When I was in Finland in 2013 I couldn’t resist buying large skeins of intensely-colored cotton knit yarn. Never mind that it would not all fit in my own baggage; Laurann Gilbertson on the Vesterheim Textile Tour also smashed it in the corners of her luggage. Since then, it burst from a ceramic container in my studio, waiting to be woven. This summer I obeyed a self-imposed moratorium on buying any yarn in Norway – it wasn’t allowed until the Finnish yarn was woven. Finally, success! Here is the result.
Here is the yarn hanging on a fence in Finland.
Here is what is left.
I am such a fan of working with bands of color and pattern; this is a contemporary permutation of a Nordhordaland banded coverlet. This time the rutevev images switch to pure texture in a field of color. This is an example of a banded Norwegian coverlet from the book Ruteåklær by Marit Wang.
Here’s a detail of the new piece.
Here Buzz checks out the texture.
I’m amazed of your tapestry. I’m still learning to create and i’m quite basic with technics. Can I ask you how do you do the textured “bubble” stitch? I don’t know if I’m right or wrong to thing that you wrap the cotton yarn around one or twice to make it so texturised?
Love your piece. Thank you for showing and sharing.
Xx from Spain
Hi Beatriz, The technique is simple. When laying in a shot of weft, you pull up loops between the warp threads, and slip a knitting needle in the loops as you go. With this soft knit weft, I found that this technique worked well at 7 ends per inch. I also experimented at ten ends per inch, but that was a little too dense. (See also this post: https://boundweave.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/an-experiment-with-looped-weft/)
The next time I use this technique, I will take more in-process photos.