and then had abandoned the project. Once a warp is measured off, you can’t really wind it up again because it will become a terrible tangle. Since she knew that I weave tapestry and can use cut lengths of yarn, she gave it to me. I cut off the ends and wound the lengths into balls. I can’t remember how long this took, but I must’ve had the patience of Jesus to do it. The wool is very coarse and must have been hand dyed, because there are undyed or lightly dyed places where the ties on the yarn were too tight. This wool would probably have been thrown out had I not taken it.

One of the yarns is leftover from an old tapestry that I wove many years ago. I remember that I dyed it on the porch at Lake Waccamaw, during a week when I was at the lake without a car, phone, or TV, with only the company of our dog, Janet Planet. It rained buckets non-stop for days, to the point that the rainwater rose up through the kitchen floor, the house having been built directly on top of a cement slab. It was one of the best weeks of my life.

This is an example of Slow Cloth, which I’ve been thinking about a lot, and will eventually post about. I’m thrilled that fiber artists are extending the philosophy from the Slow Movement to cloth. Of course, many of us always have, but I never thought of it in those words. How perfect!