Tapestry Diary – 7 Weeks

I’ve been working on my tapestry diary for 7 weeks now. One day a few weeks ago, I was having a really lousy day, and when I realized I still had my diary entry to look forward to, it was such a relief.

Sometimes I find myself wondering if I’ll get bored weaving the same shape every single day, but I always find some new variation.

Of course, there are the special days when I get to weave a symbol or text, like this Valentines Day heart. (Which is lavender, by the way, but for some reason, it turned out blue in this photo)

Then I decided to try Peter Collingwood’s horizontal lines, made by using 2 colors of weft in the same shed. It’s on page 98 of his classic book The Techniques of Rug Weaving. The chapter is “One-Shuttle Techniques,” and the section is “Twisted Wefts.”

When weaving with 2 colors of weft in the same shed, they can either form specks, or they can form very straight horizontal lines, unlike the wavy lines you get by weaving 1 pass each of two different colors (as you can see just below). It shows up much better with contrasting colors, but I used lavender and white. And in fact, I used 1 strand of white, with 2 strands of lavender.

I’m planning to do some more of this. It’s a technique I learned 30 years ago, but have not really used, other than to make a perfectly straight line. It would be fun to use it, as Collingwood describes, to form a design by twisting the weft to produce spots in one area and stripes in another.

Some days, I really enjoy the serenity of just weaving a solid color.

I am weaving this diary using only scraps from previous tapestries.

My mother was a rug hooker, and I have one of her scrap rugs in the studio. It’s not her original design, but it is her color scheme.

She reversed it from dark background with light squiggles, to a light background with colored squiggles.

Mom was well known for her excellent color sense, and her very fine, very even hooking. This rug is one of my favorites.