Sarah (🧶 + 👩‍💻 + 🎨)

@gliful.bsky.social

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Software person who wishes they could just be doing crafts like #tapestryweaving & #printmaking instead. Likes tinkering with things. London, UK. All opinions are my own- there’s only me to blame.

A small tapestry using white and purple yarn in stripes. Different stripes use either 4 strand of yarn as weft to weave between individual warp threads, or use 8 strands of yarn to weave between groups of 2 warp threads. The transitions between the sections are either a line of soumak (top, bottom) or there is no special handling of the transition and live show as a result (centre).
An in-progress tapestry weaving that has weft made of predominantly white yarn, with a small section of yellow and black warp showing. The white yarn is used in different ways to creat distinct textures in the surface- areas where the weft is doubled and spans warp threads two-at-a-time, soumak using doubled weft, and regular soumak.
A close-up of plants near the river bank of the Nile. Various shades of green, blue, and cream are used to depict several distinct types of plant. The fact individuals leaves are outlined, instead of treating the plant as a single shape, shows just how much work has gone into this small section
‘Fields and Village on the Nile’ by Mahrous Abdou shows the river Nile passing across the tapestry, with lush green plants growing on the river banks. People tend to crops, wash clothes in the river, and sit together in the shade of trees. Further away from the river bank the colours shift from lush greens and blues to dry and hot-looking yellows. There are dunes in the distance where people ride camels, and on the far side there’s a village that’s under a hot red sun that’s surrounded by flame-like rays.
The tapestry ‘At the length of a season: blood ghost’. Two black silhouetted figures carry a long length of wood above their heads, with a dead buck tied by its ankles to the wood between them. Superimposed over the buck is a faint red silhouette of a person who is also strung up to the wood by their wrists and ankles. It’s an eerie ghost, as if the buck being carried is echoing a past misjustice.
A zoomed in photo of the pig’s face from ‘Prodigal’. The white shape of the pig contains thin blue lines to indicate where an ear, mouth, and nostrils are
The tapestry weaving ‘Prodigal’ shows an abstract landscape with a figure and a pig stood before a far-off horizon that features a burning red sun that’s slipping below the horizon. The black silhouetted figure is poised to strike the pig with an upheld knife, which is equally red hot as the sun. The pig is stood calmly by the figure, unaware of its fate. It’s unclear if the scene is a violent killing about to happen or a ritualistic sacrifice, laden with meaning.
Diedrick Brackens’s weaving ‘If you have ghosts’. A black silhouette stands tall with arms and legs spread out. They contrast strongly against the background that contains areas of bright white, shocking pink, and more muted mauve and purple. A the shape of a bridge is in the background, and the central figure in the foreground has a transparent tornado-like shape overlaying it. Shapes like feathers are scattered across the scene. The image looks mystical, and both chaotic and peaceful to me. This may be fitting, as the title ‘having ghosts’ alludes to having a connection to the past, both good and bad.
A small tapestry sample showing a beige-y grey background with overlapping squares of muted yellow and purple/grey, as well as more saturated squares of yellow. The sample sits on a page in a notebook that has notes about the colours used.
A hand holding up a small, hand painted painted glass diamond containing a painting of a cosmos flower. The glass is a pale yellow and surrounded by lead came.
Two tapestry weavings that both depict a white man with pink round glasses, beard and moustache, and a yellow T-shirt under a dark jacket. The tapestry at the top has a higher level of detail due to being woven at 12 ends per inch, versus the bottom tapestry woven at 8epi.
A photo of the exhibition catalog for ‘Tadek Beutlich : Innovations in Textile & Print’. The background photo shows thick bundles of dried grass that have been wrapped in red/orange/yellow wool to form many fat, sausage-like forms that are crowded together.
A photo showing a bright green wall with a baton of wood stuck to it with a command strip. The baton has some velcro stapled to its front. A tapestry, that has velcro sewn along the back of its top section, is hanging from the velcro on the baton and is otherwise unattached to the wall.
A photo of the reverse of the tapestry in my original post from this thread. The ends of the tapestry -aka headers- have been folded back and sewn flat against the back of the tapestry. There are no loose warp ends because they were secured to the back of the warp-as-weft section of the header using a sewing machine, and then were trimmed short.
The 50p building in Croydon. AKA No,1 Croydon
A small A5 paper-sized tapestry made of abstract blocks of colour and patterns in shades of green, pink and some deep brown or deep green areas of near-black colours. I intended the shapes to be abstract but also interpretable as the bold shapes on the front of a brutalist building, such as the 50p building in Croydon, UK.
Three small ‘sampler’ tapestries of the same design showing light green diamonds repeating over a mid green background. Inside each diamond is a smaller dark green diamond. At least, they’re meant to be diamonds. They all look a bit squishy and don’t have crisp edges and angles!
A zoomed in photo of a tapestry that shows two slits, sections of the tapestry were two warps aren’t connected by weft for a long enough section of the tapestry so a gap is present in the tapestry. One slit’s sides are close together due to being sewn up, and the other shows some slight gaps due to not being sewn. I personally thought it was good enough as the sides naturally sat close together.
