Pheasants have been appearing on my standing pipe loom at home, feathery patch by feathery patch. It was my World Cup project—because there is a lot that happens on the television screen during the games that doesn’t really need my attention (like 8,000 Kalshi ads).
I had a box of indigo-dyed wool yarn that was intended for a rug about ten years ago, but I’ve now been using it for transparent tapestry warp. The tapestries designed by Frida Hansen featured handspun wool warp that often varied in thickness and color. This blue warp is commercially spun, but has beautiful variation in its shades.
I thought I was going to weave sections of the pheasants’ bodies with open areas acting as lines, like the swan bodies in Hansen’s tapestry En Svanes Sang [A Swans Song], 1928.
That didn’t work out so well when I began weaving the sections of feathers, so I opted for weaving small sections of varying colors, with dark brown outlining.
I look forward to weaving more pheasant feathers when I return home from Portland, Oregon. I am teaching two workshops this week at the Damascus Fiber Art School. I am enjoying wonderful hospitality, and the students are top-notch, but the smoky conditions match the bad Minnesota smoke of a week ago.