TAPESTRY LOOMS VERSUS JUST GETTING ON WITH IT.

Thought I would write a quick note on looms for the job as I forgot how many people over the years have told me that they haven't had a go at tapestry technique yet because they don't have the right loom to get going. I do not own a specific tapestry loom. The looms I have are adequate for weaving the size of work I have been producing thus far.

My work in the main, is woven on any one of my 3-4 looms which are 2-shaft, peddle operated, upright looms. They are all well and truly pre-loved and wonderfully functional. A new and larger specifically tapestry loom would be fantastic, but is not imperative for actually producing a hand woven tapestry.

The first loom I ever wove a tapestry on was a chunky 4-shaft rug loom. Not so hot on the neck muscles, but adequate never the less to decide if I was interested in producing more tapestries or not, and determine what my future comfort needs were likely to be.

WEAVING AND WELL-BEING

"The Forgotten Fruit Years." My last Exhibition
held in Devonport at The Depot,  March 2008.

For the last 5 weeks I have been unable to weave at all due to some hideous un-diagnosed muscle pain problem. I will be seeing my doctor again this week to say that I am very grateful for the 800!!!! odd pain relief tablets prescribed, and will agree the advice that I was over-doing things was a good excuse to do NOTHING for a fortnight, but I really would like to get back onto the loom... THANKYOU.

I have so much to get up and going for various exhibitions, including my own. The last exhibition took a years weaving and planning and I am now down to 6 months weaving for the next one I am having in June next year in the Communnity Gallery of the Franklin Arts & Cultural Learning Trust .

Luckily the pieces are all very small and are being woven with the title of the exhibition..... Woven Tapestry Fragments... in mind.

So to all you weavers who have had a forced absence from the loom through lack of health at any time in your career, I now know the horror and frustration that our own frailties can have on our art practice. 
The wonderful flip side of this of course, is that the drawing and planning activities involved with creating our hand woven work gets extra special attention, forcing/allowing us much more time for planning and re-working our  ideas and designs. This in turn can only mean a much more resolved and therefore stronger end design. 

Portriat weaving "Evad" hangs between "Matariki Through Window Arches"
Invitation by Gallery to exhibit at Franklin Arts & Cultural LearningTrust 2010.

Close-up of weaving and hand-stitched detail in Window Arches shown above.

E.P.I. EXPLAINED

Ends per inch or e.p.i. are used to indicate the number of warps (vertical threads) that the tapestry weaving is woven onto for every inch you measure across the completed work.
For example the rug you can see being woven on the loom here is set at approximately 5 e.p.i. This means that for every inch across the entire horizontal row of the warp threads there are 5 vertical threads. This is referred to as a low warp.

It also means that creating vertical lines in this particular rug design should be avoided as much as possible. The low number of e.p.i. will always dictate the limitations of the end design.