Last year, I wove a series of tapestries that I call, ‘The Fabula Figures’.
Fabula means ‘story’ in Latin… and each of the Fabula Figures is about the power of story.
The one in the photo below is called ‘Fabula Figure: The Storyteller’ and is about 44 inches tall.
She’s one of the later figures in the series.
I had woven a few prototypes for the series before January of 2017, but I really committed to the series on January 1 of 2017, and I haven’t stopped weaving them.
10 of the Fabula Figure tapestries are part of the ‘Faconner’ show that I wrote about in the previous blog post.
Here’s a little video of the Fabula Figures that I wove from January 1 – September 30, 2017:
The flu knocked me for a loop, and as I have been slowly pulling myself out of it, I haven’t had much energy, so my blog has slipped off the rails.
I did want to mention, however, that I made a video about cutting up garments to upcycle them by weaving or knitting with the fabric strips.
In early October, my son in law’s step-dad passed away.
This was, of course, very hard on our grandson.
I talked with him about what it meant to him to have his ‘other’ grampa (not my husband) pass away.
I asked him if he needed something of his grampa’s to hold onto, and he said yes.
So, I asked for a couple of Bill’s shirts so I could make comfort critters with them.
I cut them up and wove them into kittys, as that was what my grandson asked for, so he has one, and other family members have them too. (I didn’t photograph all of them).
I also knitted a teddy bear for one of our relatives, as he is definitely a teddy bear guy 🙂
The bear and kittys have been well received and they do carry the love that went into every stitch of making them.
I’ve done this before, and have found that ‘compassion critters’ made from upcycled clothing of a dear one is very comforting for people in grief.
Every little thing helps….
Here’s the video:
The woven kitties and knitted bear are made from the following patterns:
I have always loved mermaids, and I am totally addicted to weaving mermaids these days.
I’ve made a video showing how I used my Mermaid pattern on etsy to weave Mermaids of different sizes on peg looms.
I took the original Mermaid that looked like this for the pattern:
And added a wooden face, leather hands, a little tatting, and a seashell:
She was woven on 1/4 inch diameter weaving sticks and is about 11 or 12 inches tall.
Also woven on the 1/4 inch diameter weaving sticks is this Mermaid, woven with hand spun art yarn and needle felted:
The same etsy pattern can be used to make totally different mermaids by changing the size of pegs or weaving sticks used and different thicknesses of yarns.
I used the smallest pegs on my 6 inch peg loom to weave the smallest Mermaid, who’s about 7 or 8 inches tall.
She’s woven on the 1/8th inch pegs.
The Mermaid woven with the 3/8 inch pegs is about 20 inches tall:
I did some geometric pattern weaving in her body, but it’s a little hard to see in this pic.
I used 2 strands of a very bulky chenille yarn held together to weave the largest Mermaid, who is around 28 inches tall.
When I was weaving the different sizes, I did tweak the pattern somewhat to adjust for the differences in the size of the pegs and thickness of the yarns.
Here’s the link to the pattern in my etsy shop: LINK
(sorry – it’s not free)
Happy weaving and happy Mermaiding!
My book: Peg Looms and Weaving Sticks is available from all your favorite online book sellers, and can be ordered through your local book store. It’s full of weaving yes-ness!
I made a video tutorial showing how to weave on every other nail on the triangle loom when weaving with bulky yarns.
This creates an open lacy weave that drapes beautifully.
The shawl was woven on the 7 foot Dewberry Ridge Triangle loom,using super bulky yarn made by spinning together cotton threads with knitting machine and lace weight yarns.
The every other nail technique also works fine when 2 or 3 strands of medium or fine yarns are held together as if they are a single strand.
This is a very quick and easy way to weave a soft and drapey shawl.
The shawl in the video is a prayer (compassion) shawl made for a dear friend when she lost her Dad.
She loves the shawl, so I am pleased, because of course, I want her to feel that there is love in every stitch and that she can wrap herself in that love whenever she needs it.
Details: I spun a super bulky yarn by combining 7 strands of very fine crochet cotton and knitting machine boucle yarn- cotton and acrylic, on a bulky head spinner. The wpi is 5 wraps per inch. I plied it so it is 14 strands thick.
When someone on facebook asked if it was possible to weave tapestry on triangle looms, I thought: ‘Great question!’
and then … ‘Of course it is!’
and then….’I have to try it to see if it really is!’
I had been mulling over weaving a new Mermaid tapestry for quite awhile, and had woven narrow bands on my Structo 4 harness loom as well as my rigid heddle box loom, to start.
I had a big ‘aha!’ about weaving the rest of the mermaid using my 14 inch triangle loom from Dewberry Ridge Looms. LINK
Because there are a few things to know about weaving tapestry on a triangle loom, I made a short video as part of the video about the Blue Butterfly Mermaid tapestry – it’s close to the end of the video.
I used other looms to weave the other elements of the tapestry: a hexagon woven in copper wire on the Lily Speed o Weave Loom, narrow bands woven on the 4 harness vintage Structo loom, narrow bands woven on a rigid heddle box loom, 2 small triangles woven on the 7 inch Lil Weaver loom from Dewberry Ridge Looms and some tatting.
The hair is twisted cord made with a cord twister from Lacis.com.
The metallic threads used in the tapestry are from Kreinik. LINK
This Mermaid has been tapping me on the shoulder for months, asking to be woven, so I made a plan.
I carefully chose my colorways when I was making all the ‘how to’ videos on the hexagon loom, (see previous posts) so that I could use them to build a Mermaid tapestry.
And, here she is: Sophia is her name:
She’s about 44 inches tall.
She includes techniques for weaving tapestry technique, mandala (tapestry woven in the round), Teneriffe and floral motifs on hexagon looms as well as a little help from the Vasilisa and Mollie Whuppie looms.
The glittery narrow band that outlines her body was woven on my little narrow band rigid heddle loom, using Kreinik metallic threads.
This tapestry is a one of a kind piece, and there are no patterns for her.
My friend asked me to please photograph the process of how I was weaving the mermaid tapestry, so I have – although I was well into the project by the time I started the photographing.
Anyhow- here’s a video showing glimpses of the hundreds of hours I put into weaving Sophia, the Mermaid, tapestry:
