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:
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”.
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!)
As part of my ongoing participation in a year long weave along of tapestry diaries, I am weaving small images for my Woven Women show of tapestries and other woven works.
I have just finished 2 new tiny woven pieces – they were both on the same loom, so I had to finish the second one so I could cut them both off the loom and finish them.
And, here they are: (They are each 11 inches tall).
I am making plaster frames for the series of 3 inch by 5 inch tapestries, and have started experimenting with how I will be painting them…. right now, the first one looks like a black blob, so there’s not much point in photographing it, but I will soon.
Weaving the tapestry diary pieces is just pure joy. 🙂
I am working on some larger pieces, too. Must take some photos….
Even though I haven’t been posting about my solo show of tapestries and woven works (Woven Women) that is opening in August 2014 (eep…. tick tock, tick tock…. eep), I have been working away on new pieces for it.
I noticed that the Tapestry weaving group on Ravelry (the facebook of the fibre arts world) is having a weave along in which people are weaving ‘Tapestry Diaries’.
That means that they are weaving daily, weekly or monthly, on pieces that reflect their lives in those given moments.
I have wanted to do this for several years, but just have never started one…. until, the other day, I had an ‘Aha!’ moment.
I have been contemplating a series of small woven figures- I’ve woven the faces for them, but haven’t started the bodies.
It struck me that weaving the bodies for these figures would work beautifully as a Tapestry Diary.
I got all excited about doing this, and then took the plunge and asked the moderator if I could join, even if I am late to the party.
She graciously said that I could, and so I am!
I love that the online community creates ‘Virtual Guilds’ with members from all over the planet inspiring and encouraging each other. It’s just awesome.
I decided to warp up my 8 inch Mirrix tapestry loom to get started, but I can see that I may want to warp up my 16 inch Mirrix for this, too.
Some people choose to weave very specific shapes in their tapestry diaries, like little squares or rectangles, that are quite uniform in size.
I have decided that my shape is going to be one that I have loved working with over the decades.
It’s an hourglass motif that has shown up in embroidery, weaving, stitchery, stone and metal work for thousands of years.
It’s sometimes called. ‘The Shepherdess’ motif.
I did a bunch of drawings, until I was happy with a very simple, basic shape that I think will give me lots of options for experimenting with color and pattern. Of course, I have no idea how they will turn out. 🙂
I chose to weave these figures in a fairly narrow configuration- only 3 inches wide, set at 8 ends per inch.
Here’s my loom warped up, heddled, and with the first little bit woven.
My wee grandson does not like it when I make a doll or weave a tapestry that has closed eyes, or no face.
He frowns and says to me: “She can’t see me! Open her eyes!”
I think I have internalized his demand to ‘Open her eyes!’, because the other morning, I woke up, after dreaming about my large Singing Mermaid tapestry, and heard, you guessed it: Open her eyes!
And so, The Singing Mermaid from my Woven Women series- see here LINK for previous post about her:
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay
has opened her eyes – with the help of my felting needles and some fleece:
The colors are looking slightly odd, but in real life, they are quite pleasing.
The Jasper Community Habitat for the Arts Gallery that will be hosting my ‘Woven Women’ show of tapestry and woven works is not on schedule with the construction.
So, the show will now be running from August 1, to Sept 9, 2014 in Jasper AB.
Several years ago, we bought a metal Ikea computer desk at the thrift store.
I didn’t like having half of the top attached at an angle.
So my beloved DH, Jim and I drilled some holes, took the angled section off and re-attached it so it was nice and flat.
I had passed the desk along to my daughter and her husband, and when they gave it back to me last week, I was inspired.
First, to make the desk a comfortable height for weaving, I cut 3 inches off the legs with a pipe cutter- whew!
That was HARD work!
I mulled over how to attach the loom to the top of the desk, as it was just a hare’s breath away from fitting properly.
I took the top apart and played with the sections to see if I could come up with a workable solution- and then- woohoo!
