I purchased a wool transparent tapestry in Frida Hansen’s technique from the Norwegian Blomqvist auction site. Read more: “A Merry Christmas Transparency for Me” and “Examining my Transparent Tapestry from Blomqvist.”
After the wool transparency had been hanging at the Weaver’s Guild during my workshop for a few days, my friend and textile conservator, Beth McLaughlin, stopped by to see it. I was curious about her opinions. Should I wash it? Should I fix the broken warps?
When I examined the hanging with my class, there was a section where the warps were askew, like the piece had been caught on something and the threads were pulled out of position. “Oh, if it was me, I couldn’t stop from pulling the warps through to make them even,” one student commented. That seemed like a good idea, and I thought I would address it later. But by the time Beth and I examined it a few days later, the warps had relaxed into place by themselves! Note to self: let a weaving rest, or hang, for a while before considering repairs. The relaxation of the yarn was no doubt aided by the line of curtain weights neatly sewn along the bottom of the reverse of the transparency.
When Beth looked at the transparency, she didn’t think it needed washing. There is slight fading, so I will hang it so the reverse side shows. The curtain weights at the very bottom are so beautifully applied that they don’t detract.
There were a few broken warps. “Oh, you can fix them,” Beth assured me. She didn’t give me exact instructions, but she used phrases like “attach a thread to the broken warp and pull it through,”make a figure eight around the broken warp with your thread,” and “you can pull down a warp from higher up…” My take-away was that I could find a matching thread and experiment. I set up my work table in the dining room and fixed the broken warps. No one is going to hire me as a textile conservationist, but the more I connected, the better I got. There were seven in all.
I am going to have it photographed and then hang it at home, in our tall front entry stairwell. The piece is nine feet long. I think it will work well because there is a light below on the stairwell that might accentuate the unwoven portions. We’ll see!
