Mixing It Up

When last we saw this tapestry,
half of  it had been transformed
from woven cloth
into fragments of flax
(now settled into my compost pile
amidst cabbage leaves
and other garden tailings).

Since then,
the warp has sprouted
a couple of tiny houses
​and the beginnings of a recipe.

Well, actually the end of a recipe
given the bottom to top
 nature of weaving tapestry,
​but I'm sure you know what I mean.
Either way, it is not evolving as I planned.

My original intent
(with the now composting linen)
was to mimic the paper
on which the recipe was written--
a thing I've done before,
so version 2.0 presented a dilemma.
If no longer repeating something I know how to do,
what?
The same thing again only with wool?
A different piece of paper?
Forget the paper idea
and let my hands choose
 yarn and direction?

Needless to say,
the latter felt the most delicious
even when,
given that my long-time
​and oft-stated preference
is to work with two strands of singles,
my hands chose the small ball
of  mill spun
two ply Harrisville Flywheel
left over from from 
the long Sarah-Dippity Skirt
I wove last winter
(which just happens to be
what I am wearing today).

Geez.
Give my hands a choice
and anything could happen.
 But since I'd rejected coolness and relevance as a guiding principle
 it did seem like a good idea
to go for the feeling first,
and let the 'concept' follow
(or not)
​as it would.

What bliss to have a warm, blanket-like (yet stretchy and fluid) skirt for perching in front of a loom when the thermometer reads 9F as the sun comes up).

So -- with the dark (stonewall)
woolen-spun Flywheel
for most of hte letters
and two strands of hand spun 
 madderroot-dyed Targhee/Debouillet
for the RED letters
(cuz of the red roof on the little house),
 I marched the few blocks to my LYS
The Yarn Underground,
came home
with more of the Harrisville 
in a slightly lighter value 
(driftwood, a warm-hued woolen cousin
of the hand spun linen
at the bottom of hte tapestry),
and dove in again.

Dan's Digestive Biscuits 2.0
here I come!

Weaving tapestry with knitting yarn
presents many challenges:
stretchiness, packability etc
(type "weft yarn"  or "tapestry weft"
into the search box at the top of the page,
and/or on Rebecca Mezoff's blog,
for more info on this topic),
and I find myself enjoying it immensely.
Not only is this the perfect weight
for my sett (10 epi),
but it is also kind of fun
to contrast it with the red hand spun.
Sometimes one seems easier to work with,
sometimes the other. 
Who knew? 

But there we go again --
assumptions
--for food
for tapestries,
for how one's days unfold--
are merely a starting place,
don't you think?
What joy
to mess around with yarn
change my mind
and adapt.

Also -- a gal can buy some really nice yarn.
It surprises me every time.

ps -- speaking of changing/trusting one's mind,
there were a few questions/comments on last week's post
about ripping out, making the decision to do so,
and​ how to have/develop confidence in one's choices.
Rebecca M wrote a great post about this
(with a video!), which I highly recommend.
The link is HERE.