Last week I finally got to a summer school workshop at the Victorian Handweavers and Spinners Guild. For years I’ve either being away at a writing retreat or chasing a deadline at this time of year. Or there weren’t any weaving-related workshops on offer. This time there were a couple of weaving workshops and I had the time, so I chose Mini Tapestry Weaving because I wanted to try some kind of tapestry weaving – though the idea of making small, quick tapestries appealed, too.

After about five hours of guidance, nattering and weaving we all had little experimental tapestries well underway or finished and attached to a card:

Sue Traylen, the teacher, had made many little artworks this way. Hers are much more precise than this, of course, and she has a artist’s eye for composition. I got to thinking of ways this method could be applied to wearable things, so I bought some of the embroidery floss she uses.

Being able to use stranded cotton embroidery floss would have been great as I have heaps, but Sue told us it doesn’t work as well. With these I started stitching a bracelet, using a strip of thick leather and a press stud closure. You use sewing cotton for the warp.

The pins Sue provided have little coloured heads. My pearl-topped ones were too big to fit next to each other.

You can use plain pins, but I decided to try making some of mine into coloured pins by dabbing on a bit of nail polish.

It seems to have hardened well enough to stay put.

While I had the leather working gear out, I made another bracelet based on something I saw on Pinterest:

I’m thinking of adding a charm or chain to it.