Well hello!
How curious, suddenly,
to be here in the shortening days
of this somewhat odd summer
 (in the Northern Hemisphere at any rate).
Between the super hot bits
and the super smoky bits
and the super dry bits
and all the stuff going on
in our lives
with our friends
and in the world,
every day has been
well -- itself,
and sometimes...a lot.
Yet here we are.

It even rained the day before yesterday--
a few brief hours of delicious thundery damp
after months of being parched.
 I'd just cleared the clogged downspouts, too.
Isn't it amazing
when things work out?

Actually lots of things have worked out--
my collard crop, for instance, is incredible,
the freezer is filled with frozen berries,
and our local farmer's market provides all bounty
I am not enough of a gardener to grow.
I try, of course, and have managed
to have fresh lettuce almost every day
despite the heat.

But this summer I've been more cartoonist
than gardener or weaver,
which to my astonishment means that
another thing that has worked out is
this new comic zine/guide thingy:
of coffee filters and rabbit holes
and I like it!

The project has been
  a great companion these many months--
the process of bringing it to you
as beguiling as the coffee filter yarn itself.
How lucky can I get?

Luckier still, of course,
is that I also truly enjoy revising--
 drawing, re-drawing,
getting feedback,
thinking of a new approach,
writing and re-writing--
just as I adore transforming the filters themselves
into tapestries and sweater and baskets and imaginary future garments.

Not that I am doing any of the latter.
My arm/hand stuff is massively better
thanks to endless stretches and exercises and support
and rest from all those beloved activities--
but I remain careful and cautious.
I mean, why risk a relapse?

And truly,
drawing and writing and thinking about making things
is pretty darned satisfying in itself--
especially once the arm/hand/neck issues
improved enough
to hold  pencils and pens
for longish periods of time.

One of the interesting things about creating this guide
has been that even as it describes the process of making a particular yarn,
it also draws on all sorts of other ideas I've explored in the past--
indeed, it reminds me how very many rabbit holes
have enveloped me over the years--
far more than could possibly fit into one reasonably sized comic--
and for a time that felt like a bit of a problem.

"If I say that, I've got to explain how to do it!"

My solution was to add at the end
a four page Glossary/Resources section.
And what a blast that was!
Naturally it could have been far longer than it is
(who knew glossaries were addictive?)
but I think it will still provide a few pointers
in case you want to brush up on some technique,
or are yourself beguiled by the odd side passage
in this paper yarn making rabbit hole...

And if perchance you're newish to this blog and my work
and want to see/read more about
how this coffee filter yarn thing unfolded,
check out my Tapestry Archive for 2019, 2020, and 2021,
or click the coffee filter yarn button in the side bar,
or type coffee filter yarn into the search bar at the top of the page.

So here it is:
of coffee filters and rabbit holes
a 40 page black and white PDF
 now in the webstore ready for you to download.

Note on downloading the PDF
(in case it isn't clear from the website )
Once the transaction is complete
you will get an email receipt with your download link.
Click on that and it should go onto whatever device you are using.
The downloads are not limited to one device,
so you can use that same link on several if you want
(also, in case one thingy works better than another).
If you have trouble, please let me know by replying to the receipt email.

I think that's about it,
other than to note that one great thing about hot dry weather
is that laundry dries really really fast,
and the grass (actually mostly yarrow, dandelion, and bindweed truth to tell)
grows really really slowly.

Oh-- actually one MORE thing before I go--
well, maybe two--

One:
Tapestry Design: Basics and Beyond by Tommye McClure Scanlin 
a beautiful, helpful and inspiring book
is now out in the world filled with tapestry goodness and support.
There are even instructions on how to build
one of my favorite portable tapestry looms --
the tiny Archie Brennan style galvanized pipe loom.
I'm also lucky enough have a tapestry included in its pages.
Truly, a lovely supportive book --
with a spiral binding no less so that like
Jean Pierre  and Yadin LaRochette's wonderful Anatomy of a Tapestry
it will stay open on the page you are reading.
So very thoughtful.
Here is a review by the ever amazing Rebecca Mezoff,

What a time this is for tapestry books
and, indeed, full on tapestry immersion. 
Tommye's other book, The Nature Of Things
Rebecca Mezoff's  The Art of Tapestry Weaving
and Micala Sidore's The Art is the Cloth
and online classes galore.
Time to warp those looms.

