Create Woven Jewelry and Fiber Art with Tapestry Needle Weaving
needle woven tapestry fiber art
Before I took up knitting, I took classes in tapestry needle weaving and creating needle woven jewelry and wall art. The same tapestry weaving process is used for both the jewelry and the wall art and made on a homemade tapestry loom. I created several tapestry woven necklaces and sold each of the right off my neck when someone admired each piece! Needle tapestry weaving creates really unique fiber art pieces.
For the purposes of this blog posting, I’ll give directions for the wall hanging, with more resources if you want to pursue a needle woven tapestry necklace. The needle woven jewelry technique is described in more detail in Helen
Needle Woven Tapestry Necklace in Progress
Banes’ book, Beads and Threads: A New Technique for Fiber Jewelry.
Whether you want to do a woven necklace or a piece of fiber art for your wall, you’ll need:
- 3 pieces of foam board, but to about 3 inches larger than your project, taped together to make a firm padding
- straight pins with ball heads so your thread doesn’t get tangled in the pin tops
- a tapestry needle
- Conso Nylon Beading Thread Cord
This link to heavy Conso thread is for black but you can purchase many different colors to match your project.
- #3 Pearl Cotton in colors of your choice. This is also available on Amazon.com. This link if for blue but many colors are available. I’ve found that it’s difficult to find #3 pearl cotton in stores. Most of what you see is #7, which is too fine for a woven tapestry.If you’re making a necklace, you’ll want some beads to match whatever design you choose.Some graft paper in quarter inch squares.
- Graft paper in quarter inch squares. You may want to sketch out your design before choosing your pearl cotton and Conso colors.
- Beads to match your design if you’re making a necklace. I’ve included a picture of my needle woven necklace in progress. This is a great way to use up left over beads too.
Instructions for Needle Woven Tapestry
First, sketch out your design onto the graft paper. In the case of tapestry woven wall hangings, I keep the design simple for a folk art look. This may prove the most difficult part of the process for most tapestry needle weaving but landscape scenes are fairly easy to design.
Assemble all your equipment,
String Conso from top to bottom creating warp
Tape the graft paper, with your tapestry design, onto the foam board.
Place a straight pin at every straight line, at each quarter square, the both top of your design and the bottom, creating two rows of pins.
Insert pins at each quarter inch of graft paper
Tie your Conso thread to one corner and string it from top to bottom, all the way across, to create the warp.
Once your warp is tied and tightly secured, you’re ready to begin.
Leaving a tail of pearl cotton to be woven in later, thread your tapestry needle and begin and over, under tapestry stitch. When you get to the end of the row, go back across, but going over the under threads and under the over threads to create the needle weaving.
When your needle woven tapestry is complete, remove all the pins, weave in the loose ends and frame. I used a sticky back board behind my wall hanging so it would keep it’s shape. My husband made this frame for me but you can find many rustic type frames in a hobby store, like Michaels or Joann’s.
If you’d like more information on the tapestry needle weaving technique and how to make necklaces and woven jewelry, get Beads and Threads: A New Technique for Fiber Jewelry
More great information on small loom weaving at the eLoomanation blog and website.
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