Here and There -

Yesterday, I  mailed a tapestry to New Zealand.

Stitched to a piece of cardboard,
 stamped and addressed,
it is now somewhere
​between there and here,
​hopefully having a swell time
with all the other mail.

 Here and There is the name
of the exhibition for which I wove it --
an international tapestry post card exchange
organized by the American Tapestry Alliance.
​
Sue, my post card pal 
(we were randomly paired)
 lives in New Zealand
so my tapestry will live its life
on the other side of the globe
where upside down is right side up,
and there is here with a t.
Or here is there, without one.

After months of immersion
in the sartorial and cellulosic,
it was delightfully familiar
to wind a wool warp
onto a tapestry loom--
(or four selvedge jig as per the photo below).
​
Indeed, weaving a little tapestry 
proved to be its own sort of vacation--
 a great way to recover from recent actual travel!

And wool is such a sweet friend.
​
 Friendly and forgiving,
it is comfy under my butt
(the blue and yellow tuffet two photos up 
is stuffed with fleece I didn't want to spin),
and my hands know just how to keep the tension even
​as I wind and space and lash things into position.

Weaving this post card
using the Four Selvedge technique
was not even a question--
--in part because four selvedge is my fave
-- in part because of the clean edge finish.

My hands also relished 
the ease of tapping yummy strands
of wool weft into place
 and weaving in the ends.

Weaving in the ends
is incredibly satisfying to me--
both as I do it
​and after it is done.
It also makes for a smooth back,
so the tapestry nestles flush against the cardboard
and the whole thing is smooth and even.

Sometimes it is actually hard
to tell the front from the back.
Other times, it turns out
that the back actually is the front,
rendering irrelevent,
some of our tapestry angst
about which way to work. 

NOTE: This end-weaving-in thing
is a personal preference
and I have no wish to imposed it on anyone else
(I may be teensy bit obsessed with the subject),
but if you want to know more,
check out post linked above,
or type 'weaving in the ends' 
into  to the search box at the top of the page.

At any rate,
after releasing the tapestry from the loom
I stitched the side walls of the houses
and the edges of many of the letters.
Zooming across the world
in a box full of mail,
is not a thing I have experienced in this life,
but I worried a bit about
its fellow travelers
getting caught in open slits.

Then came a hot soapy bath
​(what's not to love about that),

a good press with a steamy iron,
and the final stitching onto the cardboard
as per the instructions on the ATA website .

Stamp
air mail sticker,
an address, 
and a brief message
came last of all.

​Then we biked to the Post Office
made our last farewells.
​and off it went.

Lucky tapestry
going to New Zealand.

Lucky me,
​staying home.