After writing last week's post  I put an image of one of the tapestry doodles on Instagram to let people know that the post was here and in the comments, an amazing tapestry weaver from Australia, Rachel Hine, asked me "Why?"

"Why, weave in the ends", she asked, "when the work is never going to be viewed from the back?"
You can read her whole query, and then my  response, HERE,
but I've also posted some photos below, 
and of course have since found more to say...

The most elemental reason for weaving in my ends is that it pleases me.
 I like how it looks, I like how it feels, and I like how the cloth behaves. 
​
The technique makes it possible to get tapestries off the wall as these photos show,
​and into books as you can see HERE (this is a short video showing the turning pages of "Casting Off").

There is also the notion of dust and insect protection--
no enticing forests of ends in which set up camp.

Two sided tapestries (and I use the word advisedly as I am well aware that the two sides are NOT identical), can not only hang away from the wall, they can potentially BE a wall.
​Not that I've done this, but it's an idea that awaits.

​They use less yarn.

I can, of course, see why one might NOT want to do it:

Weaving in a million ends on a complex tapestry might seem like a time consuming proposition.
​
Like any new skill, it could be awkward for a time.

It can be handy to have a length of yarn in just the right color waiting at the back to be pulled up and used for a new shape.

It has also not escaped my notice that when I show early work (made before I began weaving in the ends), viewers tend to be mightily impressed by the back view.
"You used ALL Those different pieces of yarn!  WOW."
And sometimes a person wants to impress her viewers,
if not with the content of the imagery, then at least with the labor involved...

And as I mentioned in the Instagram exchange, I also wonder how much it has to do with the ease with which one could 'mistake' a tapestry for a rug, or some other functional object-- and how leaving ends on the back makes it clear that one should most definitely NOT use this textile for a dog bed, even if it looks like a carpet-- dog, fringe and all...

Oddly, one of the things I like most about working in tapestry is that many of my pieces could, indeed, be used for rugs, or blankets, or chair covers, or spend a century or so as frost protection for espaliered fruit trees as were the Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries (now at the Cloisters in New York City)-- then be washed, dried, pressed and hung on the wall for the century after that.  Not that such a thing would be ideal, but it pleases me that it is possible.
​Tapestries are flexible and resilient, kind of like people. 

After over 20 years of weaving in ends, I cannot imagine NOT doing it,
​ but, alas,  the technique does not seem to be too popular.
Happily however, as this is my blog, I get to keep mentioning it now and again,
​ just in case someone wants to give it a try.

And in the meantime, I'd love to hear some other  perspectives --strong opinions pro or con, or whatever thoughts come to mind. 
The Instagram exchange with Rachel was invigorating but too short.

Tapestry, after all, is a vehicle for expression,
a structure that allows us to explore our psyches with yarn and shape and color,
a means of uniting ideas and substance  and it can even keep us warm.
It is a medium not a set of rules,
strong enough to take whatever we ask of it,
even when we disagree.

Last week's post generated  a couple of questions:
one about about the clean edges of the tapestry doodles
and another about how I weave in the ends as I go.
Rosemary kindly pointed Janet to my four selvedge warping instructions, which helps explain the clean edge thing, but I thought I'd attempt to show how both questions can, in part,  be answered at once.

 Above is a photo of an empty four selvedge warp, and if you follow the lines of the warp you can see that it zig zags between the top and bottom supplemental warps (smoother and finer).
The warp with which I weave, then, is actually two strands twisted around each other and used as one except at the bottom where the loops are offset by one strand.

This means that when I begin weaving, as in the photo above, I can just lay the weft into the open shed and it is caught by the offset loop which means it does not need a header (or anything else), to hold it in place.
There is nowhere for the weft to go.
This also means  that if I lay the end of the weft (in this case two strands of yellow), into the shed with the ends of the wisps at the selvedge, it stays right where I put it.
 Nothing sticks out save the odd tiny wool fiber.

When I run out of weft, I weave to the very end of the strands, including the little wisps, and then lay the new weft on top, overlapping the wispy ends. 
This is how I change color too. 
​If a shape is finished before I've reached the end of the yarn for that shape, I break the weft at the appropriate place and weave the wisps in.  Nothing goes to the back.

Three  things to note at this point:
1. The wisps exist because I always break or untwist rather than cut the weft
With singles weft, I hold the yarn with my hands a staple length apart, untwist each strand, tug lightly, and the strands separate leaving the wispy ends ready to weave.
​ Plied weft, alas, untwists into its component strands of singles so it is easier to simply break it. The wisps are rarely as long or nicely tapered as with untwisted singles, but it still works. 
If your yarn resists easy breaking, you can 'shave it' with a pair of scissors. 
The point is to avoid the blunt end that happens with a straight scissors cut.

2, Using wool warp (as well as weft) is a great help with this technique
I once wrote a blog post called In Praise of Wool Warp, where I think I may have talked more about this, but the idea is that the tiny strands of warp and weft tangle with one another and hold all those wispy bits in place. 
​Wool weft on cotton warp should be OK too, as long as all of your weft ends are treated as described above so they can cling to each other and not pop out.

3. Weaving with hand spun weft gives me some leeway.
Since all of my weft is perfectly and consistently 'imperfect',  an extra half pass, or a slight bump where one overlapping strand meets another, will vanish into the general look of the tapestry.
On  the rare occasions that I've used mill spun weft, I still weave in the ends, but use extra care with the overlapping of the wisps.

