One of the most unique home décor items available are woven tapestries. They often are scenes that reflect historical events or historical figures. They are a textile art that uses a vertical loom and hand knits strands of wool to create that picture or painting. Tapestries can be traced back to the 4th Century BC but really didn't come into favor until the middle ages or the 14th century.



In the middle ages the art form that is the making of the tapestries became perfected. This art form originated in Switzerland and crept into Germany and then spread its way to the east in the form of Holland and France. Finally France became the tapestry capital of the world. Unfortunately the French revolution and the violence of it saw many homes burned and many of the tapestries went right along with them.

Though the middle ages, everyone had tapestries depicting works of art, and even the poorest of person had a tapestry. All throughout the towns of Europe homes had tapestries as decorative wall hangings. The other place these tapestries were in large churches. Many of the first tapestries had religious events depicted on them. In later centuries the tapestries were commissioned by nobility and they would ask artists to weave a tapestry of a battle in the Crusades. Those battle scenes would be hung though out the home of the nobility.

There are several ways to work with the threads. When the warp threads are hidden, it makes a perfect wall tapestry. In a normal cloth weaving, you see the weft threads. The weft is a horizontal thread weaves over and under the warp threads. The main job of a weft thread is to fell in the space that are in the warp threads The warp threads are the main stay of the weave. It is the long thread that run vertically and tied to the looms and the weft threads run over them. When creating an inspirational wall hanging tapestry, the warp threads are set with threads of cotton or linen that form the outline or framework of the picture that will be on the tapestry. Often the weft threads are wool or cotton but sometimes the interjection of medals like gold, silver are introduced. Also silk was also used as an alternative to add variation. By adding all these variations of thread type it gave the artist the ability to expand their creation.

By adding all these different thread types the ability to make more intricate the tapestry became. It was very common to walk into a medieval church and find tapestries depicting the Annunciation, the Resurrection, and the Last Supper and even to the modern day the churches have tapestries depicting saints and people out of the Bible. Some of the cloister nuns have take up the art form and either weave or embroider tapestries for parishes that in most cases depict the Blessed Mother or the Parton Saint of the Parish.

The rich history of tapestry is a perfect home décor item. It adds old world charm to any home or church. And an added benefit is in public display it does call attention to itself that reminds us of the religious events that help form the tapestry of our faith.