I decided that I needed to create some small pieces for a Christmas Market that we are having at the start of December; so I decided to try tapestry weaving on thick paper.

For years I have been collecting leaves, flowers, bark, shells, stones, bones, feathers etc with no really idea of what I would do with them. I have been wanting to incorporate them into my weaving, but haven’t really known what I would do with them. Then I found a book that filled me with ideas – “Contemporary weaving in mixed media” by Rachna Garodia.

I decided to begin with something small, ‘simple’ and appealing for a Christmas Market – weaving on paper.

I took an A5 sheet of 300gsm cardboard and traced around a small bowl. I then made holes in the card using a sewing needle – I made the first and the top of the circle, the second at the bottom of the circle and underneath the first; and “sew-on” until I had reached the opposite side of the circle.
Once I had all of the holes, I threaded a thinner needle with 60/2 cotton in a light neutral colour and “warped my loom” from top to bottom, moving from left to right across the circle with a single continuous thread. Once I had threaded all of the holes, I tied one end of the thread to the other and was ready to weave.

The weft will be 20/2 silk in a variety of blues and greens, hand-spun tussah silk (bleached and unbleached) and indigo dyed 60/2 eri silk. This gives me a wide range of colours and also textures.
A thick yarn needle was used as a shuttle to move the weft back and forth across the warp.

I want to incorporate one of my found objects into the piece – I decided to use a ceramic fish made by a very talented friend and create a seascape.

I worked on this over a period of several days, about 1 hour a session.
When I began and ended a yarn, I left a long tail underneath the woven area, so no tails are visible on the front.
On completion, I am quite pleased with it. Not much yarn is required, I can do it anywhere and it is a lot faster than creating a scarf!
I need to improve my technique for the interlocking of 2 different yarns coming in from each side of the weft – I looked in Rebecca Mezoff’s book “The Art of Tapestry Weaving” for ways to improve this.

Over the next few days, I wound a skein of each of the colours of 20/2 silk that I have into balls. I discovered that this is much easier to do if the swift runs vertically, like a bicycle wheel, rather than horizontally – I had less of an issue with tangling, particularly with fine yarns. I also invested in an electric ball winder.

The next three pieces were woven on 300gsm, A5 sized handmade paper; this is a more satisfactory backing material than the 300gsm card. It feels and looks nicer.

When I wove the first piece, I wove the fish into the warp and wove around it. For the second, I decided to try sewing the fish onto the paper after preparing the warp and then weaving around it. This didn’t work very well as the fish is too thick, so I removed the fish and wove with the weft yarn until I reached the place I wanted the fish, inserted the fish and continued weaving. The third piece has a fishing a bird; the fourth has two birds. I discovered that the birds were best sewn on after the weaving was completed.

After finishing four of the A5 sized pieces, I decided to try an A6 piece. For this, I cut a piece of A5 watercolour paper in half. I can weave an entire A6 piece in a single afternoon.

To finish the pieces, I stuck them on black 300gsm card using double sided tape.