Down on the floor, an MDF board with a small tapestry nailed to the surface. Four nails in the four corners of the tapestry pull it taught, ready for wet finishing. Nearby on the floor is a hammer and a small bag of brass nails
Lucid Blue lives up to its name. The blues are luxurious like in a peacock feather. The tapestry looks like it’s two or three tapestries super imposed on each other. The solid dark blue at the top and the bright turquoise at the bottom appear to interleave with each other throughout the middle section, which looks like several striped, overlapping feathers.
??? by Silvia Heyden - this tapestry was much larger than others on display and had a simpler colour palette. The mid oranges, blues, purples, yellows, and dusty reds are striped together throughout the tapestry. Some areas have highly contrasting colours striped together, and other areas are slightly more muted. For me, this was a tapestry were the interest was in getting close to see how different sections were made. The overall tapestry didn’t photograph well due to how the colour values don’t vary much across the abstract design
A photo of the tapestry ‘Sottovento’ by Silvia Heyden. It’s an abstract tapestry made of various wedges and stripes of colours, with no part of the tapestry being a solid colour. There are: light pinks, taupes, creams and beiges predominantly in the bottom right; the bottom left shoes mid and dark blues sat next to contrasting stripes of beige; and the section leads up towards the centre of the piece where the juxtaposed strips of colour trend towards being darker and featuring mostly blues, purples and blacks. There are infrequent chunks of bright orange, which gives the impression of a few autumn leaves flowing on a wavy water surface which is catching sunlight in its ripples
A photo of the tapestry ‘Undulations’ by Silvia Heyden. The tapestry is roughly square and includes swirling shapes of blue, white, cream, iand grey yarn. Due to the ‘wedge weaving’ technique used by Heyden there are several diamond or teardrop shaped area of colour that are all packed together, with wavy, organic changes in colour connecting them all. The overall effect is reminiscent of the water at a surface of a river; numerous small waves all close together resulting in dense reflections and refractions of light close together.
A photo of the tapestry sample on the frame. The tapestry is made with bright yellow wool and has a large triangle of cardboard sat in the warps to allow the tapestry to be woven with no warp in that area. The yellow wool of the tapestry, from top to bottom, makes a 45 degree slope from the right hand side to the left, and then a 45 degree slope from left to right. Those two 45 degree angles are important for the final 90 degree turn in the sample ;)
A photo showing a small, yellow tapestry that has been made to include a 90 degree bend using the pulled warp technique. Nearby on the table next to the tapestry is a photocopied image of the tapestry before the warps were pulled. The image shows that the tapestry was woven as a straight tapestry with a large triangular area that was kept free of warp. As that triangle is closed by pulling the warp the tapestry bends and forms a right anguled turn
A photo showing the panel from my opening post. There’s a valley in the distance, trees that silhouette against the sky in the midground, and bright pink flowers and green vines in the foreground that flank a small stream that’s coming from the valley.
A stained glass panel showing an angel holding an unravelled scroll saying “Holy, Holy, Holy”, with their wings outstretched. She is looking upwards towards the sky. The panel builds up from rich mid blue clouds at the bottom, through to lilac pink robes for the angel, and up to multicoloured glass that depicts a bright yellow light at sunrise hitting clouds against a blue sky.
A stained glass panel from a church, showing an angel wearing a robe and light armour. He is stood on a rock with clouds wrapping around his lower legs and his right arm raised in greeting. Under the main panel is a panel that says “Thine, O Lord, is the Victory” and the panel is dedicated to Allen Caperton Braxton (1862-1914).
A photo of a stained glass window depicting a far-off valley where the sky is shining bright yellow low to the horizon, like at sunrise. In the midground of the image are some tall, dark trees that extend up the panel and appear silhouetted against the bright sky. In the foreground is a small stream that appears to be coming from the valley, and either side of the stream are details like: crowded, bright pink flowers; vivid green leaves on a vine; and rocks that are made with mottled glass that contains blues, browns and greens. The focal point is the appearance of sunrise over the valley, which is achieved by the sky being created by large sections of glass that contain gradients of colour from yellow to lilac, pink, and blue. The photo is taken close to the bottom and pointing upwards, so that the entire panel can be seen but it narrows at it extends into the distance.
A tapestry showing a flat, colourful design of a crocus flower. A large purple flower is the focus of the design, which is above a yellows-green stem. On either side there are several long, curved leaves in green, and the background is a bright, bubble-gum pink. The design uses bright colours that aren’t true to life and the leaves are created with alternating lines of green and (background colour) pink, so I’d describe it as vaguely like Pop Art. The tapestry is about the size of a postcard.
In progress photo showing 2 of 3 cardboard spacers removed from the original, flat tapestry
A photo of Susan Iverson’s book Tapestry with Pulled Warp on a varnished wooden table. Next to it are: a small tapestry made with bright green yarn, three pieces of cardboard cut into long triangles/wedges, and a photocopied image of the tapestry when it was partly completed. The photocopy shows how the cardboard triangles were initially used to create a tapestry with three triangular, wedge-like holes extending from the tapestry edge to the other side. Those triangles were removed and the pulled warp method was used to make the tapestry take on a curved shape.