Travel weaving is one of my favorite activities. It does turn out that when you’re on a tour and you have a lot to see, the only time to weave is on the bus. We had a couple days with long bus rides and in that time I managed to finish one small tapestry diary piece.
The French countryside in late May was bursting with flowers. There were huge fields of red poppies along the roads, some with purple flowers mixed in. It is pretty hard to take a good photo from a moving bus, but one can certainly weave a tapestry of them which is exactly what I did. Of course one never quite has the colors one wants in such a situation, but it was a fun weaving anyway.
I brought my smallest pipe loom and warped it with a Fringeless warp. I really enjoyed the bus rides. We rode through beautiful countryside filled with flowers and farms. We saw sheep and cows and an occasional chateau. We drove past the Chartes Cathedral, saw goats cleaning the weeds along the roadways, and experienced the excellence of French truckstops. I had a difficult time deciding which fiber projects to bring on this trip. I would do it differently now, but I was happy to have a little weaving time on the bus.
Warping on the bus from Angers to Albi
Weaving poppy fields from a pencil sketch
The finished four selvedge tapestry. weaversbazaar fine wool yarn, cotton warp.
I love travel weaving and have written about it fairly often. It turns out that if you’re on a scheduled tour though, there isn’t much time for weaving. Next time I go to France I’ll sit still for a few days and weave something inspired by those wonderful buildings.
I did bring a sketchbook and I spent a lot of time writing down my observations as well as making a few drawings. I brought some colored pencils along. I enjoyed seeing the wonderful watercolor sketches that Liz Pulos made on the trip. I don’t have any experience with watercolor but a small travel watercolor set seems easy to carry and the color is so different than the unsatisfying marks you get with colored pencil. Next time! I do bring along scrapbooking double-sided sticky squares and some washi tape to fasten in tickets and other things I want to save. And especially when on the bus, I made some sketches of the countryside as well as sketches of small tapestry diary pieces to weave when I have time.
Rebecca Mezoff, France journal page
This Turkish spindle came along. I decided to bring this one instead of my Jenkins Lark because it is sturdy enough to stick in my bag without much added protection.
I pulled out the spindle fairly frequently while I waited for events and friends, but all in all, it must not have been much time because I only emptied the spindle once in all that time.
I’ve been posting video blogs of the trip to France. I’m home now, but have four or five left to post. After that I’ll do some writing about some of the tapestries I loved as well as the visits to various ateliers, Pinton, Gobelins, and Beauvais. The videos are on my YouTube channel HERE or you can find them in the blog in posts prior to this one.
Rebecca Mezoff, Poppies of France, travel diary weaving, 2 x 3 inches