By Beth Fox
I took up tapestry weaving four years ago to capture scenes from my hikes. I longed to add some dimensionality to my work and have always added embroidery on top of the weaving to achieve that effect. After failing spectacularly to weave a pine tree on my most recent small format tapestry (small format because I only have room for small looms), I saw Kennita Tully’s work with soumak, the wrapping of weft around warp threads that requires no shed. She uses diagonal soumak to depict tree roots, branches and leaves against a plain weave background, and I was overjoyed to learn she was offering an online class in this method. I applied for a scholarship through NCWG and registered.
The Many Faces of Soumak course is comprised of 119 lessons, presented with videos, photos, and text detailing how to master each technique. Numerous slide shows with audio explanations of how Kennita and other professional tapestry artists use the techniques at the end of each section and slide shows of students’ work at the end of the course are highly inspirational and helpful. 
As I completed the lessons, I became more and more excited about using a combination of open and closed diagonal soumak and Cavendoli knots to finally weave the knarled tree featured in a photograph I had taken years before during a hike in Sedona. The photograph has taunted me since 2021. I knew the color changes and curving lines of the tree were going to be a challenge in small format, so I put the project aside until I either had room for a much bigger loom or I could figure out how to weave such a textural piece in less than 20” by 20”. I could wind a continuous warp on my Schacht Arras to make the piece longer, but I like to see the entire weaving throughout, and I dislike the distraction of warp threads running behind the work. I could avoid jagged transitions in curving branches by using a much denser warp sett and sewing threads like Kathe Todd-Hooker, but my patience and clumsy fingers will never agree with that plan.
Halfway through the course I jumped in and started weaving Wind Dancer. I had to bail on creating the leaf clumps with the French knot technique taught in the course; creatingthe plain weave background around and among the numerous clumps in such a small format was both confusing and too time-consuming. I’ll embroider or needle felt those later, and use the French knot technique for flowers in a future tapestry. Meanwhile, I finished the remainder of the lessons and am now inspired to use the techniques taught in the last section of the course to create brick or stone walls or even waves.
Thanks to all the members of NCWG who generously donated to the scholarship fund and to the Board for giving me the go-head to register for the course, I now have more techniques in my tapestry-weaving arsenal!
