You know how sometimes
the path ahead
is clear and straight --
and then suddenly
 you find yourself
bare of foot
and knee deep
in snow-- 
 or wildflowers?

Happens pretty regularly for me, actually --
in life, in days, in projects.
Indeed what, really, is a plan?

This linsey woolsey cloth,
for instance,
was definitely destined
​to be another shirt.

And that red roll of cloth--
I was absolutely going to stitch it
to the yellow swathe.

As for this
 four selvedge tapestry--
had it ever  thought of itself
as anything but an independent entity--
much less considered that it would insist upon
being part of a blanket?

And what is with
​the pieced blanket thing anyway?

Linsey-woolsey,
​woolsey-woolsey
woolsey-tapestry
(and even a bit of silky-woolsey),
can't possibly all fit--

much less flow--
or glow--
as one.

Or ---can they?

Well, why not?

As already demonstrated
I'm pretty terrible
at predicting the outcome of things--

To which end
here at the end
and before I become further distracted
by light shining through plain weave
or make the mistake
of attempting to sum up this weirdest of years
​(which, of course, is still a month and a half from being over),
I'm going to close with a list
of things I don't want to forget to mention today: 


1. Fringeless,
the online Four Selvage Tapestry Class
I teach with Rebecca Mezoff ,
is 25% off, now through Fyber Monday (30 November)
with the code  FyberFringe 
(because it is WAY easier to for a tapestry
to be an integral parts of your blanket 
when there are no hems to worry about--
​just saying!)

2. Rebecca's List of  Fantastic new Tapestry Books
is on her blog and totally worth checking out.
Her reviews (linked in the post)
are thorough and compelling--
but then that is true of everything she does.
And---multiple tapestry books?  I mean!

3. A couple of new Natural Dye Resources
have come to my attention
(and I'm sure there are many more):
--Journeys in Natural Dying--
(color without leaving home)
and 
The Maiwa School of Textiles free Classes
(to be followed on 1 December with winter workshop offerings)


4. I'm totally in love with The Tatter Textile Library ,
an intersectional textile portal of goodness,
(with its own line up of compelling classes
and skilled makers),
as well as a spectacular new online journal,
TATTER,
which has engrossed me for the last few days--
each essay/maker profile/feature its own portal to a different kind of
 textile yumptiousness (if that is a word),
​ that I've  just begun to explore.

5.  As a present to myself
I've made the somewhat surprising
(and weirdly delicious) decision
 to stop blogging for the winter--
to give over this time
to other voices/ideas
and my inner Luminist. 

As you might imagine
the latter will take a little practice,
for my inner Storymaker loves to write this blog--
her hand-in-the-air compulsion
 to explain, describe and generally dominate my creative world
a driving force in much of what I do.

Nonetheless, 
and because I don't  know
what is going to happen,
I will attempt to enlist her aid
and (respectfully) request that for this time
she turn her interactive skills
to the important task
of making space
for whatever shows up--
and then refrain from talking about it.
We'll see how it goes...

(Truth be told, and realistically,
she already has a couple of things in the works
that should keep her decently occupied till spring
which may, or may not ease the way for the Luminist). 

So last Tuesday afternoon
​(after writing to you),
I tied on a warp
and began to weave.

It was just what I needed--
the rhythmic elegance
of  balanced plain weave
to soothe my rollicking brain.
​
How is it
that the yarn always knows?

The specs:
  WARP: Targhee/Debouillet spindle spun wool,
-two strands singles (approx 8000 yards per pound)
alternating with
​-two strands two-ply (approx 4000 yards per pound).

My plan had been to combine this cloth
with the entirely hand spun
Linsey-Woolsey swathes
I wove last June.
(at least I think it was June),
assuming that the fine(ish) mill spun weft
would be close enough 
since the warp was similar.

So I passed the shuttle back and forth,
I was also busy uniting the lovely pieces of  fabric
with long rows of imaginary running stitch


Alas, however, it was not to be.
(My plan that is).

The new cloth itself was lovely --
the mill spun was easy to weave
and the hand delicious.
​It's just that the two,
though similar enough,
did not see eye to eye --
(or yarn to yarn)--
and
(amicably and politely, if hastily),
 agreed to disagree 
with my plan for their lives.

At a little bit of a loss,
I could only think
to roll everyone up
and wait for another day.
Ah well.
​The best laid plans....

EXCEPT --
 who should leap out of the storage container
​filled with glee,
but an even earlier linsey-woolsey experiment--
with mill spun yarn in both warp and weft.

