Miniature Tapestry

I have mounted my three miniature tapestry pieces onto the screen I made in our laser cutting sessions.  I am not all that happy with it as the frames are a little chunky for a doll's house and the weaving is not that exciting - the colours are not great and the geometric design I chose was not ideal for the medium although the angle of the different screens can disguise some of the differences.
I used DMC 6 strand embroidery thread on a seine twine of 6, 4wpc.  The cotton slides around on the warp a little, allowing me to make the geometric stripes match a little better.  The screens are the same proportion as the largest of the screens I posted about previously.
However, I have learnt from my mistakes, I hope.  If I do another small set like this I will try for a more forgiving design.

I have been looking around at what are called miniature tapestries and have found that mine are really quite small, they are approximately 6cm x 3.75 cm each.  I will think about doing future ones for the doll's house sizes again, I like that they have that 1/12th size restriction.
Some of the other miniatures I have seen are 20cm x 10cm, so I think my case moth might also fit into the category, not that I need to be categorising my pieces.  I am going on to do more tapestry weaving next semester and am inspired by some of the blogs I am finding around the place.  I get quite a few links from my life is but a tapestry.

What a difference a monitor makes!

I was at campus in Brunswick today and had a look at my blog, looking for a link to one of my favourite blogs (my life is but a tapestry, K Spoering), and was amazed at how bright the tree in my previous post came up.  It was much more like the real thing than my monitor is showing at home.
This is indicative of one of the problems we have been having in our course, the difference between the colours we paint with, what it scans like, what it looks like on different computers and then how it prints out.  It has been an exercise in patience and just learning to be a little bit relaxed about our designs.

sunset colours on tree

Yesterday the lemon scented gum that is next door had the most amazing colours on it as the sun was setting.  The pictures don't quite do it justice, the colour was quite strong and orangey.  If you were to see a painting of it you would say it was a ridiculous colour to paint.  Amazing to see the colours tinting the pale bark.

The forecast high winds seem to be just arriving and I am not looking forward to trying to sleep under the tree.

Rings around the moon

Recently a friend and I went to Warburton for a weekend of tapestry weaving.  We were trying to catch up with the work required by our course.  We had a lovely time, we could probably have done more if we had not been together but we certainly enjoyed ourselves.
One night we saw a magnificent ringed moon.  We were also practising with her borrowed camera and were able to take this photo.
She is thinking of buying a similar camera and we were impressed with it - it is not an SLR but takes good photos anyway.  We had to put it on a very slow shutter speed, so used a 2 second delay so we wouldn't be touching the camera when it actually opened the lens.

Case Moth Tapestry Finally Mounted

Is it almost time to hand in our tapestry work as we are fast approaching the end of the first semester.  I have finally mounted my case moth.  I decided to keep it simple and have used foam core board with a photo I took of some bark stuck to it.  The foam core board is A4 size.

I may decide to remount it later but this is how I am going to hand it in.  I am quite happy with it.

36 covers for one book!

I am reading The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracey Chavelier, and decided to put it on my LibraryThing - which I have never really engaged with properly.  But I was amazed to see that it has thirty-six covers!!!  Here is a link to see them all.
I am reading it because one of the ladies in my tapestry class has lent it to me.  I am struggling with it a bit as I am finding all the different points of view hard to read.  Each chapter is written in the first person but  is from the viewpoint of a different character.  However, there is some fascinating information about tapestry weaving in the story.
I remember reading a book by Roberta Gellis that had a main character who was a tapestry weaver.  I will have to read it again and see how my newfound knowledge of tapestry weaving affects my reading of it.
It is a very long time since I have read it and I seem to remember that it had some element of fantasy in it as the weaving had some relation to the future in it.  All very vague, I know.  But it is a long time since I have read it.  The book is called A Tapestry of Dreams and was published in 1985.  I think I may have read it that long ago!
I know I loved some of Roberta Gellis' books but this was not one of my favourites.  My favourites were the Roselynd chronicles which had lots of historical research and gave a fascinating view of England in the time of King Stephen.

Rainbow Lorikeets

I have just been for a walk at Yarra Bend park and we got quite close to some rainbow lorikeets  (there are some beautiful pictures at this link).  They just sat in the branch above our heads and I was able to take a picture despite having to mess around with camera settings in the gathering dark. They were totally unfazed by two humans and a dog looking up at them.

I am considering doing another tapestry weaving of bark or a tree trunk, so I was pleased to get the picture of the tree they were in also.  I really love some of the eucalyptus barks, their colours can be amazing, not at all what you expect to see in tree bark.
I have finished the pieces I am going to hand in and have them sewn up, ready for mounting.  Now I have to work out how I want to do that.  Decisions, decisions.

Screen Print has been dominating my thinking this past week - we have to print a repeat length of the design we have come up with, as well as 4 colourways.  Those people who think tapestry weaving is slow and frustrating should take a good look at screen print!!  There is so much waiting around - and so much that can go wrong.  I will be very glad when I have printed the length and can relax again.