I have many great memories over writing prompts with my wordy friends. We’d all gather up prompts (as simple as a single word like “red” or as nuanced as “the way the light comes in through the window”) and tuck them all into a basket. Then we’d pull one out and, without overthinking the process, write like mad for 5 or 10 minutes on whatever came to mind from that prompt and share our work with each other. It was remarkable how divergent the same prompt could be, given the uniqueness of the writers in the room!
Exercises like writing from prompts helps us overcome the problem of the blank page. You’d like to write, but you just stare at that sheet of white, not knowing where to start. An empty loom can be very much like a blank page. You’d love to be weaving, but you don’t know where to start for your next project. This month, I thought it would be delightful to kick off a quarterly series of offering tapestry prompts to help kickstart projects that allow you to bring your creativity to the idea!
I’ll be offering the tapestry prompts in a “choose your own adventure” way, so you can snag which elements would best serve your creativity process. Mix and match or choose what is calling you. Each season, I’ll release a new prompt, and I’ll be excited to see what you create!
Tapestry Prompt Design
The main feature of the tapestry prompt is the design. This will fit well on a piece of paper (8.5 x 11), as a digital download that you can easily print. Use this as the cartoon for the piece. Feel free to embellish as desired! If the piece is a geometric, it will come on a grid with ledger notes. For this summer’s theme, I’ve drawn a charming folk rooster inspired by vintage Scandinavian plates. I can hear him crowing!
Themed Virtual Weave-Along
Looking for community and encouragement while you work on your prompt? I’ll be offering a more relaxed 6-session Zoom event you can join. Snag a warping refresher, learn pro tips and pearls for weaving the design, and take on a skill stretch. For the folk rooster, I’ll be exploring using embroidery stitches on the woven tapestry to mimic the festive Nordic designs seen on the vintage plates. These Weave-Along will be held on select Sundays from 2-4pm.
Erindale Palette Yarns
For the prompts, you are more than welcome to raid your stash for weaving yarn, or splurge and go shopping if that gets your creative juices flowing. For folks who don’t have a rigorous stash (or who just love using the wool yarns from our farm’s sheep), I’ll assemble an assortment of bundled yarns that would work well with the design. These palettes would come with 1 oz. of each color shown, so you can use them in the design as you see fit.
Extra Frame Loom
Already have a project in-process on your loom but want to jump in on the prompt anyway? You can snag an additional loom kit. I have 8 frame looms in my arsenal, and they sure are handy for these small format projects. You don’t have to have a frame loom for the prompts however—if you have another type of loom that you enjoy using that can accommodate an 8.5 x 11 inch project, use it!
Tapestry Prompt Community
I would love to see what you create with the prompt, as I’m sure would my growing community of tapestry students! That was distinctively part of the fun in our writer’s circle—reading without critique what we’d created. Not only was it fun to share, but it was fun to learn and gain ideas from each other. I’ll be sharing mine as I go, and I look forward to seeing and celebrating yours as well. Happy weaving!