"Listen to me," it cried.
​"I have a plan."

Warp: Brown Sheep Fingering​ warp (10/3, approx  2800 yards per pound)
with natural and naturally dyed alternating stripe,
Weft: the same Gist 18/3 linen weft as above.

"Well OK," said I.

For sure enough,
though quite different in weight and hand,
(not least due to the presence/absence of singles in the warp),
​the two Gist-linen-weft swathes
did indeed seem to belong together.

I hightailed it across the studio
to the ever ready White Rotary sewing machine--
paused long enough
to admire the magnificence of 
this tool that happily hums along
107 years after patent,
40 of them spent
supporting and encouraging me
as I went from 19 year old cloth-obsessed
 ranch caretaker in the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness,
to  still cloth-obssed nearly 60 year old
with a sedate life in town,
 along the way helping my 
still-sewing-on-vintage-machines son
make innumerable dice bag for D & D--

-- then stitched
cut,
​pinned,
​ hemmed,
stitched some more,
and pressed (with lots of steam).

Until suddenly,
looking up,
there they were together,
a deliciously drapy
Ode ​to Agnest Martin.

Or, perhaps,
part of such a thing?

Hard to say.

None of us are quite sure yet,
truth to tell.

So we're taking  a break--
to breathe
and rest
and admire the light
and be glad.

Well -- sort of rest.
​
Some other swathes 
of slightly mis-matched cloth-mates
​have found each other--

and as you know,
my materials 
know so much more than I--
so, if you'll pardon me
 I'm off ​on another  matchmaking adventure.

Now, where did my thimble go?

Lots of things happened in 2016 --
not least
that I  built 
my first backstrap loom.

Though probably not directly connected,
this elemental tool 
has helped to see me through
some of the other world-rocking
​ events and emotions of the last years--
the reverberations of which,
(as you might have noticed yourself...),
have yet to settle down.

For these years have
 asked-- nay, demanded 
so very much --
​not least
the development of
new levels of fortitude--

-- a massive amount of trust
in some absurdly fragile-appearing 
​threads of connection--

--and even some heart-expanding joy
when the  threads 
​actually hold.

So it is with a peculiar kind of curiosity
that I remembered, just now,
that it has been just over four years
since I first leaned back against 
my needlepoint strap--
and to spend some time thinking about
what has happened to me
​since then.

Of course it was tapestry
that started it--
the desire to begin weaving
with a single word
and follow it, letter by letter,
wherever the unfolding idea chose to go--
a deeply unsettling thing 
for a person given to weaving
from  carefully composed cartoons
(and thus even more worth pursuing).

The idea of plain plain weave, however
never crossed my mind.

Well, not until
the very second warp anyway.

And then --
well then I was a bit of a mess for a time.
A happy mess to be sure--
bounding back and forth
between delicious, weft-faced text
and luminous, drapy, open cloth--
yet also thoroughly confused
and bemused
by my new divided attention.

Luckily, I blogged about it at the time.
​(three 2016 posts: One, Two, Three),
then wrote  Backstrap Dialogues,
in order to dig even deeper
into what felt, in the moment
like uncertain direction.
"Who am I
to enjoy both of these?"

There were days, indeed,
when my head
felt as divided and divisive
as this country--
a place where "and" was not a thing--
my internal state
 as seemingly unreconcilable
(and sometimes downright cruel)
as the national mood.

Four years,
many many many yards of cloth
and more miles of yarn
than I can even begin to count later, 
much has changed--
​and much has not.

 As thrilled as ever
​by the breadth of possibility
inherent in the simple tools,
I now don't think twice about using
un-sized, super fine singles as warp.

And in endless, in-depth conversations,
Luminist and Storymaker--
though sometimes not as polite
as they might be--
have, over time,
come to realize how
interdependent they actually are,
and to make space for
techniques, ideas and materials
one or the other
might once have disdained 
(or, more truly, never even considered:
coffee filters? wedge weave? milkweed?
tapestry book covers? nettle baskets?).

Though not always been a cakewalk 
(as you might imagine),
even my tradition-bound inner Storymaker
has begun to concede
that tales can be told in many ways--
narrative, light and local materials 
coexisting
in a single swathe of cloth.

And​ at least some of the time, 
​in a single human as well.
​
(Or heddle -- Margaret, with her sweet, bemused smile,
is pretty much up for anything--
the more untried, the better).

For I do so hope,
 along with the unmitigated joy,
brought by final ballot counts,
that civility, kindness
​and attempts at being helpful
might be possible 
in our government
and amongst ourselves.

