Forest Through the Trees, part 3, Beading the Selvedge

I really enjoy weaving and am so excited to be back on the loom for this first grant project.  I have a confession though.  I am not a very technical weaver, I prefer to work with an idea and let the piece create itself through the weaving process.  In event, my selvedges (sides of the fabric) are starting to look a little rough.

With this probelm I have a few options.  I could back up and try again, but that would be hours upon hours of un-weaving and re-weaving (there's no good way, that I know of, to go backwards in double weave pick up).  I could keep weaving and try to make it better, then do some re-stitching when it comes off of the loom. Or I could hide the edges of the final piece with another fiberart technique. 

After mulling it over I decided that it would actually help the woven panel of this piece to put a beaded edging on it.  This way the edging would be similar or match some of the beading in the other panels and therefore the woven portion would speak more directly to the beadworking in the piece.  The three panels would then speak to each other more clearly when hung together. 

I have been beading gobs and gobs of the St. Petersburg chain for this piece....I'm about ready to start in on another projects to take a break from it.  As of right now, jewelry making is helping get breaks in from this piece.  I am loving this dark brown seed bead that will be the main color for the edging.  It speaks well to both the black and the brown in the piece. I have finished the first edge for the weaving and am on the the second one.  I figure it's taken me about 30 hours to make one edge.  Luckily, I carry these around for whenever I have down time, so it doesn't feel like it's been 30 hours!

So, in short, I think that even though I'm creating more work for myself, covering up the problem  is going to actually help the piece as a whole.

This activity is made possible in part by a
grant from the Arts Council of Greater Lansing