Tapestry Testing: Hair, not Horns!

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!