High and Low
Hill and Valley
Full and Hollow

All names for the same thing:
that every half pass of weft is like a wave,
seeming to rise up and sink down as it crosses the fell
going over and under alternate warp ends.
Over = high/hill/full 
Under = low/valley/hollow.

"So what?" you might well say.
"The  hills and valleys will switch position with the next half pass!"
That is true.

But when building curves on our beloved grid, taking advantage of (or ignoring), the hills and valleys can drastically effect the appearance and structure of shapes 

In the image above you can see that for the steepest part of the curve on the far left I turned once on every warp.  
Then, to gradually flatten out the curve, I turned on alternate, then every fourth warp, making sure to turn over a valley/ low spot, rather than a hill.
 The turns snuggle down into the valleys,  smoothing out the steps between passes.

For Knitters, think short rows.
​
Below you can see this packed down.

 To smooth it still further (and to keep the yarn from getting trapped at the right selvedge 
​I made one half pass of eccentric weft,

The subsequent shape uses the same techniques.

And again.

Curved letters rely heavily on highs and lows to get the most out of every warp.

Landscapes, dots, trees -- all are improved by working with the grid in this way.

There is much more I could say about shape building
but those things, whatever they are, will have to wait for another day.
Today is Hill and Valley Day.
I love them so much that they get a blog post of their own.

OH!  And one last thing! 
If you weave from the back
a hill on 'your' side of the loom
will be a valley on the other.

Since I weave from the front, my curves are smoothest on the side facing me, more stair-stepped on the back. which is why, though my tapestries appear to be two sided, they are not.
Not that I don't pretend that they are.
​
It's just a thing that is true.

​

mething I have to say,
but only the yarn knows what it is.

My job is to show up and listen.

My dream is coming true!

First it was blue.

Now it is white.

Something else might happen.

But so far, it hasn't. 

​So back and forth I go.

Left to right.

Right to Left.

Tap, tap, tap.

Wind a bobbin.

Left to right again.

 I might be doing this for a while.

And that's fine with me.

Rebecca Mezoff has been writing about and  posting enticing photos of her dye process on her blog and on Instagram. 
Yesterday on the latter, she wrote this: ​
Oh those blues. Six pots done. Three more to do today. This is the thing I find people misunderstand the most about synthetic dyes. Every single color is dyed alone and all the dye in the pot ends up in the yarn. I will reuse that water tomorrow for different colors.

Twenty-Four Years ago in this magazine

I too was in love with Lanaset.

Those dyes are as amazing now as they were then,
​the blues truly spectacular.

But somehow, five years after that first article
when I again got to write about tapestry for Spin Off,

a few things had changed.

Reading these articles today for the first time in years (my computer has long since ceased to recognize the program I used back then to write them, and I'm not even sure I still have the floppy discs), I am struck by the clarity of vision.
Though I was a true beginner for the first article, and still a relative novice for the second, I seem to have been utterly confident in my processes even as I was making most of them up as I went along-- writing about one approach then changing my dyes, my design techniques and even some of my materials (no more linen warp), one after another, with little outside influence and no internet suggestions to push me this way or that.  
​
What possessed me to start weaving in all my ends and switch (almost overnight) to a complete natural dye palette when I clearly loved and was comfortable with the synthetic?
How did I know to trust whatever instinct suggested I start to start to use wool warp even though everything I heard/ read suggested cotton or linen?
Was it the confidence of youth?
My Brilliant Muse?
Happenstance?

By the same token, 
why am I now embroidering on tiny minimalist tapestries,
eschewing most color,
weaving messy words
​and hanging them all in mid air
just as interest in rich, colorful (often naturally dyed) pictorial tapestry is growing?
Can't blame youthful confidence this time.
Is it my fickle muse?
Or the Internet.

Her words resonated to my core.
They also generated even more questions.
How have I have kept moving all this time--
how, despite angst and uncertainty and endless internal conversations:
"Really Sarah, you already have all the stuff for Lanaset dyes
including that amazing book of Linda Knudson samples. It is ridiculous to switch"
and
"Nobody lets their warp show -- it isn't tapestry if the warp shows"
and 
"You've GOT to put a frog in it.  All your tapestries have frogs"
and
"Embroidering on your tapestries is sacrilege.
 Keep your media separate.
Remember, you don't approve of mixed media."

​I managed to stumble from this:

to this

to this.

 I still love the older work.
Sometimes I  also miss making it and wonder if I should
revisit some of those beloved techniques.

But then again, I did try to weave a frog into a recent tapestry
and I couldn't make it work.
The frog refused to stay. 
​
So maybe I can't go back.

​Would I really want to anyway?