My first tapestry was created for a mask exhibit for the Conference of Northern California Handweavers. The yin-yang woman measures 9×10.5 inches. One earring is a diamond, the other a dangling espresso pot.

For Carrie

Tapestry for Carrie

The second of my woven women was done in honor of a talented friend who died suddenly and prematurely from leukemia at age 53. Two bags of her beautiful thrums (for non-weavers: these are the leftover warp threads when a piece is taken off the loom) were left after a sale of items from her studio. I used them for this 11×11 inch tapestry woven in 2002. It is my first attempt at doing a tapestry from my own drawing.

Follow Your Star

Follow Your Star

A book of Chinese lattice designs gave me a starting point for the design of this tapestry, my first experiment in using my own handspun, hand-dyed yarns for tapestry. It measures 12×31 inches.

Ghost Ranch Tapestry

New Mexico tapestry

The WARP (Weave a Real Peace) annual meeting in 2000 was held at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. During one afternoon and evening at this beautiful spot I wove this 3.5×5.5 inch tapestry using the back of a small notebook as a cardboard loom.

Gringo Ganado

My mother and father spent their honeymoon in Arizona and New Mexico many years ago. They spent all of their money on two Navajo textiles and had only a crate of peaches to eat on the way home to Iowa. I have one of the textiles, a striped saddle blanket. The largest, a Ganado red, went to my brother. Although my rug is not as large and is not the same design as the one they bought, I made my first large Navajo piece, measuring 30×46 inches, in the Ganado style.

Nearly Navajo

Navajo-style rug

After following Noel Bennet’s instructions on building a loom and weaving in the Navajo style, I designed this 20×27.5 inch Navajo-style piece by looking at several catalogues of Navajo textiles.

Landscape

My mountains

This 14×17 inch imaginary landscape is somewhat evocative of my mountains with fog above the San Andreas Fault in the valley between our house and the next ridge. It was one of my first attempts at adding textured yarns and multiple strands in a tapestry.