I discovered that the chanels for a sliding mouse pad section that were supposed to be on the under side of the desk top, fitted the crosspiece of the loom perfectly! Jubilation!
I zip tied the sides of the loom to the desk and was happy as a clam…..
except…. for the pesky owees of the tendons grizzling about the side levels, and my back spazzing out on me.
Hmmmmm…..
Inspiration! add lamms and treadles!
I started by cutting a support piece at the side, and bolting it to the side of the stand.
I used 2 angle brackets as the support for the lamms (with a little block to fill in excess space).
Then, I drilled holes in the lamms for cords to the levers and to the treadles.
I tied the lamms to the levers and was verrrrrrrry pleased! Things were moving along quite nicely!
There had to be a way of supporting and securing the treadles, so I used a board from an old pallet, and drilled 2 holes for the legs. Poifeck.
I had a 6 inch length of threaded 1/4 inch steel rod, which I ran through the treadles (which I had cut out of scrap lumber).
The treadles were too wide at first, so I cut dippsy doodles into them to make them fit better.
The most frustrating part of the whole process was finding nuts that would go onto the threaded rod. Grrrrrrrrr!
I finally ended up filing the ends of the rod, as I just couldn’t get anything to thread onto the rod. Once I did that, zip! on went 2 nuts, happy as can be.
I screwed the whole treadle mechanism to the crossboard on the floor, and tied the treadles to the lamms…..
and held my breath…… what if it didn’t work? eep….. that would have been 3 hours down the tubes….
BUT! Joy! and whee and halleujah! It works like a dream!
So, if you would like to have a floor loom, but don’t have the ca$h, watch for a table loom on the various online places, and convert a desk into a stand for it.
You’ll need to have some basic carpentry skills, and I couldn’t have managed drilling the holes through the sides of the treadles without a drill press, but I bet you could do it if you had to.
Here’s the video that I made about how to convert a computer desk into a loom stand with treadles:
Here are some notes to keep in mind if you would like to adapt my project for your table loom:
Things to look for in a desk or table that you want to use for a loom stand:
1: Being able to bolt or screw the lamm support piece along the left hand side of the table/desk legs is essential.
2: Being able to shorten the legs to drop the height of the table to a comfortable ergonomic height is also essential.
3: Being able to attach the loom to the table is one more essential. (Clamps? Zip ties? A channel like the one on mine was a piece of beautiful serendipity)
When I became a grandmother, I saw the world in a whole new way…. through the eyes of the butterfly…..
Seeing my grandson emerge, and witnessing him ‘spread his wings’ makes it so heartrendingly clear just how magical and fragile our precious world is.
In response, I wove this tapestry, which is a love song to my daughter and her son.
Becoming a grandmother means that I now sing a love song to all the tender new lives that we must nurture.
copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay
Tapestry: Woven Women-The Eyes of the Butterfly
by Noreen Crone-Findlay 2012-2013
approximately 14 inches wide by 36 inches tall
The yarn used in the tapestry is special to me for 2 reasons…. one is that most of it came from my mother’s collection of yarns, and the rest of it was spun by my beautiful daughter in love, Alliston Findlay.
My mother passed away recently, and one of the ways that I have been processing my grief is to take it to my looms and weave about it.
Because I am deeply focused on weaving tapestries and woven pieces for my solo show, ‘Woven Women’, it was natural that this weaving would take the form of a Woven Woman.
My mother suffered from a form of dementia, I have been feeling is how sweet it is for her to be released from that dreadful fog of confusion……..
And, so, I have woven a piece on my Saori loom with supplemental embellishment with my stick weaving loom, that I call:
“Out of the Mist”. She’s approximately 30 inches tall by about 10 inches wide at the widest point:
‘Out of the Mist’ by Noreen Crone-Findlay (c)
One of my close friends gave me a seashell instead of a card, and it felt natural to have it become part of this piece.
I made a Kumihimo cord and tied a Celtic everlasting knot, which is stitched to her forehead, but barely visible under her cowl.
Weaving this tribute brought me great peace and comfort, and I think that my Mom would like it a lot.
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