Monday 3 February 2014

Catching Up

The llamas have settled down, my son moved out, my daughter & boyfriend moved in.
They moved out, the year got busy, and then my son moved in again!!!

That's what happened to 2013.

In the middle of all that, the Black Pearl Textiles group of weavers had an exhibition at the Living Arts Space in the centre of Bendigo.
Of course the large tapestry 'Revolt' took pride of place.


This is 'us', and below is the tapestry with the original painting alongside.



Later in the year I started 'upgrading' a small tapestry frame I've had for many years. In fact I built it in a woodworking class as part of a weaving course back in 1984.

It was a basic timber frame, quite tall, which I clamp onto a table.





Here you can see the tensioning device I have added to the frame. I got 2 threaded rods and used them to suspend a dowel from the top of the frame.






Then I added a heddle bar support
 and the bar.

Due to the space between the top of the frame and the dowel, it is easy to warp with a continuous warp.






The next step is inking the design onto the warp using Drawing Ink and a special wide dipping pen. It's an old fashioned way of doing it but I like it as it is very quick and far more accurate than either using a marker pen or stitching the cartoon to the back of the tapestry.


I am weaving this one sideways as it has a lot of verticals in it.

You'll see more next post (I promise it won't take so long next time!)

9 comments:

  1. I like your new loom! Looks very neat! Happy weaving!!!

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  2. Thank you Vera, Happy weaving to you, as well.

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  3. Your large tapestry is beautiful! I really enjoyed your blog post too!

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    1. I can't take credit for the tapestry design, as it was from a painting of my mother's. But thankyou for the comments.

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  4. I'm doing something similar for my Crsip sttudent loom... took another frame that has holes for the dowel/heddle holder and hope to have it set up later today, including photos.

    How far from the uprights will your dowel be? Mine will be around 6",,, hopefully Ii will get photos on my blog this weekend..

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    1. Hi Jessica,
      The heddle bar is about 4 inches out from the uprights, but when I do the heddles, they hang down about 6".

      Let me know your blog address, I would like to see what you have done.

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  5. The magic heddle that my loom came with won't move easily with a tight warp...that is why I decided to try another way to change sheds...

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  6. Revolt is gorgeous! Congratulations!

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  7. Very professional upgrade of the loom - unlike my rough woodwork. Looks as if it will be very easy to use the heddles. Great.

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