Hawaii in January

This is the tapestry that I have been working on this past month for a Christmas present for my son, Gabe, and daughter-in-law, Amy. They got married on October 1 and went on a honeymoon to Maui. They sent me some of the photos of their trip and I thought it would be fun to use one of the photos to work up a cartoon for a tapestry and weave that for them as a remembrance.

It is 11" wide and about 9" long and all handspun, hand dyed weft. I used a commercial wool warp sett at 8 epi. It was so much fun weaving the sky and sea! I was always imagining how warm it was there and in contrast to how cold it was here.

It has taken me awhile to get my weft just the right thickness and the amount of twist for the sett that I like using but I feel like I have perfected that yarn for my use. Most of the time I blend several colors on the drumcarder so that there is variation of colors in the yarn and I enjoy seeing this come up randomly in the weaving. These extra little flashes of color seem to add depth to the weaving.

Gabe came to visit for a few days after Christmas and we gave the tapestry to him and he seemed to like it. He recognized the photo it was from. It is hanging in their apartment with the New York City tapestry he asked me to weave him earlier this year.

This new year, I'm off to a pretty decent start. I'm warping the loom with an afghan of many deep purples and blues so it has a very mysterious, shimmery look to it. The weave is a 4H waffle weave so it should be warm and cozy too. Hopefully I can get the loom all ready to weave this afternoon. I've knitted 3 pairs of socks on the sock knitter these last couple of days also and am sorting through some fleeces to spin up the yarn for some more afghans and blankets.