Practicing hatching

I've discovered that it is one thing to follow along in a book or with an instructor when learning something new, and quite another to try it on one's own. But once I dive into whatever it is that I am trying to learn, it gets easier and feels more automatic. Thus practicing hatching as taught by Rebecca Mezoff.

Hatching involves alternating colors in the weaving, to create shades, shapes, whatever. It can be irregular or, like here, regular. It can introduce subtle color changes, especially from a distance, while producing different effects up close.

This piece used Valley Yarns superwash wool yarn, not the best choice for tapestry weaving, but I have SO MUCH YARN - I don't want to buy more right now, especially for practice. The warp is 8/4 carpet warp in gray, which blended in enough that the "lice" (uncovered warp) was not obvious enough for me to correct. Rebecca teaches weaving from the back of the fabric, so sometimes the front is a bit of a surprise, but this example turned out okay, considering. I'm working on another, from the front, just to see if I like it better.

Another technique Rebecca teaches is "meet and separate" which involves weaving each color with two ends. This has its advantages, but when weaving a small piece in multiple colors, yarn wrangling gets to be a bit much. The loom is too small for using butterflies (yarn wound into figure 8's), so I was using tapestry needles with bent tips to weave. I also used a double-pointed knitting needle to set up the shed for each row. This helped when "beating" the previous row, as well as when weaving the current row. Just a non-professional tip.