 Two:
 I wanted to share a link to this
delightful and soothing video
that my son Henry made,
showing the re-skinning of (and then fishing from),
a little coracle that I helped him make
with willow wands about ten years ago,
a wee craft he has since used hard enough
that this is its third cloth covering!

The first one we built when he was 10 or 11 years old
and not surprisingly, it ended up
in a couple of tapestries,
and an egg tempera painting.

Life is so weird and curious sometimes, isn't it?

And speaking of weird
(cuz who knew I'd ever make coracles
much less weave  and knit with coffee filters)
I should probably to put another link
here at the bottom:

So friends, I give you...
 of coffee filters and rabbit holes!

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.

there is always tapestry.

And though Rebecca doesn't cover
these materials in her wonderful new book
The Art of Tapestry Weaving,
(officially launching today!)
she does provide instruction
on all  of the techniques I used.
(well, not the clamp and scrap wood support part,
but maybe I"ll talk about that
​some other day on this blog).

Today --

well today--

​all I knew for sure--

So this happened this week--

​and also... this.

The two are linked in my mind in part
 because ​the unseasonable snow began to fall
just as I finished the willow vessel, 
the white stuff accumulating
as afternoon faded into evening--

--clustering and freezing
to the late-season leaves still clinging
to the fairy-tale-thick lilacs
that surround our house--
 lilacs so old and leggy and dense
that from May through October,
the house vanishes
behind blossoms and leaves--
leaves that relax the hot summer sun
and filter the dry dust of August--
​leaves and boughs that are unused
to such unexpected weight
so that later in the evening,
after the power went out,
the cracking  and crashing 
was loud, and worrisome.

Gosh 2020,
what else do you have in store--
a seven year apprenticeship to a blacksmith
to get the necessary iron shoes
for climbing a glass mountain?

But morning is wiser than evening,
and though the power (on again overnight)
popped off again with an impressive pre-dawn flash
as I shoveled the bits of sidewalk I could access
and contemplated the tangled mess everywhere else
 I saw, in the dim light,
that we had gotten off easy.

There was much to do, of course,
but it was still a Sarah-sized project,
something I could tackle
with shovel, loppers
 bow saw, a bit of persistence
and three pairs of wet mittens.

Indeed, by lunch time,
we could once again
use our front door,
and I even snatched a moment
​for a photo or two
when the light 
​was particularly lovely--
​grateful, that day, for a bit of a break
as well as a strong-enough back.

Nothing like a bit of willow-centric camaraderie, however,
to remind me that though the lilac
was on its way to some level of organization,
our friend the coppiced willow
was once again blocking the sidewalk

Sunday morning would do for that, however,
and I was glad of a night's sleep
for instead of just plunking it down
to lop into kindling at my leisure
as I assumed I would,
the pile of wands seemed to ask
 for a different fate.
​But what?

Too late for bark collection,
and too early for intricate sculpture
 the whips were nevertheless
sufficiently flexible, with care,
for four large, leafy hoops--
magic portals to who knows where,
now woven into the gaps
left in the lost lilacs.

It was simple enough  to do,
and also
absurdly cheering.

Today the sun is shining
and hunks of ice,
loosened by the slight increase in temperature
are thudding onto the roof of the house--
(some impressive bangs to be sure
as I have a metal roof ).

It is nice enough, actually, to take
 another load of lilac branches
to the yard waste recycling
after I've sent this to you--
but I think I will give the city a chance
to catch up with the impressive piles
I found there yesterday,
and instead, perhaps, investigate
the branches of Oregon Grape
crushed by falling lilac
​and currently waiting for that next load,
the under-bark  of which
looks enticing yellow--

And -- oh joy--it has been used
as a dye source
by the First Nations People
of the Mid Columbia River region.
How compelling is that?
​Perhaps next time
the plants in my life
are hit hard by the vagaries
of the seasons and our
ever-shifting climate,
I'll be able to loop  light
with strands of golden yellow.
​Only time will tell.

ps. I may be a little late with the blog  next week,
for, internet willing,
I hope to spend most of the morning
at Rebecca Mezoff's  Book launch
I'm so thrilled about this book--
and not just because I was fortunate enough
to  get to write the forward!
It really is a marvel, from cover to cover.
You can learn more about the book itself
in this little trailer,
and also join the enthusiastic throng
at either (or both) of the zoom events--
on November third and seventh
 accessible at the link above.
And though Rebecca was not thrilled
that her launch is on election day,
tapestry seems a far better place 
to put one's energy
than watching results trickle in. 

