Friend Anne made a reference I didn’t understand. She said, “Oh, like the Unicorn Tapestries.”
“Stop talking,” I said, “I have to look up something on Wikipedia, because what unicorn tapestries?”
See below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unicorn_Tapestries
It’s a series of tapestries that tell a story of a unicorn that meets a sad end. Well, sad, unless there are even more missing pieces that might give a happier epilogue.
Still I couldn’t imagine the weaving process that would make a tapestry like that. I understood the process of the warp and the colorful weft, but not how you would make the edge of a unicorn horn, for example. Do you tie a knot in the thread to make the color stop? Is it woven so tightly that you just snip it off and it doesn’t unravel? Is it just a mess on the other side like embroidery (my embroidery, anyway)?
Nope, if you hit the edge of a color you double back and go the other direction. You can see it happening in this meticulous tapestry video.
4 responses to “TWIL: How to make a tapestry”
(a friend recently mentioned the re-creations of vintage tapestries in the Stirling Castle, as they had visited the area, and there is a video of that process specifically, if you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dRSTCGiAGY
(they used cotton instead of silk in the re-creation, though, which I have mixed feelings about; yes, it’s INCREDIBLY cheaper, yes, it’s easier to care for and does not get moths, buuuut silk.)
KC – But I bet cotton is more durable. Two of the silk ones are in remnants.
Yeah, cellulose vs. protein will win on many fronts, esp. the vitally-important bugs-eating-it one. I think silk may do better against damp than cotton, but I am not sure.
I also don’t know comparative performance in sunlight.
(now suddenly wondering whether goats prefer eating cotton to silk or vice versa, but I’d expect that to be an *unusual* tapestry hazard relative to damp, bugs, or sun…)
KC – It bothers me a lot that there is no documentation on what happened to the remnants other than “They were used to cover potatoes.” How does that happen?