Or, at the very least
that we can remember
that taking turns
is a thing.

Good Morning my friends.
I'd like to introduce you
​ to Margaret.

And Margaret,
these are my 
​blog-reading friends
​who live all over the world.

"Hej!"

​Margaret flew from Sweden
in a small flat envelope
and arrived in my studio
two weeks ago today.
What joy
to have her here.

My Swedish is limited
to the word "titta"
(learned long ago
in Brooklyn, New York
from my Swedish-speaking
childhood best friend Karin),
but luckily, Margaret is multi-lingual
and as I putter around--
dying things blue
or releasing white strands
from the unexpected
truck-load of milkweed
that arrived not long after she did--
we've had a lovely time
getting to know each other.

There is naturally
much to discuss and learn,
and one of the most delightful
things we've discovered
is that while we're both
huge fans of contemplation,
what we  like best
is doing.

Actually, Margaret
was basing her preference
on observation
as before Sunday,
she had never actually
woven anything before.
But I was totally with her
when she finally declared:
"There is nothing I'd like more 
than to actually feel
some real strands of yarn
swishing through my skirt." 

And it turned out 
that while I had been assuming
we'd begin with
a linen warp-faced band
in the best Swedish tradition
(for which she had, after all
been hand carved
by the amazing Kerstin Neumüller)--

--Margaret, 
​ with her delicate sett
of 11-ish ends per inch,
was all in favor 
of a balanced weave
with hand spun wool.

New arrival that she is,
​I gave way at once.

"Houndstooth?" I asked,
a little nervously,
(wanting both to get
our working relationship
off to a good start--
and even more
for her to like the actual process
as much as she hoped).

"Well of course," she replied, 
slightly shocked that I didn't know
that the oldest houndstooth cloth
that has yet been found,
The Gerum Cloak,
was uncovered in a Swedish peat bog,
and has been dated
​from between 360 and 100 BCE.
"That is my dream."

"Oh my goodness!," said I
intrigued as can be
and also totally flattened
by the seeming coincidence
for I thought my houndstooth idea
came, not subliminally from Sweden,
but rather from the fabulous jacket
worn by Kate Grenyer,
artistic director of Dovecot Studios
in Edinburgh, Scotland.
as seen in this wonderful video
about the incomparable Archie Brennan
and the upcoming exhibition of his work
(about which more on another day
because one can never say enough
about the influence of Archie
though I did want to include the link today.)

"Easy Peasy," said she,
translating colloquialisms
with the confidence
of an international traveller
and imparting secret wisdom
with the casual air of one who knows.
"A loop of stiff thread--
waxed linen, or even fishing line--
pushed through, looped around,
and slipped back, will do it."

Happily, she refrained
from saying, "Duh,"
though perhaps was whispering
the Swedish equivalent in her mind.
​
​And of course it worked perfectly.

So off we went 
and a few hours later,
far too soon for either of us,
this first experiment was done--
the process so pleasurable
that despite a brief discussion
about the efficacy of trying
a warp faced band
 to increase our knowledge base,
 we're now on our second length
of balanced houndstooth,
the only change on this one 
that it has 17 rather than 16 ends,
Margaret having objected
to the open edge hole
created when,
from warp-winding habit,
I made an even number.

And what's not to love
​about a prime number?
​
What, indeed
is not to adore
about having an opinionated
and hardworking heddle friend
​in my life?

So this is where you find us
on this rainy, windy day,
(rain that I hope is quenching
fires all over the west),
quietly opening and closing sheds
of grey and white,
sure that whatever
the future holds,
it will include
my new weaving companion.

Thanks Margaret.
I'm SO glad you are here.
​
And Thank YOU Kerstin,
for your inspiration
and general magic.

Here are some more Kerstin Nuemüller links:
1. Her charming and thoroughly useful books
(translated into myriad languages so type her name into the search bar of  your local bookseller wherever you are)
2. Dear Carving Diary
 Instagram site devoted to her heddle carving
3. Main Instagram Account
(as above) with photos of heddles and more

​

Wrap it
​
around a stick,

or a  rock,

or a shell.

Experiment with  knotless netting--

--handily worked with a needle--

Toss in a basket or box.

Bind a book--

--and keep it snug.

Arrange by value.

Weave a tapestry.

Study  history.

Call it warp--

and experiment with band-weaving.

Conduct longevity tests--

​

It was hard to get started
 writing today.

