In my weaving workshops on Frida Hansen’s wool open warp transparent tapestry technique, students choose their own cartoons to weave a sample. Some arrive with an image idea fully formed or quickly draw their own sketches, and some choose a pattern from a portion of one of Hansen’s transparency designs. In the class at the Weavers Guild of Minnesota this week, three weavers chose to make their interpretation of an iconic Frida Hansen rose. The great fun of multiples is seeing the personality and style of each rose unfold. Bonnie West’s rose was the largest of the three, and she chose petals in orange and gold on a gray warp.
Inspired by Frida Hansen’s blue and black roses, Katie Chmielewski chose unconventional shades of blue on a gold warp.
Heather Ramsey is fairly new to tapestry, and was pleased at how much she enjoyed weaving in this technique. She loves weaving on her big loom, but she wanted to give all sort of weaving techniques a try. “I like the idea of doing things faster. I don’t think I could have done it [sit and slowly weave tapestry] when I started weaving. I was so concentrated on product; we really have a cultural obsession with efficiency and production.” Another tapestry convert!
Also, Heather came from Juneau, Alaska, for the workshop, arriving at her airbnb at 2am before the class started. At 3pm the first day, there was a brief hush in the room when everyone had their work underway. “Are you going to say anything?” Heather chimed in from the other side of the table. “I really need to go down for coffee. Don’t say anything!”
Jane Connett also chose an image from one of Frida Hansen’s transparency designs, “Clematis and Birds of Paradise.” You should visit the Stavanger Art Museum to see the original.
Patti Bartlett wove a portion of another Frida Hansen transparency, the amazing Sommernattsdrøm [Summer Night’s Dream], 1914.
In this tapestry technique, you weave a bit and then needle weave in the loose ends. It’s very satisfying. Patti began the leaves, which looked a bit messy until the ends were tucked in and the elegant and simple shapes became prominent. “It looks so much better,” she commented.
Linda Sorrano made a couple of samples even before class began, and she wanted to try weaving the technique at a different scale, 12 ends per inch rather than 8. She warped her Mirrix with a strong, yet thin, plied yarn, Weavers Bazaar Medium. She used Australian Tapestry Wool for the weft, doubled for saturated, blended colors. She felt that the “stickiness” of the warp and the weft still performed their clinging magic at this finer sett. It was fun for all the students, and for me, to observe her experiment with materials at this scale.
And finally, Joan Coffey considered the Frida Hansen flower samples and decided to sketch her own blossoms. The process worked well. I suggested that her first sketch included tiny sections that might not be so easy to weave at 8 epi. She adjusted her pattern to make slightly larger shapes, moved some a bit to avoid super long floats, and dove in to her vibrant, multi-colored sample. To make an interesting top finish, she wove in two bamboo sticks. And most remarkably, she is the first student in my three workshops to actually finish within the days of the workshop.
This was a very fun week for me, and I hope for the students, too. They have strict instructions to share photos of their finished samples, which I will share too.