You know that I love to paint, but I am not sure if you know that I love fibres and textiles too. In fact I started my creative life after retirement form teaching making bags, often embellished with embroidery, beads and ribbons. That’s why my Etsy store is anne4bags, even though I no longer sell the bags.
I still get the urge to create with yarns. My latest series are tapestry pictures of the melaleucas from Flinders Island. Series is stretching it, because I have only finished one! However, the second has begun and I would like to do a third.
While one the Island I found some beautiful yarn from Fibreworks. When I returned home I ordered some more because it was just perfect for what I had in mind. It is Australian merino wool, smooth and even. The colours are hand dyed and are rich and slightly variegated. The slight variegation gives me the subtle changes that I was looking for. For the finished one I did use some other wools but I found the colours changed too abruptly. It made it harder to control the tone.
I have had wonderful service from Gill at Fireworks. If you want yarn for your next project, drop in; I highly recommend a visit to the site! How can you resist yarn like this? 🙂
Anne Lawson Art 
11 replies on “Melaleuca tapestry”
Will you be offering a chart for sale? I do hope so, because I love what I’m seeing here!
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By a chart, do you mean a graphic representation of the melaleuca so that others can create it too? (Long explanation — “chart” is so much better!) If so, I hadn’t thought about it. Now I will. I will investigate the site that you put me onto. (Love a challenge!) I didn’t work from a drawing, just outlined the tree in black cotton and went stitching from there.
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That’s exactly what I mean by a chart. There are two ways of representing the colours: as actual colour, or as symbols, and that site will give you both options. I prefer colour, because that’s how my brain works! It also gives you DMC colour references. I think it would make a wonderful project. Keep notes on colour and how much you use – if you can be bothered, you could offer it as a kit, together with the yarn and the canvas.
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Hmmm, a lot of food for thought there, Kate. Thank you for your suggestions.
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Wow….I am so impressed. And it looks fantastic. Well done. 🙂
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Thank you. It is a great thing to do while I watch TV. Unfortunately I can’t sew and read at the same time.
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-grin- I can’t do tapestry/embroidery full stop!
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Lovely to see Flinders Island via another medium. From the photos I could see the potential for a textural approach.
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It is an environment that cries out for a textural response. I want the tapestries to get more experimental, but I am happy with what I am doing at the moment. I am also playing with recreating the melaleuca bark with fabric.
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Beautiful work! Love the use of the multicolored yarns.
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I often wondered where the bags reference came from. Now we know.
I’m loving my teapot paintings, Anne. They surround our grandmother clock. Must get it together to take photos. I’m having one of the busiest summers in a decade!
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