Indeed, I look forward to celebrating
Rebecca's marvelous ability
to shed light onto
the making of woven tapestry  
more than I can say. 
Maybe you'll be there too! 

When I was 12 or 13
I learned to sew clothing.
It was a bribe from my mother--
"If you do such-and-such
without complaining any more
you can also take that class
at the fabric store."

Naturally, I totally went for it.
I mean, I was longing to sew properly:
​
--to master zippers and waist bands,
 the matching of plaids,
the smooth fitting of sleeves and facings,
the interpretation and adjustment of patterns

--to have real projects
and a proper reason
to  work with the sewing machine

--to understand the fabric itself
and know intuitively
​how to make the perfect choices

​--to make the garments of my dreams

As for the other half of the bribe--
(the thing I was being bribed to do),
well, I was a kid and well used to
enduring things I disliked
 while looking attentive
 and absorbing the necessary
 to regurgitate later
​in an acceptable form--
all while truly focusing 
on the pile of possibility
waiting at home
on the card table
by the sewing machine.

It is a useful skill--
pretending to be attentive I mean--
if not nearly as useful,
as the one that came
from the sewing class.

I say  "the one" 
because though I went on to make
many many garments over 
the next few years,'
my sewing skills
never grew beyond the serviceable.
Indeed, though I continue to
make, wear and mend 
a large portion of my current wardrobe,
the shaping of my favorite fitting garments
is accomplished with knitting needles
rather than darts.
And matching plaids?
Maybe in my next life.
(And really, who but a thirteen year old
would think that she could
totally understand sewing
after six lessons 
in which she made
one lopsided
if beloved
​ skirt?)

And as a reader of this blog,
you'll know well
that true understanding of cloth
is as elusive for me as ever --
​thank goodness.

 is noticing:

--the light on my laundry
--that empty winter squash shell
(baked and scooped)
sitting by the compost bucket
--the rhythm of the first half
of this sentence (if not the second),
--the glint of a strand of fiber
lifting from a drooping stalk
--the gut-settling satisfaction
of said strand twisting
 almost of its own accord
then settling into a warp
--the awkward feel (and lovely look)
of untwisted willow bark.

It's not just noticing though.
There are the added bits
of noticing that I noticed--
then noticing what I noticed--
and then believing it all--
that make this useful.

And that is was what I learned
from sewing class.

Actually, it wasn't  in class
that  all that noticing occurred.
In class I was concentrating 
(​of course).
The noticing happened
when I was at home
alone
​with the materials.

There I stood by the card table,
(still wearing my scratchy
pink and grey herringbone school uniform
with the matching pilled pink polyester shirt,
falling down blue cabled knee socks,
and thick, brown leather shoes
with the slitted flaps to cover the laces),
my hand on that pile of possibility:
-- slightly rough
blue cotton cloth,
-- pattern pieces carefully cut
(notches and everything),
with the crinkly paper
still pinned in place
-- unsullied spool
of coordinating thread
--empty bobbin 
--sharp, new, orange-handled
Fiskars sewing shears,
my first private pair
which no one else
(on pain of who knew what)
was allowed to touch
FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER--

​and I thought:

Bombarded as I was then
(with adult's ideas
of what I should do),
and as we now are
(with images and ideas 
and material dissatisfaction),
noticing remains, I think,
a hard skill worth honing --
even if following the results 
sometimes get me in a lot of bother,
not least, sitting out in the cold woodshed
for days --nay weeks--
scraping away at stemmy stalks
all for a few grams of fiber
for I don't know what.

