Inlay and embroidery in weaving

Lately, I keep having wonderful dreams about weaving, weaving, weaving.

LOL! I just realized that this kind of gives me a new sense of the term: ‘Dream Weaver’…..

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

Anyhow, after all the great weaving dreams, the call of  my Saori loom is just not to be ignored.

Saori weaving is all about listening to inner promptings and setting aside critical voices.

The point of Saori weaving is to focus on the creative process, which is dear to my heart.

So, in that mindset, I gave myself permission to just follow whatever interesting thoughts came up with this weaving, and to see where it lead me.

I wanted to make placemats that have a light hearted feeling.

Also, I want them to be obviously a set, but with each one being unique because of small touches.

I have been playing with doing very simple inlaid sections of contrasting weft.

It struck me that working tambour chain stitching around the inlays would be neat….

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

And, of course, one thing always leads to another.

When I was playing with the tambour chain stitch, it struck me that using an embroidery needle would be easier.

So, the spiral in this pic lead me to the little embroidered flower….

and then I thought….

hmmm…..

combining inlay with simple embroidered shapes

would be interesting…..

So, I got out my sketchbook

and did a quick sketch of a bunny.

I glued it to a piece of card stock and cut it out.  Then, I wove a section of inlay:

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I traced around the bunny shape, (directly onto the white inlaid section)  and then, embroidered a simple chain stitch outline.

Photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright.

I am deliberately keeping the shapes simple, as I want the placemats to not be over-embellished.

Oh! I just had a thought….

I think I’ll ask my family what shapes they’d like to see on the placemats, since they are going to be using them!