I feel a personal burst of inspiration after each of the workshops I teach in Frida Hansen’s transparent tapestry technique. The students are creative and great problem-solvers. And each workshop doesn’t completely end on the third day of our time together. Often students work on projects and finish and report to me and their group. The people in my recent Tucson workshop have been especially good at sending supportive group emails. Several finished Tucson pieces were featured in this post: “Frida Hansen’s Inspiration Lives On in 21st-Century Students.”
The latest to report was Shelley Chase-Olsen; her Frida flowers are below. She wrote, “I had a real quandary about how to finish the top and hang it. I finally concluded that less was more, and I wove most of the top fringe back into the piece and then just simply knotted the remainder over the dowel. I also did a line of sumac at both the top and bottom, which I think gave it a nice finished look.” I think the top and bottom are fabulous.
Sarah Batchelder from the Tucson workshop had to step away from her wolf weaving because she left on a vacation. But she didn’t step away from the transparency technique! She wrote, “I love seeing all the beautiful finished pieces and I’m frustrated to be away from my loom. I brought my tiny handmade loom and have been doing some tiny open warp pieces. I finished two and have started a third. Someday, I’ll get back to my wolf.” I think she is channeling the inventive energy of Sheila Hicks, who made “minimes.” Wonderful.
I gave a zoom talk to the New York Guild of Handweavers last week, and was able to watch their “Show and Tell” segment. The variety of member work was so interesting that I signed up as a member afterwards, just so I can watch future programs and see the show and tell segments. I was surprised when Charlene Marietti featured a piece in wool transparency, Evening Shadows. It is her second piece in the technique. Charlene attended one of my first workshops, in Philadelphia. (See her first piece in this post.)
An interesting part of the NYHG Show-and-tell is reporting on “lessons learned” and what they would do the next time. Charlene said she might make shorter/fewer open spaces in order to give a bit more weight to the piece. I like the open spaces in her image, and her excellent weaving tension means all the open warps hang straight and beautifully. There are ways to help the piece to lie flat. One is to add a string of curtain weight tape along the border on the back. You can see how that was done on an old Norwegian piece in this post: “Fixing my Blomqvist Tapestry.” Another is to sew a strip of unwoven interfacing along the back, which might be just enough to hold the bottom of the tapestry flat. Also, weaving in or tying in a bottom rod will add weight and keep a small piece square, as in my peony sample below.
