Changing My Mind

I know I said that I had decided not to pull out my weaving any more but I have changed my mind; a lady's prerogative. My mentor had a look at my work and thought my Darwin piece was a bit flat due to not varying the colours I used.  I took her advice and pulled it out , most of it and redid it.  As you can see in the photos, the 2nd version looks a lot better. My big tapestry is taking ages because I am taking my time. By the end of this week, I would like to be 1/3 of the way through. I have not done any weaving for 10 days due to upheavals in my life, but I should have a relatively clear run for the next little while. Despite the time I am taking, I am enjoying it.  Next time I have to design a tapestry I will employ the KISS strategy.

ATW Blends

I have selected a few of the ends from the ATW which show how they blend colours and yarns.  Most of them are a combination of both wool and cotton.  The 2 mauve blends on the left are from the Alice Bayke tapestry.  The  next picture of one of them has 4 wool strands and 10 threads of stranded cotton, 6 white and 4 mauve; I think it was used in the lace part of her dress. I don't use as many threads when I blend.  For my large tapestry I am using 5 strands in my weft, mostly  4 strands of wool and 2 of cotton; I find the cotton lightens the effect.

Most of the wool I used for Tim's Tapestry was ends; saved myself both money and time as I already had the bag of ends  and who am I to argue with experts in blending colours.

Colour

I finally took some advice and sorted my wool into a proper palette and sorted my cottons at the same
time. At the ATW they use a lot of cotton and linen and I occasionally buy bags of left overs to use and to get an idea of what they do. 

Here are some of the bobbins  wound ready for use with a collection of cottons.  There is my last ball of Marta's hand - dyed wool which I am using with the orange/red colours to replicate the ground.  It gives a nice occasional fleck. I have also begun a colour strip which should, in theory, help minimize pulling out because the colours don't work.

You can see the effect of the hand dyed wool;  I like it because it is subtle.