Another longterm project finished...

After learning to weave a tapestry four years ago while my daughter was an infant, I have finally finished the series of tapestries that I began. I started with a sampler, and then I moved on to a series of persimmons. I had taken a photograph of five persimmons in various stages of ripening. I had first thought I would knit a sweater based on the photograph, but then when I saw Joan Griffin’s class on tapestry weaving I got other ideas. I took a series of lessons from her, and then I embarked on a process of weaving these persimmons. At first I thought I would weave five of the persimmons in various phases of ripening. But, I wove my first and it was rather more like a diamond than a circle, and had poor color representation. So, I began again. The second persimmon was better, but I still was not happy. I began a third tapestry, but this time I worked on the yellow or golden persimmon. I was finally happy with my result. Next, I wove yet another green persimmon. Finally, I wove an orange persimmon. I did end up weaving five persimmons, but was only happy with three of them.

So, here I am with three very traditional 5X5” tapestries. My husband and I like modern art. What am I going to do with these tapestries? I had a few ideas: build multi-layer shadow boxes out of wood and stain them a light green, or mount them with painted canvasses. My fiber arts group liked the last idea. So, I have spent the last two weeks painting canvasses. Yesterday, I joined them altogether and hung the piece. My husband likes it. Earth colors are not his favorite pallet, and after painting and weaving for the last four years, I have changed the pallet in which I work. So, I now tend to work with brighter colors. However, that said, I still think the piece turned out pretty well. And of course, the next piece I am working on, the sandpail in the sand box has a lot of gold in it, but it also has purple, red and pink.

Anyway, I am really happy to have these pieces finished and mounted. Now, I feel like I can move on to other subjects. But now that I have said that, I still have two persimmon pieces to finish. I started a triptych with one weaving of a green persimmon, one small quilt piece, and then a paper collage piece. I mounted them but then when I saw them altogether, I decided that I did not like the paper collage piece. I decided to embroider a green persimmon to replace the paper one. So, now I am in the midst of embroidering yet another persimmon. Finally, I have a painting with persimmons hanging from a branch that I need to finish. After these two pieces are done, I WILL BE DONE WITH MY PERSIMMON PERIOD. Yeah!

I haven’t been able to ride for two days. My silly horse has a tendency to roll into fences. For some silly reason, he lays down to close to the fence, rolls over and gets his legs stuck. Low and behold, he came in yesterday morning with two huge scrapes on his leg and with it swollen. He had rolled into the fence during the night. It seems after doing this 3 or 4 times and really scraping up his leg he would figure it out. My husband just laughed and said, “well, I always thought horses were a little dull…”