Tapestry
I’ve been making good progress on the writing front – I think I’m finally at the penultimate draft of the memoir before I start sending it out to agents. That means writing a query letter so I’m both keen to get it finished and not in any rush at all…
Also I am about ten chapters in on the first draft of my third novel. It’s getting to the point now where I know my main character and it feels real and this morning I worked out whodunnit (well, probably – these things have a habit of changing). So I’m really pleased with that.
I’m also having a lot of fun with tapestry weaving at the moment. I have a gorgeous Mirrix loom – check them out here, they are amazing – which Ryan bought for me years ago when I had to give up weaving on my big old floor loom – due to a combination of not having enough space, and the increasing lupus fatigue.
However I didn’t really start playing with it seriously until last year, and now I’m really hooked.
There was a thriving weaving community online when I was making rugs on the big four shaft loom. The brilliant and kind Peter Collingwood, who wrote the weaver’s bible The Techniques of Rug Weaving, gave me advice on a weaving email list so many years ago, when I was stuck weaving a krokbragd sampler.
Now though, it’s so much better. There’s instagram and youtube videos, online courses and so much more.
I did some of the Mirrix projects and then I joined in on their tapestry weave along and learned how to do the soumak technique. And then I started on my fourth piece on the loom, the first I designed myself – just to play with a bag of yarns that I had been using for embroidery.
This is where I am – and I am so pleased with it. It’s also a very meditative process, and so relaxing. I even find that like walking, it stimulates my creative thinking about plot and character. I think it’s something to do with the rhythm.
So here it is, my current work in progress. Some people see it as bit geological, others as floral, and one person thought it was amoeba rubbing up against each other…. The eye of the beholder.
Ann
Links
Check out Peter Collingwood’s work on Google images here