Before the woven image can begin to come to life, there's much preparatory work to do. The weavers warp each loom with white cotton seine from Borgs of Sweden, which is measured and rolled onto the top beam. Alternate ends are threaded through alternate looped-string heddles that will separate the warps into reciprocal sheds, or openings for the weft. Then the weavers tie the ends in groups to a rod secured to the bottom beam.
The warp sett, or spacing, is secured by a few passes of the same twine used for the warp. It can range from 10 epi (ends pcr inch), which provides a smooth, tightly woven surface, to 5 epi, reserved for experimental work, which yields a toothier texture. The diameter of the twine increases as the sett decreases, from 12/15 for 10 epi to 12/27 for 5 epi. The war is highly tensioned to allow the wefts to be packed firmly into place. An 8-ft.-wide loom sustains over 3,000 lb. of tension.
The cartoon—A full-scale line drawing, or cartoon, guides the weaver. It may be a simple outline open to interpretation or a precisely detailed map that demands strict adherence. At the Scheuer studio, the cartoon is kept simple. Scheuer usually works from her own 35mm color slide, which she projects to weaving size and traces onto paper, making final changes before tracing the outline onto the taut, exposed warp threads. To be sure the tracing will remain visible as the threads are manipulated, she reinforces the initial tracing by twisting each thread against a marking pen.
Depending on the design, the cartoon may be placed upright or on its side. Designs with many vertical elements, if woven upright, would require many color changes across the warp. But if the same tapestry were woven sideways, the verticals would become horizontals, which are easier to weave.
Weaving—At the start of the actual weaving, a 1-in. tabby heading is woven, to be turned under once the piece is finished. About 8 lb. of yarn will be woven into an average 4-ft. by 7-ft. tapestry. Most of it is fine-diameter worsted wool, Paternayan Brothers' plied single-strand crewel and plied triple-strand Persian. The weavers augment their palette with silk yarns colored with ClBA dyes. Gold-wrapped silk threads, used judiciously, enhance the luster of the silk and wool.
Winding a set of bobbins and making decisions about blends and contrasts is like mixing paints on a palette. The weaver chooses from the color groups she wants to combine, then wraps the threads around her hand as a rough test of how they'll look. Black, for instance, can be made up of strands of navy blue, deep blue purple, maybe a red purple, and a couple of true blacks. On either side of the measured warp, extra warp threads allow the weaver to experiment with color groups. A combination of hues of similar value is called chine melange; chine piquee refers to yarns of diverse hue and value.
A tapestry sett of 10 epi requires a weft of 4 fine yarns wound together; for a more widely spaced warp—5 epi, for example—up to 13 weft yarns can be wound onto a single bobbin. Nearly 40 rows of weft, solidly beaten with a heavy brass comb every few passes, compress into 1 in. of tapestry.
Unlike most weaving done in this country, the method used at the Scheuer studio requires the weaver to work from the back. ‘‘I’d love to weave from the front, and we plan to experiment with that, but it means we won't be able to use several important techniques," says Scheuer. (See techniques described below and on p. 54.) “Also, we leave all the ends out on the back. We knot them so they won't start poking out in the front in ten years, and it’s a lot easier to have the bobbins right at our fingers."
As she works, the weaver looks through the array of warp threads to see the front of the tapestry reflected in a mirror that hangs from the loom. She works on a small section at a time, using the treadles to define the shed. Then, quickly eyeing the warp threads she needs, she grabs the handful with the left hand; with the right, she passes the long-pointed bobbin, blunt end first, into the shed and out the other side. She leaves just enough arch of weft to create the proper tension, then flicks the weft down lightly with the point of the bobbin.
She continues in this way, rhythmically building up an area. Then, using the brass comb, she whacks the threads down tight. Although she builds up the weft within the outlines of the cartoon on the warp, she freely interprets color from the maquette and so must monitor every pass of the weft. An 11x14 color photo often serves as the maquette, but it could just as well be a small-scale drawing, painting, or cut-paper design.
As the weaving progresses, the weaver rises to keep even with her work until she can go no higher. Then the tapestry is wound on the bottom beam and additional warp is released. More of the cartoon is traced onto the warp, and the weaving proceeds.
Cutting off and finishing—After the last image-bearing row has been beaten into place, a I-in. border and small tabs identifying the tapestry are woven in. The work is now ready to be cut from its warp matrix. This simple act is often the occasion for a ceremony at which the weavers, with clients and friends, celebrate the tapestry’s months-long journey from sketch to woven image.
The tapestry is still not finished. Slits have to be sewn up, and the tapestry must be blocked so that it will be perfectly square and flat. Although the discrepancy from straight selvedges and 90° angles is slight—about 1 in. in 48, even with inexperienced weavers—proper finishing requires that the tapestry be secured face down with nonrusting brass tacks to a gridded blocking board, steam-pressed with wet linen cloths and a dry iron, and left for 24 hours to dry. Scheuer estimates that blocking causes a warpwise shrinkage of 3% and a weftwise shrinkage of 1%, both compensated for in the weaving.
There is no fringe because, Scheuer says, “we are emphasizing the weft element, the woven image.” Sewn-back hems are faced with cotton-twill tape, and a sewn-in label identifies the workshop, the title of the work, its dimensions, the designer(s) and weaver(s), the sett, and the materials.
To hang the finished work, Scheuer uses a simple method that combines the best of medieval tradition—mounting the work away from the wall to create a pocket of thermal and acoustical insulation—with modern-day technology inspired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She takes a lx2 pine board, its length the width of the tapestry, seals it with polyurethane, and wraps it when dry with cotton muslin to protect the tapestry from the wood’s acidity. She then staples onto it the hook element of Velcro hook-and-loop fastening tape and machine-sews its looped mate to 3-in.-wide cotton webbing. Then she handsews the webbing to the top of the tapestry’s back edge. After the wood strip is mounted to the wall, the Velcro secures the tapestry to it, neatly setting the work against a cushion of air.
