cutting off

It’s decisive, isn’t it?

Snip.

Snap.

And the work is done.

At least the taut-warp, grid-centric, over-under, mystery-of-months-ago part is done.

The yarn has come together.

The loom has come apart.

A previously unknown idea rests casually on a bed.

And the weaver sighs with relief. Or dismay. Or something.

At any rate she tries to remember to take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

And then maybe another.

For that’s that.¹

Except it’s not.

For finish work awaits.

Huh?

You know—FINISH WORK: the often dreaded, sometimes anticipated and always important series of steps that help a brand new tapestry get ready for the world?

Finish work: the specific fiddly processes that allow me to dodge hems and give continuous warp tapestries the tidy-edged appearance of those I’ve woven fringelessly?²

Finish work: several seemingly slow but actually efficient tasks (at least if compared with months of weaving), that permit a person to call the work truly done and allow her to open her mind and heart and hands to whatever might come next?

Finish work: five videos (shown below), of twining, braiding, whipping, stitching and cutting.

Five videos that the tapestry-minded (and those who enjoy a pair of hard-working old-lady hands doing a thing they’ve done a time or two), might find of interest.

Five videos of silent rustling tedium for others—especially those of you who already love your edge finishing techniques and/or will be annoyed/bored/dismayed/otherwise irritated by mine.

Five videos under which await a bit of Beryl prancing through the snow (and as ever, Gusset part B in footnotes).

Five videos to enjoy, to scroll rapidly past, or to inspire you to close your computer and play a few tunes as the case may be.

Five videos (if you’re sticking around), that begin with the twined edge technique I learned in my very first weaving class in 1989. I believe it can be found in Peter Collingwood’s book The Techniques of Rug Weaving, but can’t be sure as I learned it directly from a fellow student and have never had occasion to look it up. Anyone know?

BTW: The number of warps included in each repeat can vary depending on the length of your warp, the sense of warp-tucking security you’re most comfortable with, and/or the width of twined edge that suits your work.

I’ve used this technique on every fringed tapestry I’ve ever woven, even the early pieces with fold-over hems (as I was taught). After I began weaving in all my ends however,³ a change that coincided with my move to wool warp, natural dyes and no hems, I wove mostly on natural grey or deliberately dyed warp to avoid having white twined lines at the top and bottom of the finished pieces. (The twined line would then be grey or indigo or walnut or whatever was appropriate for the work). With a coffee filter piece like this, the white cotton warp happily matches well enough.

This is how I end at the corner:

I keep the braid from coming undone by whipping the edge.⁴ It’s a technique my father taught me decades ago and prevents the lines on a sailboat from unraveling. It’s also perhaps not a bad way to keep a restless child occupied on board so a hard working dad can enjoy his time on the water without himself unraveling.

Apologies for my hands being in the way. I adjusted my technique after the first few wraps to make that part more obvious, but at the end I just yanked on the loose end as hard as I could (to move the loop down into and under the body of the wraps) without thinking that I was totally blocking your view. Oops!

Stitching three-ish times back and forth across the twined edge (with matching thread) makes sure everything is secure.

This last step doesn't seem as important with wool warp—wet finishing and a light fulling help all the lovely wooly fibers to ratchet together and stay in place.⁵ But the stitching feels essential with other fibers if one is to do the final snipping with any degree of confidence.⁶

I know I’ve said somewhere or other that I always wet finish my tapestries,⁷ but as with so many things (not least my fringeless video declaration that I’m a wool girl to my core and uninterested in working with other fibers), I’ve changed my mind.⁸ Not that a wash or soak would hurt the coffee filter yarn (I’ve tested this in many ways). It’s more that the cellulose fibers somehow seem to settle more firmly into place during weaving and don’t seem to need the final relaxing soak in a hot bath quite like those in an all wool tapestry. It could be that I’m fooling myself here, but be that as it may on this tapestry I made do with lovely bursts of steam then let the tapestry dry flat.

And here it is.

Remember to comment with the button above rather than by hitting reply, for if you choose the latter I won’t see your lovely words, and that would be a bummer!

And if you know anyone who might enjoy these meanderings (or has a penchant for wordless process videos), please do click the button below and see what they think.

1. Weaving the Rough Copy series of tapestries was prompted by my need for the finality of cutting off. After years of writing fiction, I was sick unto death of editing and re-editing—of fiddling about this sentence and that paragraph. Loving it madly I yet longed to be done and didn’t know how to stop. Until I remembered that I was a weaver, realized I could weave those very words and cut them from the loom. That I could be done.

That it took four glorious years of editing and weaving and weaving and editing to refine hundreds of pages into thirteen tapestry fragments with not so much as a comma I did not love was immaterial. When I finished each one: snip, snip snip and I was done. And since then, though I’ve woven (and written) many more words, I’ve not yet been reengulfed by fiction. Such a relief. I think?

2. I have no idea if fringelessly is a word. Probably not. But it’s what you get when you warp with a four selvedge technique: Navajo, the Fringeless technique that Rebecca Mezoff and I teach in our class of that name, Susan Martin Maffei’s Four Selvedge Warping , Velma Bolyard’s Stump Loom approach—or other techniques that I’m sure exist in the world but which have not yet crossed my path.

3. Tucking The Tails

4. How to Whip The End Of A Rope — a short graphic YouTube video I just found to supplement mine—it has nice drawings and annoying music.

5. Here’s a long ago post where I go on and on about the glories of wool warp. And while all those things still hold true (wool warp is still my absolutely favorite, even when I’m using cellulose fibers in the weft), I’m a lot more open-minded and curious and welcoming to all manner of possibilities. I mean—why not?

6. I’m pretty sure there are archival issues with snipping the warp ends like this. In some ways, all processes should be undoable for possible repair. But leaving the warp ends long means making some kind of hem—or at least sewing said ends to one side and thus making an obvious distinction between front and back. And since I do what I can to avoid this, I prefer to let posterity take care of itself. Some future fixer can, if they choose, change the work in any way they see fit to make it serviceable or, indeed, use it in any old way such a piece of cloth might be helpful until it is ready to decompose at which point it can help nourish other good things. Nothing lasts forever (except maybe stone). And honestly, nothing person-made should be forced to. Or so it seems to me.

7. And here’s one where I wet finish a bunch of tiny tapestries. Not many words, but plenty of process pics.

8. These days, like Olga de Ameral, I’ll weave anything. Or at least cast my eye and hands over whatever comes my way, just in case. Thanks to the Weavers Bazaar Newsletter for the link—and the reminder of the creative nourishment to be found in a periodic deep delicious de Ameral dive,