When we went on holidays in July, I took along 4 small looms- My Norwegian Cradle loom, my 8 inch Mirrix tapestry loom, my wee copper pipe loom and my tiny peg loom.
I warped up my Norwegian Cradle loom with fine cotton to weave a narrow band, using my Swedish double slotted rigid heddle.
The heddle is actually too wide for the Cradle loom, but oddly enough, this worked well in a quirky way.
I wove and wove and wove and wove as we drove for many, many days, with the Norwegian Cradle loom in my lap:
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay http://www.tottietalkscrafts.com
The cotton thread in the narrow band is in the same colors that I was using to weave the sampler for Part 2 of the online tapestry course offered by Rebecca Mezoff.
I knew that I wanted to have narrow bands as part of the figure that I was weaving, using the sampler as the body.
And here she is: Her name is:
“Small Bird Sang and All Was Forgiven”.
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay http://www.tottietalkscrafts.com
Her body is the sampler that includes the techniques that were covered in Part Two of the course.
I wove her arms separately, using techniques from Part 2 as well.
I have included driftwood from our beachcombing at the ocean, as well as found objects.
Her hands, head, feet and the archway panel are cut from Baltic birch plywood. (Lovely stuff!)
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay http://www.tottietalkscrafts.com
I burned the features with a wood burning tool, and then painted and embellished with encaustic.
She is 36 inches/90 cm tall.
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay http://www.tottietalkscrafts.com
I wove her body first, then re-warped the loom and wove the arms separately.
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay http://www.tottietalkscrafts.com
Her body and arms were woven on my 8 inch Mirrix tapestry loom, which I also took along on holidays, as it’s a fabulous little traveling loom.
Tottie Talks Crafts Blog 
Noreen you outdid yourself. This must be exquisite in person! I was assuming that it was tiny, then I saw it’s three feet tall! What a great way to put your little samplers from your class to use.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Diane! And, yes, she is quite narrow, but quite tall, too. think of the bodies of these figures as being abstract narratives of my journey through the classwork.
I have a pretty clear concept of what I will be doing with the piece once the classwork sampler is complete, so I warp according to that concept.
For ‘Edith’s Song’, which was my piece using the sampler from Part one, I warped long enough to have the arms integral to the body, and didn’t weave the central section where I joined the body to the wooden head.
With ‘Small Bird Sang and All Was Forgiven’, (the piece from Part Two), I knew that I wanted to weave the arms separately and stitch them on afterwards.
I knew that I was going to need a LOT of narrow band yardage, so I wove many yards on my double slotted Swedish Rigid Heddle, using cotton in colors that were as close as possible to what I was using in the sampler.
I cut the arch shape from plywood, and stitched the narrow band to it.
The narrow bands are also woven into slits in the sampler/body section, so I had to plan out where I wanted those to be, and to make appropriate size slits for the bands.
LikeLike
She is beautiful, I love her.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Quimper Hitty 🙂 She has many pieces of Victoria’s beaches included…. the driftwood all came from our strolls along the seaside. Bliss. Pure bliss.
LikeLike
Utterly, powerfully beautiful! And what a wonderful connection to have Victoria beach as part of her beauty.
LikeLike
You are one talented gal! Just fabulous. Rebecca is the best, too.
LikeLike
Thank you so much, Janet 🙂 And I agree, Rebecca is a delight!
LikeLike
Pingback: Upcycling a little box into a band loom | Tottie Talks Crafts Blog