Weaving the Dream

There are two things in craft I will never do.  The first is knitting and the second is weaving.  Neither are for me.  Think it's because they both involve a lot of math.  And in the case of weaving, it means sitting for hours--weaving.  My friend, Rita Gekht, a fiber artist and weaver is giving me a few lessons in tapestry making. Though I'm sure I'll never do it myself, I find it pretty interesting to see the process of it.

 Setting up the loom and then stringing the warp.

For this tapestry, a photo of "the Ruins" in New Hope, PA is what this piece will the based on.  The photo was gridded and then blown up to what becomes a pattern or "cartoon" that is transferred to the warp strings.  The grid allows the artist to have a general idea where and in what proportion each part of the tapestry is developed.  This is just a guide.  The art part of it is that the combination of yarns and colors and the weavers' choices, will be what makes the piece come to life.

(Then there was some dying and spinning that took place== but I missed that part so I'm not sure all that's involved....I'll investigate that another time.)

Here you can see the "cartoon" traced onto the warp.

This is the progress after 3 months

The bottom roller will be turned for the first time at 3.5 months

As of May 15, the weaving is now into the lower lighted windows.


To be continued....
Rita Gekht is a fiber artist, who is living her dream of having a weaving studio and a gallery called The Artful Collector. It is located at 29 Race St., Frenchtown, NJ.  Rita works on the tapestry only when time permits, but figures if she was able to weave 40 hrs a week a tapestry like this 4' x 6' would take approx 4 weeks.