Tapestry Weaving Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Kelly Casanova Weaving Lessons

Tapestry weaving is something I like to do just sometimes, when the mood takes me. Well, the mood did take me recently and I decided to follow one of my favourite themes that I haven’t really explored yet – House on a hill, by the sea.

I wanted to do just small tapestries, as I planned on doing several variations on the one theme, and as a tapestry is a time investment, I thought the smaller, the better. I also have a soft spot for little things.

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I warped my Sampleit loom with Ashford tapestry cotton, which is my go to tapestry warp. I used a 7.5 dent heddle/reed because that is the only size I have for the Sampleit, but a 10 – 12.5 dent heddle/reed would be preferable.

Each tapestry measures approximately 3.5″ X 4″.

Tapestry 1 was woven with scraps from my stash bag. My very messy, tangly stash bag! It has smaller pieces or balls of all sorts of yarns from past projects, but mostly fingering to worsted weight.
Incorporated into this piece are pieces of wool, cotton, bamboo, silk, alpaca and some unidentified freebie from long ago.

For Tapestry 2 I was going for a “twilight” look, so I chose a limited colour palette of greens, blues, greys and muted colours.

Tapestry 3 was woven entirely with 8/2 size weaving thread in cotton and cottolin. I also chose a muted colour palette for this one.
It ended up being my favourite of the three, I like the look of the finer yarn and details. It took a good deal longer to weave due to the thin yarn, but it was so relaxing, I didn’t mind at all!

I plan to do a couple more little tapestries on this warp, but they will have to wait until I have a bit more time.

A book that really helped me get started with tapestry is Tapestry Weaving by Kirsten Glasbrook. It is not a highly detailed book, which I think makes it great for beginners. She shows the basic techniques, gives projects for you to try and then later there are examples of her own work in a gallery. I have had this book for years and still refer back to it for information and inspiration.

Rebecca Mezoff has a detailed book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving which is also a terrific resource.

Tommye Scanlin’s book Tapestry Design Basics and Beyond is a great book, but if you’re just starting out in tapestry, I would go with the either both or one of the above to begin with.