And today,
instead of writing a sensible and useful critique
of my milkweed tapestry experiment
to go with the photos 
I couldn't resist taking this morning
​because the light was so lovely, 
I've ended up following
a wild hare across the moor
and into the past
and now I'm going to spend
the rest of the afternoon
trying to remember
what those shoes with the flaps are called
(do you know?)

Though not a truth
universally acknowledged--

So blue
is the thing
​that happens.

Now a few phrases back
(somewhere in the midst
of a lengthy parenthetical aside),
I used the word whim,
as though flax, milkweed,
willow, walnut and wool
are full of caprice,
individually and collectively
leading me ​this way and that--

-- a cohort of cheeky puppeteers
tugging at my hand
​and heart strings,
as I,
the marionette,
dance to their tune.

And it might well be so.
The materials don't feel
even remotely passive,
and I have no idea
where this is all heading--
or why, suddenly
(in the midst of other plans),
everything needed to be blue.

it feels past time
to acknowledge--
or even more,
​ to relish--
the reciprocal nature
of these things that I do--
that we all do--

and to put​ whatever
knowledge and skills
I have gathered
(ever noticing
​ to my delight and chagrin,
how very little I actually know),
in service to
this cooperative venture.
​
So, blue it was.
​And now?

"Now,"
says the Praying Mantis,
"you can go away
and make some more cordage
with those busy busy hands of yours
while I return
to admiring the view."

So a funny thing happened.

Well not funny exactly --
more--
mind expanding?
I dunno. 
It was cool though--
at least-- 
eventually.
At first --
 not so much.

As you may recall,
last week on the blog post
I was blissing out about
my recent Milkweed immersion--
 feeling, I can now say,
 just a teensy bit smug.

"Yay! Look at me 
with my newly fashioned
minimalist distaff 
and cross arm spindle
making all kinds
of super nice yarn
out of Milkweed garden waste!
I love it soooo much.
It's almost like
Flax!"

Well, smug and thrilled.

At any rate,
practically the moment 
I pushed 'send' on the newsletter 
to let you know that the post was ready
(assuming you're on my mailing list),
I grabbed my beloved tools
and raced outside--

--only for the Milkweed
to... ah...
well, I'll let it
​speak for itself.

Just so you know,
it said
as my spindle fell to the ground
for the third time in a row, 
I'm not Flax.

"Huh?" said I--
picking up the spindle
​and checking for cracks.

Oh, I have nothing against the stuff --
it continued without pause.
It's great! 
Super strong -- soft-- agreeable--
a distant cousin of mine. 
Slightly more uniform
since you all have been
manipulating for centuries
(or maybe it, you),
to suit your belief
in efficiency and production.
I mean --
all those precise tools
with their satisfying names:
rippling combs, flax breaks, 
 scutching  knives, hackles and such,
that keep everyone in line.

It's just -- I'm not it. 

Now, I can see why 
you might think it reasonable
to think of me as such--
and maybe even believe
it is a compliment. 

​I mean --
I am a bast fiber 
and you have been 
doing your best
I'm sure,
what with your strick
and your combing
​and your carding of 'waste'--

Or are you capable
only
of listening to (and believing)
 the chatter
in your own big brain
(equally good, it seems
at making you feel like a total loser
and the cleverest of all),
 while hardly noticing
the odd bit of wisdom
a little plant
that is not flax,
might have?
​
Just saying. 

Something to consider. 

"Thanks," said I.
"I will--
​consider, that is."

"Ok," said I
dipping my fingers
in a dish of coolish water
and adding a long white  strand
to the ever-growing puddle 
​of cordage in my lap. 
​
"All right."

11.8 grams--

a week's work.

Or, more truly,
a week's pleasure--

day after day
of long white fibers
making themselves known
a strand at a time--

beautiful  bast
in a small clump
of Aphid-infested plants
my neighbor wanted gone.

For months --
nay,  years--
​I've been trying
to learn about local bast fibers--

Nettle, Dogbane, and Milkweed too--
reading the sparse literature--
 mostly about working with Nettles
(thank you Allan Brown for your work)--
watching the odd video
(thank you Sally Pointer),
and trying,
​with limited/mixed success,

to make friends 
with these glorious materials--
one of which,
this week,
for whatever reason,
​and rather against the odds,

agreed to work with me. 