Then just as I began
it suddenly seemed essential
to re-arrange the books by my side--

-- a distracting and compelling activity,
especially once I started noticing
 the color red.

Then it seemed a good idea
to wind a warp,
though it wasn't until
I opened my palette box--

--and pulled out a handful
of madder-dyed yarn
(rather than the soft grey
​I thought I was after),

that I realized
​I was in search of a little courage.

Something about
about my ppps of last week
seems to have struck a chord
(at least to judge by
most of your marvelous
and much appreciated comments),
and this morning I found myself
wondering/worrying
if expressing my overwhelming
(and often inarticulate) fury,
at the endless and malicious incitement
to violence of a certain person in power
(however brief my actual words),
meant something new was afoot
with how I present 
myself and my work
here on the blog.

A little think
​was definitely in order.

And while I was winding,
(because, now and again,
everyone needs the advice
 of a magical helper),
I consulted the frog,
who was kindly on hand to help.

(Note: frog front feet are called hands
 by the humans who write the posts at the top of a google search;
 what the frogs call them, I do not know).

Anyway, the frog
(who has been observing me
for many many years),
said:
"Sarah - as far as I,
a two-halved cast iron frog
who stores toothpicks in her belly
can tell,
you have devoted your life
to environmental and social justice
(even if you haven't known to call it that),
and I would bet that your readers
have probably noticed by now
how you feel,
and what you are trying to do,
which means regular overt reminders,
are probably neither useful nor effective--
nor even very interesting
as such discourse is not, actually,
a thing at which you excel--
except, of course,
when they simply burst out,
because, after all, mostly,
​you cannot help being you."

What the frog means by that last statement,
I think, is that sometimes
I am a bit too much
​ of a muchness,
even for myself
(if that makes sense)--

Happily for me,
most of this exuberance
gets absorbed into and by
the results of said idea storms,
increasingly caught into the marvelous
and unexpected materials I continue to find,
 that are endlessly pleasurable
to work with and gaze upon.

And that
is the part
​ I like most
​to share here. 

So my task going forward, then
is to keep practicing
letting my eyes unfocus
from the things
they have been trained to see
by the generations of  white colonizers
from whom I am descended
("this is not a plant, this is a weed--
the man who said so went to Harvard,
or maybe his father did,
or was it Princeton--
and though I can't remember what
 he actually is known for
I'm sure it was terribly important
and anyway you're related to him
so it would behoove you to listen"),
other humans and beings
who have been here all along
and whose true names 
I will probably never know
(what they call themselves, I mean)
sometimes allow me to catch a glimpse.

And the prickly things
I was told I needed to get rid of
and replace with something "attractive"
turn out to be useful and powerful
in ways I am only beginning to learn--
even as they have been fiercely themselves all along
with no need for, or interest in, my approval. 

So thank you frog.
And you, dear reader --
for supporting this work
however it manifests itself.
And for coming along --
--nay, for participating--
in this time we have together
to learn about and make things 
with all that is provided by
​this glorious and abundant
(if we are care-full and kind
and occasionally ferocious in its defense,
and remember to ask permission
before attempting to transform
anything or anyone
because we think we can 'improve' kin),
earth.

And now that I've spilled my guts
all over these pages,

I think I'll return to threading
and reclaimed the color red
​in all its lefty glory,
 as I can.​

Oh goody--
back to the blog
after a whirligig of a month.

Except -- 
this business of typing words--
​ I think I must be rusty.

(Listening to Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi 
and here with Yo Yo Ma)

(Ki/Kin Pronouns from Robin Wall Kimmerer )

And oh yes,
a chemo holiday
​ is an amazing thing.

Well..
 not entirely blue.

Nor, indeed,
​did I make them
 for boating.

It's just that the white canvas
was a scrap of the deck cloth
I helped my son put on his boat
​ a couple of years ago--

and the indigo blue polka dot parts
are left over from a quilt mending project
(dots made with katazome and indigo)--

and I'm a sucker for alliteration and rhyme.

Anyway --
​Sewing the uppers together
with my machine was really nice.
I've made previous pairs entirely by hand
and this was a definite improvement --
​if not in the beauty department,
definitely in timing and lack of hand fatigue.

The soles still required
hand stitching though.
Thank goodness for Glovers needles.

While a thing I'm always happy to have done,
the actual construction 
is a task I put off as long as I can
as the stitching is hard on my hands. 
so I was nearly done
and feeling relieved,
when a new conundrum arose--
I mean -- who wants to go shopping these days,
or wait for online shoelaces to arrive by mail?