,It is also worth noting that, though my yarn is not as smooth as most millspun, it is still essential to count passes while building curves and also to pay attention to hollows and fulls (or highs and lows/ fulls and empties) as the shapes build up.
An extra pass in the wrong place can wreck a graceful curve no matter your weft material, giving your smooth hills unlooked for rocky outcroppings,
​or imposing the dreaded nipple effect on an otherwise sensuous body part....

There is much more to be said about weaving in ends -- indeed, I could go on and on and on, but I have more little doodles in my head so need to get back to the loom.
For now, you can find out a little more by checking out my post on weaving letters, where I show how I use a needle to move weft around inside the tapestry itself, and also how I finish small shapes without leaving any tails on the back.
 Rebecca Mezoff uses a needle to weave in all of the weft ends of her tapestries, she just does it when the tapestry is off the loom rather than as she weaves, and I know this works better for many people.  Her classes tell you just how to do it. 
For me, it's best to do it I'm still in the thick of the action as, if I waited till the pieces were off the loom, I'd probably never get a Round Tuit. 

One last thing-- this week is the American Tapestry Alliance Blog Tour!
  It started yesterday with Molly Elkind's great blog post on using collage for tapestry design.
At the bottom of the post are links to the blogs for the rest of the week.
There are even Prizes!!!!
It was great fun doing this two years ago, and I'm delighted it is now a thing.
So check it out!  Who knows what we'll all learn?

Today it's just the yarn and me--

mucking about--

in a four selvedge world. 

A few balls of weft--

a few yards of warp--

(ends woven in on the way)--

makes for unexpectedly deep inquiry 
into the minutiae--

What are these things anyway?

Sometimes, a gal just needs a trim.
​
Immediately.

And while the results are not always the most attractive,

the doing of it can be cathartic,

allowing  one to get back to doing what needs (and wants) to be done.

And besides
some haircuts are just more fun to draw. 

All those wisps!  Ugh.

And  (to quote my dear S.W.), 
why should everything have to be attractive?​

Resolutions!
Intentions!
We (or at least I),  peer into the imaginary future this time of year
head full of plans,  heart full of belief, hands awaiting possibility.
And why not?
It's fun to have ideas and plans -- they are snacks for the Brain
But snacks, of course, have issues --
not least, ruining a gal's appetite for supper.

Intensions, however, (as Rebecca Mezoff defines them), have a gentler cycle than the sugar-rush-and-crash of resolutions. They (intensions) seem more flexible, less prone to failure.

intention:  "today I picked up my pencil for two minutes. Yay!" or  "Maybe tomorrow I can write three words."
vs
resolution: "I wrote my whole novel!  yay me!" or "I watched a movie instead of writing. I quit."

In my case, a resolution would already have flopped.
But I think my intention is doing OK.
 I have, you see,  been planning to start weaving a tapestry in the new year.

On January First:  build a loom and warp it. 
On January second (today): blog/brag about it.

(Making this plan in November enabled me to set aside the siren song of my loom
and tend to other projects, a thing I sorely needed.  Thank you Jessica Abel).

This all hinged on me remembering to ask my son Henry (keeper of the family drill press),  to make evenly spaced, perfectly parallel holes in a couple of plywood scraps that would become a four selvedge jig. 
Unfortunately,  I failed  to think about what size dowels I might actually need to span the distance of the loom I would build for the tapestry I imagined I would weave....
So when he asked  how big he should make the holes, I said -- 1/2 inch.

Turns out I should have said 5/8.
Because a 1/2" diameter dowel is too bendy for a jig for the 18" span of the loom I was going to build for the 11" tapestry I planned to weave.

I ate some chocolate.
And I don't  even like chocolate. 

I contemplated redrilling the holes with my egg beater drill,
(couldn't get them straight or even)
thought about using something else for a jig
(nothing quite right),
decided abandon the whole idea  forever...
(too damned persistent).

Eventually I  decided to build a 12" loom.

And that would have been fine,
except
that the 1/2" pipe pieces for the 12" loom were busy
being part of a hanging mechanism for my clothes.

Easy fix:
 throw all the clothes and bags on the floor and retrieve the bits of pipe I needed.

And that worked out wonderfully, 
EXCEPT

...that once the dismantling began it seemed sensible to take it completely apart
and rebuild a better, less wobbly  and more useful one using my collection of 1" pipe. 
Because wouldn't it be nice to have  some extra extensions for jeans not dirty enough to wash but too dirty to put back in a drawer?

And, since it looks so good when there is hardly anything on the cool new rack,
perhaps the first week of January is  actually the perfect time to get at those baseboards with a toothbrush, get on with my mending pile, 
and sort through my clothes to see which ones I REALLY want in the first place.
Or at least which ones look best on the rack.

And this last is particularly hard as the pile on the floor grows higher by the minute

with these new skirts!

This is number four -- finished on 31 December (as planned),
freeing up my yarnish hours  for the imaginary tapestry
I didn't actually start.

But I am pleased with the skirt.
Though short enough to retain that lovely loose limbed feeling of her sisters,
she is a touch  longer than the other three
​so perfect for my more demure moments.

The structure is also as stretchy and flexible as ever -- light and easy so I hardly notice it is on. 

AND it turned out to be a fine place for those grey buttons about which we all debated  for the last skirt!

So there you have it --
plans begun, adjusted, diverted
and now... unfolding... perhaps...
though... oh dear... that pile of stuff...

Never mind. I hung up four things.  That's plenty!
​My 12" loom awaits.