Finally! I have something to share. The Spring was fairly productive – but around the house not so much in the area of weaving. Then the Summer was just really busy for many reasons. Finally the end of Summer and Fall has arrived and I’ve had time to play.
Earlier in the year I had this crazy idea to sign up for the American Tapestry Association (ATA) Postcard Exchange. You can read all about it on their site, and soon you will be able to see all the tapestries other artists created. They paired you up with another weaver so you could get to know a little about the person that would be getting your creation. We were to create a postcard size tapestry that told a little something about yourself.
I think they must have gone in ABC order since I was paired with a fellow Thompson… but she spells hers funny without the P. We had fun exchanging emails and learning about each other as we designed and wove our postcards.
Doing the design was a challenge since I had never really done anything that was supposed to look like something. So far I’ve only done shapes and designs. For this one I wanted to try to make it look like specific things. As you can see farther down there is lots of room for improvement, but overall I’m happy with the final piece.
First step – Figure out my design. I knew it had to have the state flag and a gun since I like to shoot. Then what else about Texas other than the bluebonnet and the rolling hills where they grow wild. Now to get that in a design that fits in a 5×7 piece.
Now that I have my design I need to pick out my colors. I use Weaver’s Bazaar Fine so I can blend my colors. After picking my colors I turned the photo to Black/White to make sure I had enough range in value… I had to make a few adjustments.
Now to start weaving. First – warp the loom and start putting in the border. This loom is narrow so I will be weaving the piece on it’s side.
Now for the fun of weaving. Here are a few photos in progress.
Finally finished.
And it is ready to mail. C. Thomson and I agreed we would not be mailing it as is. ATA wanted you to put a stamp on the back and put it through the mail for all to enjoy. However, we both agreed that was way too much work to chance getting dirty or damaged along the way. So it went in a photo mailer to keep it safe.
