A New Tapestry Book
cover of Woven Tapestry, by Lousie Martin and Ros Bryant
We had a full day of rain this week, 2 inches over the course of the day. It was a nice soaking rain and I do love a rainy day. But my cat does not. He was most unhappy in the studio that day and the only thing that would settle him down was to plant himself on my lap for endless kitty love time.
Since I couldn't weave, I decided to dive into a book that a weaver (thanks, Marilyn!) had told me about recently. Maybe you've heard of it (pictured above). It's only available right now in the kindle version * from what I could tell. The hard copy will be out in May of next year. You can pre-order it now. *
I didn't have time to do a full-on review for a couple of reasons. 1) I’ve been busy weaving, and 2) I'd rather wait until I can hold the physical version in my hands. I am not one that enjoys reading from an electronic device. I would usually read a few pages at a time before I hit my tolerance level. However, I was eager to check it out so that rainy day gave me the perfect opportunity.
This is a true gem for tapestry weavers. The book, as noted, is co-authored by both Louise Martin and Ros Bryant. The illustrations (Louise) and the text (Ros) are superbly done. My hat's off to them both.
The Contents
You can see the full contents on the sample from the publisher’s website (Simon & Schuster). I’ll just say it is surprising (in a good way). The intro sets the stage: “Technique is taught in considerable detail in the belief that technical fluency is essential to creative freedom, to making work of beauty, originality and integrity.” And the creative freedom is encouraged throughout. Briefly, that is followed by a bit of glossary, then stripes, squares, triangles, curves- yes, all in “considerable” detail! I was quite amazed, actually.
This is then followed by Interpreting a design, translating a cartoon, a section on hatching (again in considerable detail)… If this isn’t enough, the “Adding to Plain Weave” chapter was also a nice surprise: lots of examples of Soumak, knotting, and more. The chapters end with Eccentric weaving and finding your own voice.
I immediately added this resource to my Elements course!
The Illustrations
i am no graphic artist, but I have ‘dabbled in it” in my Do It Yourself days. These are exceptional and make my head spin when I look at them and imagine the work that went into them. WOW. I wish I could include an example here, but I was so excited to write about this that there was no time to write and ask for permission. (I’m impulsive when it comes to writing. Especially here.) Trust me when I say the example in the sample from the publisher’s website shows only an inkling of the level of detail in each illustration. A multitude of sample weavings carefully depict not just the start and stop of the weft, but the direction it travels, and so much more!
The Text
And Bravo to Ros, too, for the equally clear instruction and text. I also know the challenges of writing about technique in a coherent and easy to understand way. For starters, I especially loved the way the low warp/high warp is explained - and repeatedly noted again when necessary. That’s a terminology I’ve always struggled with (remember, I didn’t learn the traditional way of tapestry - these terms didn’t exist to me). Not only are the illustrations carefully explained in word form, but there is truly so much more embedded in the pages of this book. Countless tips and gems.
I said this wouldn’t be a full-on review and I want to emphasize that I mean that even though I did go on a little longer than I’d planned (had originally thought I’d just write a paragraph in my Sunday newsletter ♥️ but I couldn’t stop)… I’ve left a considerable amount out and I also need to add that I confess to not reading word-by-word on ALL the examples after a certain point. I did outline quite a bit of text that I wanted to mention, though, so maybe I’ll do another post on “all I didn’t cover the first time” when the hard copy is in my two hands.
*this is an affiliate link- my apologies if this offends anyone. You don’t have to use it. 😊