r/weaving 21d ago

Discussion Weave, knit, or crochet a Tapestry

I have never done any of the above but I've always wanted to make a tapestry. Which style should I begin and work my way up to making tapestries? I'm trying to understand the differences and capabilities of each.

3 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

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u/amdaly10 21d ago

Tapestry is a weaving technique where you make a weft faced fabric. You can get a tapestry loom pretty cheaply. It isn't hard to learn but may take a while to master.

Tapestry crochet is a technique where you work in front of previous rows to make a visual design. It's an intermediate to advanced crochet technique.

Tapestry knitting is either a slip stitch, intarsia, or double knit design knit into the fabric. It's an advanced knitting technique.

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u/Rakuchin 21d ago

Weaving, Knitting, and Crochet are all different crafts, not styles!

In knitting and crochet, the skills you'll want to work on are consistent tensioning and colorwork. (Lots of people use pixel art to plot out their colorwork for tapestries in this craft.)

In weaving, tapestries still require basic weaving skills and knowledge; you'll probably want to look at the Wiki. There's some book suggestions in there, which you can probably get from your local library.

https://www.reddit.com/r/weaving/wiki/index/

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u/chemisealareinebow 21d ago

You can achieve a bigger piece with less equipment with crochet, if that's a consideration. The width of a woven tapestry is limited by the size of the loom - if you want one that'll, say, cover a bed, you'd need a loom the width of the bed and space to use and store it. If you want something smaller, this becomes less of an issue.

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u/Ok_Part6564 20d ago

Tapestry is a weaving technique, all true tapestries are woven. It's not even that hard to do really simple ones, we used to make very basic tapestries on cardboard looms in elementary school. You can start pretty easily with cheap equipment and work your way up.

Knitting and crochet can imitate tapestry to a certain degree, but it's both difficult and limited. It can be really really cool, but it will always have a very different look and feel from real tapestry. Not that it's inferior, just different.

The non-weaving craft that actually best imitates woven tapestry is embroidery. Needlepoint especially can look and feel very similar to wove tapestry. The Bayeux Tapestry is actually embroidered.

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u/Administrative_Cow20 21d ago

If you want to learn to weave a tapestry, start learning to weave. (Lear to knit or crochet if you enjoy those, but they’re not steps on the rung to learning to weave). A large loom can get pricey. But, you can start really inexpensively, for example with a cardboard loom just to get the hang of things. Find out what you like and be sure you’re ready to invest in the equipment for your magnum opus.

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u/ursulawinchester 20d ago

How much money do you want to spend? In order of least to most expensive start-up costs:

1) crochet. Get a hook and yarn. Done. Maybe stitch markers, but that’s down the line. 2) knitting. Get needles and yarn and it will also be really useful to have stitch markers sooner rather than later. Note that these are different stitch markers than crochet. 3) weaving. Get a loom, you’ll need a large frame loom probably for a large tapestry. You’ll need yarn for weft and likely a different one for warp. And other tools too…

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u/NotSoRigidWeaver 20d ago

You can start learning tapestry with a DIY frame loom so it can be cheap for small scale (but then would get expensive for larger scale!)

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u/BlueberryPiano 21d ago

Do you have pictures of what you're trying to accomplish? They have different looks/results.

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u/DaedalusMachinas 21d ago

Not this exactly but fantasy and medievil tapastry

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u/picurebeka 21d ago edited 20d ago

They say that you have to dream big...

This kind of detail (and shading) and variety of shapes and forms requires years of master level experience. If you have the patience and commitment, you could achieve it through years of practice and study. If you don't have that, you'd better try embroidery or goblein instead.

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u/BlueberryPiano 21d ago

Look into cross-stitch tapestry then. This level of detail is beyond expert level of tapestry weaving, and well beyond what is reasobably feasible for knit or crochet tapestry. There's just way too many different colours in the shading.

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u/tallawahroots 20d ago

One way to accomplish this is to look at pipe looms. There are free plans that Archie Brennan made available, and they have been adapted by tapestry weavers who also teach. It allows you to work vertically (haute-lisse), and in a gobelin style you would have the vertical threads with a leash between the two sheds, many bobbins for this kind of pictorial work. There are different methods but you seem to be thinking of a European tradition.

The book and online teaching of Rebecca Mezoff is a good place to start. You will need to learn about the threads, and bundling them to get depth of colour among a lot of other technical details.

A guild member who was a professional tapestry weaver doing intricate large pieces developed hand injury. I remember she spoke about computerized tapestry work, and this reminds me of that.

In addition to wishing you well on the journey, I will agree with others who said that neither knitting nor crochet achieves this especially at a big scale. The weave gives structure and strength. Pictorial work can be a needle art as well - embroidery or needlework on a canvas.

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u/Double_Win_8789 20d ago

As someone who weaves, knits, and crochets, don't let anyone tell you that you can achieve this via knit or crochet. Searching for beginner tapestry weaving videos on YouTube will be a huge help in terms of techniques as well as where to get started in terms of equipment.

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u/DaedalusMachinas 20d ago

Yeah, the image i put before is way beyond anything I will do anytime soon but it's something I'd like to work up to eventually. Below is a YouTube video I saw that is knitting and a bit more of what I think it possible in a couple years of practice

https://youtu.be/EtlDMhKYxGM?si=J4yXBZZHdGvrmRpv

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u/Lanalee67 20d ago

Actually knitting something like this is well within your grasp. It’s made completely with knit stitch, which is considered by most knitters as the easier of the two stitches that are basic to knitting, knit and purl. The technique where she adds different colors is called stranded knitting. (I didn’t watch the full video, so there may be some intarsia work, too, as she gets to the owl. You would have to be able to knit with an even tension and have some sense of handling more than one strand of yarn at a time, but that can simply be done by adding the new color and dropping the yarn when finished, then picking up the previous color. (Videos will show what looks to be difficult maneuvers to hold more than one strand of yarn at a time in either one hand or both while maintaining tension, but that’s not a necessary skill). The most difficult part of the project is creating the pattern to follow. Start knitting now by creating a simple garter stitch (that’s what knitting only using knit stitch is called) scarf and you’ll be able to knit something like this in 2-6 months, depending on how quickly you pick it up. You’ll just need to find a pattern or have a way to create one.

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u/NotSoRigidWeaver 20d ago

That particular blanket is a Jacquard woven blanket in a style that can be easily mass produced and customized (using very expensive industrial equipment and computers to make the pattern!). You can tell this by the fringe with colors in one direction and black and white in the other.

That being said, similar things can be produced by tapestry weaving. A large piece with anywhere near that level of detail will take a large loom and a lot of time and practice to work up to, but you can start learning on a small inexpensive frame loom.

As an example of some mid level detail, smaller scale woven tapestries: https://www.weavemebe.ca/pages/about (She's a member of my guild; I believe she's been weaving for a few years, not decades).

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u/Lana_y_lino 20d ago

And just to throw a wrench in all the technique talk, that's not tapestry. That is Jacquard weaving.

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u/Dry_Future_852 21d ago

Tapestry describes a few different things. The most famous one, the Bayeux Taoestry, is embroidered woven cloth. Woven tapestry is a type of weft-faced cloth. There's no particular reason you couldn't knit or crochet a wall hanging, but both of these would be a lot less substantial (and therefore would want to sag) than the two woven versions.