It began as a sample to try my new Big Sister Mirrix loom. I didn’t take time to elaborate something. I just drew a sketch of four dancers, wove the warp (8 epi) and went on. I chose on the go colors I liked, and decided to have a try on color gradation, chiné and demi-duite.
I learnt a lot. It was the first time I wove from the side, and so the first time I had to deal with so many curves. Due to my job, there was a gap of two weeks between the first three dancers and the last on. As I hadn’t any plans, at the end of the weaving, I had lost track of my initial decisions, and there may be a lack of coherence between the beginning and the end, and the width at the end is 1,5cm less than at the beginning. The whole piece is about 20×50 cm. (Roughly 10×20 inches)
What surprised me too is that I didn’t realize till the very end the picture will be the reverse, as I weave from the back. I knew it but didn’t really visualize it.
All in all, I’m quite happy with Not Matisse. I achieved all the little goals I gave to myself, I like the colors, I improved my weaving skills. It may be the first piece I finish and mount, something I haven’t done yet. Next project, Alice et Anita 2, which I will from now call AA2. I am still hesitating for some of the colors. I have another project on the side, which will be quite challenching, I will (or not) post about it later.
Mes amis français et d’ailleurs, normalement le Google translate sur la droite de la page devrait tout vous traduire, c’est son boulot….
Tissagerie 
Génial !! Très beau, belles compositions de couleurs.
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Terrific! You are almost Matisse! Alice and Anita, you’d better get ready !
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I really like the movement of the figures, and the excellent background color gradation techniques enhance that feeling of movement.
My tapestries seem to shrink a lot right near the end, too. I think it is because I am using fewer bobbins near the end. One author I read said to try to use about the same number of bobbins as the rest of the tapestry, even when you are using a single color all the way across. Apparently the turns during “meet and separate” also affect warp spacing, so having a similar number of turns in a row helps keep things the same.
In my case of course, it could also be that near the end I am impatient to finish so am not as careful at bubbling.
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