My newest tapestry...a beginning

I have been working with Pat Williams since November. I have been weaving for almost four years now, but have a woefully small number of tapestries to show for it. The last four years have been busy…my daughter was born and now has started her first year of preschool and my son is in first grade, I lost both my parents whom both died at home with hospice care, and just life that goes along with being a parent of small children. Anyway, I have only woven small tapestries on a lap loom. This year I found a Shannock loom for sell on the web and I bought it. Pat and I decided that I should stretch myself and weave a bigger tapestry. I searched for lots of subjects.

I have a small cheap digital camera that I bought when I was looking for a new horse. It has come in handy, and my kids love it. They love to take photos and sometimes they surprise me with their photos, although many of them are of thumbs, close-ups of legos, blurry pictures of the dog, … However, I found one of a bucket in our sand box and it really called to me.

I took this photo, and after many sketches I came up with this one.

I wove a sample with a mixture of Appleton wool and Brown Paper Packages silk/wool blend.

I am almost ready to start weaving. I took my sketch and copied it onto vellum. Now I have to figure out how I am going to represent the colors in the various areas, simply by coloring them, or just calling them out by number or name. Hmmmm, I am still thinking about this.

Meanwhile, I figured out my sett and warped the loom with a few too many warp threads, then a too few, now I have the number just right and I am working on the selvedge at the bottom. It is supposed to be a table loom, but I am afraid the kids will pull the heavy thing over onto their heads, so I have it sitting on the floor and just sit cross-legged on the floor with my dog, and weave. It suits me, I have never really been one who likes to sit in a chair with my feet straight (which also makes it hard for me to correct my son’s wiggles and squirms in his chair at dinner—“Sit straight” doesn’t quite ring true when my legs are sprawled out to the side of the table.)

The rain has cleared, and the kids have gone to school. I need to go out and work my silly horse. We both need the exercise. After Oliver's second day of work at home again , (He just came home from being away for the last 7 months after breaking my arm), he was really trying. The first day he was angelic. Day 2 of work, he refused to trot, and after a couple of discussions gave in, and then it took 10 minutes of work to get a good trot. He then refused to canter, and started bucking. Now that I have broken my arm and have a family to take care of, I don't have the nerve I once did. I used to ride pretty much any horse. Now, I want to have fun, but don't want to injure myself again. We had another little discussion, and then he finally came around to my way of thinking and cantered nicely both directions.