The Sunset Tapestry

Last week I started a small tapestry to have on the loom at the show. The cartoon is from a drawing of a sunset I did that was very unusual. The sun was below the horizon so it there was a very bright fiery area just over the mountains. The sky over that was a deep periwinkle and then there was a band of brighter turquoise and then it got lighter and lighter blue as it went higher up. There were just a few high, wispy clouds zigzagging through the sky and those were bright yellows closer to the horizon and grading up to oranges as they were further away. A very stunning sight! This first tapestry that I finished this week is bright, brighter than I usually work, but I really like it. And I still like the cartoon so, today I am going to start another version of the same drawing. I want to weave it blending the colors a little more and abstracting it more also. Weaving tapestries in this small size is so freeing because experiments don't take months to finish. This warp is set up for 3 small tapestries and they might all be somewhat related to this one cartoon. I have never been able to work in series before but I am trying to learn to do this because I think it is the best way to develop an idea to the fullest.

Even though it seemed like the spinning was slow this summer, just plugging away at it, there is now a nice pile of fine, natural colored yarn ready to be dyed. The weather should be perfect next week to set out some crockpots for dyeing in the back yard. I love to dye and always look forward to having enough yarn to do it. There are still a lot of natural colored carded batts to go and I have a lot of the colors I dyed in the spring, still waiting to be spun up. The fine yarn I use for inkle bands for bags just takes a long time to spin but I am slowly building up a nice color palette. I like to chose finished yarns rather than dye them at the time I'm designing the weaving.