Tie one on...

...and then tie 299 more on! That's how I spent my day yesterday.

I am now at a place where I'm doing the things non-tapestry weaver's never think of, when they think of tapestry weaving (that is, if that activity should ever cross through their minds at all, which it doubtless does not.) I am starting and completing; beginning and ending; prepping and finishing. I am having to do all the after-loom work on one tapestry, and all of the before-loom work on another.




Actually, I took a few days off after the cutting off and we went to our cabin for part of the weekend, where I began a new painting. I set up in the only good lighting there - the north window. It overlooks a path that deer use... see the two fawns passing by beyond my paintbrushes? Their mother had already leapt into the brush by the time I had my camera out.

I came home not feeling very well, and by yesterday, I conceded that I was as sick as ever anyone was. Oh, what a dreadful state I was in! Such tremblings, such flutterings all over me, such spasms in my middle and pains in my head! Such beatings in my heart that I could get no rest! No one was ever so sick as I... except perhaps poor Mrs. Bennett. But I am on a deadline, so, brave soul that I am, I decided that warping was easier than sewing slits or maquette design work, and certainly easier than running all the errands that need doing. So, between bouts of reposing restlessly on my fainting sofa, I warped the loom for the Fall tapestry. I don't think I've ever warped my big loom in just one day before. I hope I don't find too many errors in the warp today!

As I was warping, in my feverish state, I was thinking of all the comments we weavers get about how "patient we must be" to do this. One of my friends made the comment again at the cutting off last week. I finally thought of how I want to reply to that comment, which always takes me by surprise, no matter how many times I hear it. I have decided I will sweetly say,
"No, my dear lady, it is not because I am so patient that I weave tapestries, although I am loath to disavow you of the notion that I am in possession of such a noble one of the Virtues. In truth, it is because of my great impatience with the folly of the rest of the world that I am driven to the sanctuary and sanity of my loom."

Can you tell that I've been reading the classics? I just finished The Three Musketeers, which I enjoyed very much. But why is it that the hero always gets to be swashbuckling about France and England, while the heroine must languish away in a convent waiting to be rescued?

Well, I promised a picture of the finished Skiffs tapestry, but it is still 'resting' on the dining room table, waiting for slits to be sewn and to be blocked and lined. I hope to complete that by the end of the week - if I can survive my palpitations that long! Here is the unfinished back of the piece - the mess I must face today...