There have been times this year that my adventures have felt akin to treking the Himalayas - well mentally at least! While my feet have yet to reach any seriously high altitudes, my eyes have certainly fallen upon many a mountain and in doing so, have relished stunning tapestries of colour.
This soft pallette of blues and greens across Loch Fyne from the shore at Inverary was just one of the delightful vistas that I enjoyed at the start of my tapestry weaving wanderings this autumn.
One aspect I particularly cherish about my wanderings, is how they unfold in a way that it is impossible to imagine beforehand. While I always make a starting plan, I learnt long ago that these are best kept as outlines to be adjusted as takes my fancy on route.
The beginning of my wanderings this autumn begain with spending happy hours enjoying the creations and wisdom of tapestry weaver Louise Oppenhiemer in her studio in wonderful watery Argyllshire. A year where tapestry weaving has steadily seeped into my fingertips, I have been keen to learn more from those who have mastered and honed their tapestry skills. I approached Louise's pretty home in the Kilmartin Glen with my usual mix of excitement about the place my feet were to settle for a few days.
Louise's striking tapestry creations in her her garden studio with far reaching views made for a magnificent reception. With stunning landscape in all directions, I could immediately understand why she had made Kilmartain Glen her home and weaving base for the 25 plus years.
It was evident from the sheer volume and scale of Louise's work of organic shapes and painterly blends, that she spends a great deal of time weaving - something that I am fast learning is very easy to do.
Louise weaves her pieces with wool yarn on nailed frames, which in themselves are most pleasing creations. Like many tapestry weavers, she weaves using 'butterflies' of yarn, which she deftly passes across the warps and tucks behind in-between use. Louise's colour pallette is naturalistic and lively - a combination that I found particularly appealing.
It was a delight to watch her weave organic shapes on her ongoing tapestry work, moving intuitively from one shape to the next and blending colour as she wove.
Plus there was the utter delight of being surrounded by a bounty of colourful yarn - Louise's collection is heavenly and with it came that amazing wool smell that I've yet worked out how to capture in a bottle!
Her yarn stash comes from years of gathering, initially from mills in and around her home and now further afield. Sourcing supplies has become increasingly harder for Louise as yarn stocks in old mills steadily dwindle and as I know from my own experiences, sourcing materials can now take as much time as the creative process itself.
Blessed with way more sunshine than I could have reasonably hoped for in Scotland in October, I made the most of every spare moment to enjoy the Kilmartin Glen scenery.
This dramatic sky looking across to Dunadd Fort would have had me don my working boots at speed, had my fingers not been so preoccupied. A rocky outcrop that has been occupied since the Iron Age, it was used as a fort for over 2000 years and was once the centre of royal power of Gaelic kings.
Argyll is very well known for standing stones and circles and there are over 350 ancient monuments within 6 miles of Kilmartin village!
This stone circle at Templecombe Wood which I enjoyed visiting in glorious later afternoon sunshine was the first that I found. I later realised there are two stone circles in this location and I guess that this is a gentle reminder that I will need to return!
An early morning wander through a meandering paths of the Achnabreck Forest led me to a standing platform looking down on 5000 year old rock art.
The spirals and ring marks were clearly visible even in the emerging low light and I wondered at those who would have carved these pleasing shapes and their reasons for doing so.
Wool and rock of course make very happy partners in Scotland - creations of the former have long helped to make creations in the latter a little warmer and brighter! Stirling Castle is a magnificent example of one of Scotland's many castles and is one of the largest.
Steeped in history of Kings, Queens, battles and sieges, I was delighted to have the opportunity to visit, with the added bonus of seeing a set of the most exquisite modern tapestries. Now a first class visitor attraction, it was chosen as the home for seven modern tapestries depicting the Hunt for the Unicorn.
The
Stirling Palace Tapestries resulted from a 13 year long project started in 2002 and were based on original tapestries held in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. A total of 18 highly skilled tapestry weavers were involved creating pieces that were 10% smaller than the originals - each piece taking around 16,000 hours of weaving. While the title of the tapestries is a little unsettling, they are equally a celebration of the abundance of nature.
Four of the seven tapestries were woven in a dedicated studio at Stirling Castle and this remains as an interesting and engaging display for visitors. Throughout their creation, a 'cartoon' secured behind the warp threads provided the design that the weavers worked from from the front. Medieval tapestries were woven from the back in reverse, which is very hard to imagine. With 7 warps per centimetre compared with 4 for the 21st century weavers to work, one wonders how they were ever completed without modern lighting and eye magnification! Thousands of visitors were able to enjoy seeing the weavers working throughout the creation years and a lucky few got to see the ceremonial cutting of the warp threads when each tapestry was completed.
For all their magnificance hanging in the Queen's Inner Hall, the immense skill of the weavers only became evident when viewing the samples in the weaving studio. The traditional shading created by the use of
hachures on each and every subject is incredible and to master tapestry weaving is undoubtedly a lifetimes work.
My visit and learning on this sunny Saturday afternoon was made all the more enjoyable by the company of Scottish weavers Marlen and Gill - who patiently answered my endless questions!
Established in 1912, the first Master Weavers Gordon Berry and John Glassbrook came from the workshops of William Morris. Sadly losing their lives in WW1 and leaving unfinished tapestries, many prestigious weavers have since woven at Dovecott and continue to do so. it was a very last minute decision to visit on the final day of my weaving wanderings and how glad I was to have made that decision.
It was quite an emotional experience to walk around the gallery of this world-renowned tapestry studio and look down on the working area where so many highly skilled tapestry weavers have created their masterpieces.
I was most fortunate to enjoy this experience as a lone visitor and in doing so experienced a serenity and peace rarely found in such a large space.
There was a solitary weaver working on the Monday morning of my visit and as soft autumn sunshine projected a warm light from above, I enjoyed standing and wataching his dexterous fingers weaving against the cartoon visible behing the warp threads.
My tapestry
wanderings this autumn were over all too quickly and despite the ever
shortening days, I had a very strong inclination to keep heading
North. I pointed my trusty car Southwards and the beautiful vistas of my
days of wandering lifted my heavy heart. This image particularly, taken as I walked along the Crinan Canal at dawn on my first morning.
I was reminded how colour and form shapes my life in so many ways and that with good fortune, more days of colour and wonder will come to pass.
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