Red Rocks

After finishing Road to Mamers it was time to plan the next tapestry.  Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective I have more tapestry ideas and enthusiasm at this point than skills.

I admire the work of tapestry weavers who also draw, sketch and paint, like Tommye Scanlon, Sarah Swett and Janette Meetze.  Alas, I do not draw or paint.  I did take a gazillion pictures when Rachel and I were in Arizona though. Each day we were surrounded by gorgeous vistas that took my breath away.  I blogged about it here.

So I went through all the photos, chose one and played with enlarging it and isolating an interesting piece of the picture.

The view from our room at Sky Ranch Lodge.

With some computer manipulation  I isolated the part I wished to weave and used the cartoon effect to edit the image.

I pulled out my Navajo weaving books for inspiration.  Should I border this with some stripes or Navajo motifs to honor the region and culture.

The next step was to determine the size of the tapestry, the yarn to be used and the desired sett or number of warp threads in an inch.  I really wanted to use yarn I already owned.

This is my collection of single ply Churro yarns, definitely the choice most in keeping with the Navajo weaving materials.  The colors were somewhat limited though.

Eventually I settled on the collection of linen yarns I purchased from tapestry weaver Martha Matthews' estate.

I decided on the linen yarns I purchased from tapestry weaver Martha Matthews' estate.

I don't want to take all the credit, I had help.  Montana has a keen color sense.

With the linen, I decided on a sett of 8 per inch and decided to use my Mirrix Zach loom.  Time to get warping.

My yarns and cartoon.