I’ve long planned to weave a medieval Norwegian tapestry replica of sorts, one with a large red or blue horse. They are so charming. In my piece (previous discussed here) the medieval queen will be replaced by my daughter, with curly hair and a scarf, rather than crown and ruff. I wove a small test piece to see if I was happy with the sett (9epi with Norsk prydvevgarn). I also wanted to test out the face — aiming for a happier sort of face, a smile rather than a straight mouth. I put in a few of the traditional shapes/symbols often found in the background of old Norwegian tapestries. Most turned out fine, except the comb-like rectangle in the upper left.
I’ll choose better colors, so the object in her hand can be darker, like more cell phones. While testing I discovered that I needed a better orientation for the phone than in my sketch.
Testing is so valuable! How else would I have realized that my blocky-curly-hair attempt would turn out looking like horns? And the smile? It looks a bit goofy at this scale, in this small piece. I’ll have to work on it. I might make the whole piece at a larger sett, so I could double the weft yarn. One of these days, though, you will see my large red horse.
As most weavers know, cats must always test a new weaving, even little tiny ones!