 OH JOY!

Of course it took me a couple of inches
to remember how to weave a warp-faced structure
(as you can see in the photo below),
though once I got going
weaving these was probably faster
than locating a website
with laces I liked. 

And OH, I do love these!

So, three runs in, I'm thrilled to bits.
Just what I needed and wanted,
and they delight me every time I catch a glimpse.
Hopefully, they will soon will be
as grubby and broken in
as the pair on the left,
with (I hope)
hundreds of miles
under their soles.


NOTE: For more on my shoemaking endeavors over the past ten-ish years,
including links and sources and process, type "shoes" into the search bar at the top,
or  click the SHOES link on the side and scroll down (this post will be at the top).

Oh, and one more thing:
​
Though August is my usual blog holiday month
my husband is just commencing
what we hope will be a month long
chemotherapy holiday
so I've decided to join him
and take my blog-cation
starting now.

While we have no plans to go anywhere,
the garden is growing madly,
and, as I did manage to figure out
a compelling new set up for my books,
I hope to spend a bunch of time
watching the birds and turning pages.
or... weaving or... knitting...
or doing all of them at once.

The webstore will remain open
and I may send out the odd newsletter,
(vacation post cards of a sort?)
so if you want to get on the list for those
and aren't yet,
there is a sign-up on the right
(or maybe below, depending on your device)

Stay safe,
keep making!

Backson.

You know that feeling
when you've spun some yarn,
generated a few questions,
can't continue without answers,
and Wikipedia just won't cut it?

Of course you do.

​Technical and aesthetic inquiry
into physical materials
requires  experiment.
At least -- it does for me.

My brain will make stuff up--
and is not to be trusted.

My hands, however,
know what I like.

​Sometimes the process
goes like this:

Best to try several weft combinations--
--test my reactions.

Ugh. Not enough twist.
Oh right, I spun it from the fold
on the Charkha--
only way to cope with top.

I don't like top.
Or silk.
​
Spindles are better. 

And wool I prepare myself.

So fussy.

Oh look! Done already.
​Where do the days go?

I thought this was supposed to be slow cloth.

A few days ago,
weaving along and geeking out
on the continuing love affair
between plied paper
​ and wedge weave,

I  happened to glance down 
and notice
​ that the tapestry I was making
bore more than a little resemblance
to the clothing I had on--

colors, lines, squares,
and the underlying pleasure
of working with what is at hand
coming together in beloved jeans,
a tapestry in progress
and last summer's tabby-tapestry
linsey-woolsey shirt
(about which I just realized I wrote four blog posts;
if you're interested you can find them here, here, here and here).

Well, that was fun, I thought,
​and got back to work.

Imagine my surprise, then
when the next day,
as I carefully Tucked My Tails,*
I noticed it again --
not quite as marked, perhaps,
though the silvery-grey/brown combo
went well with the pieced linen shirt
 (prototype of sorts for the linsey-woolsey one),
if not the tattered trousers 
(almost as thoroughly mended as the jeans).

*readers of the guide might note the  use of passive weft in the top middle square above, and the tapered end on the top right one

By the third day,
though I did not make a plan,
​I was a little less astonished
when the same thing happened.

This is getting silly, I thought,
​weaving on and blissing out 
on the energy of the tidy little squares.

The day after that
the white hemp pants I chose 
(prototype for the worn out brown ones
and significantly more robust),
did not have much to do
with the colors I was moving into,

but I can't say I was astonished
when I noticed that I was wearing
a Somewhat Slanted Sweater.

The particular pleasure
of making angled squares
is apparently as irresistible just now,
​as turning compost into yarn. 
​
​And sometimes the colors work too.

It feels like I should be able 
to draw some important conclusion(s)
from all of this matchy-matchy
makey-mendy stuff,
but at the moment
I am actually caught up
in the drama of the triangles
that have suddenly shown up
here at the very end of  this long narrow tapestry--
for after the calm of the simple squares
the pointy shapes make my heart beat
in a disconcerting (though not unpleasant), way
and I want to see if what I weave next
will calm it down again--
or not.
And if it does,
whether the underlying wedge weave energy 
(currently contained by the warp tension)
will go even wilder
once released from the loom.
​Stay tuned!

ps.
the "skirt" of today's outfit
​is a hastily wrapped scrap
of a worn-out sheet that
ultimately proved to be beyond mending,
wrapped around my waist
to make a pair of leggings
feel like real clothing,
Because sheets are more real
than stuff I buy at the store?
Go figure.