Well, truth be told,
I'm grateful, too,
to all the people
who have worked with
​these plants for millennia,
as well as to all the plants
that have helped me,
in turn, to practice
and learn.

And really,
how not to also be pleased--
in the moment
and in retrospect--
by my former self
for her persistence
​and (sometimes painfully)
​ slow acquisition
of knowledge
skills,
​familiarity,
dexterity,
and
dare I say,
patience--

all of which have helped
​to make me available
for these beauties:
to the obvious long fibers,

to the 'leftover' medium length ones
that were ready to be re-combed,
drawn out into a form of top
wound on a  wrist (vs stick) distaff
​and made into lovely yarn themselves,

and to the shortest ones
which were just the right length
for a couple of easy-to-spin
​hand carded rolags
and allowed for
absolutely no waste at all --
barring the now composting
​scraped off outer green bits 
and the drying-for-kindling inner stalks.

How lucky ​can a gal get?
(says she to her future self,
lest she forget, sometime, 
how wondrous and generous
​ the world can be).



--and a sartorial post script--
You might well think my just-off-the-needles
Targhee/Debouillet/Cormo etc tank top is all I've worn this week.
And you might be right!
Also the blue pants. I have to say. Oh my word.
They come from MAIWA --first new pants in years and years.
A gift to my legs and butt, from me.
No promotion thing -- they have no idea-- I am just utterly in love.
Be warned -- there will be patched pants and long term mending
(as needed though none yet despite continual wear), in future blogs...

Like so many things,
​it began simply enough.
Our sidewalk was blocked--
the narrow passageway
between an exuberant grape 
and clump of coppiced willow 
had become a tunnel--
nay, an obstacle course--
and needed clearing.

Not that I'm not a fan
of mysterious, woodsy passages
along city sidewalks,
but to render ours impassible
to anyone in a wheelchair
pushing a stroller,
or getting from here to there
without the dreaded internal combustion engine,
is unconscionable.
​
So after a brief thanks for the enthusiasm
of this magical and self-sufficient shrub,
out came the secateurs,
and soon enough the bed
​of our ancient pickup
was full of leafy stalks.

Ordinarily, most of the willow shoots
get cut in mid-winter and live their second lives
as figurative willow sculptures 
or oversized shapes.
(they seem willing enough though there is no way to be sure).
The fruits of summer sidewalk brushing, however,
generally go straight to the community 
yard waste recycling  drop off--
at least once there is a full load
which can take all summer
​cuz who wants to drive?

Anyway, this time, as I dragged over
an armload of branches
​ I suddenly remembered
that basket weavers often gather
willow bark in the spring and summer.
Was it too late?
Nothing to lose by trying.
And OH!
Instant bliss!
The bark peeled off 
in elegant and satisfying sheets.

What to do with them?
First and easiest thing 
was to coil them up to set them aside,
then get back to the project at hand
in the studio. 
But-- what if I peeled off the outer bark?
Would that be hard?
Well no!
Indeed,  it was as delicious
as the initial peeling.
And when I scraped each willow wand
with the edge of a palette knife 
or handy oyster shell before peeling
(as per a  Sally Pointer bramble cordage video),
it got even better.

Then new options arose --
-leave in the wide sheets?
-split into narrow strips for cordage?
-twist now, or let dry and re-wet?  
​Why not try them all!
The air was so dry
the thin strips were almost crisp 
​in no time it all.
And the willow seemed willing enough --
indeed, the dance between
my hands,
the willow bark,
and the part of my brain
that loves more than anything
to have thrilling material adventures,
grew as sexy as a tango.

And this is where the inner capitalists showed up.
First:
"​This is NOT what you were planning to do today, Sarah."

Then:
"If this IS what you're doing,
because, duh, you've been out here all morning
without noticing how bloody hot it is getting,
how exactly are you going to make use of this
and is it related in any way to your goals
whatever they might be
because I sure can't tell
though as a distinctly non-essential worker
in times like these
it would behoove you 
​to justify your existence somehow."

"And in case you forgot, 
you have some excellent
and significantly faster projects
already underway
that are going to turn into
useful and important things
that might actually lead somewhere.
And dont' try to tell me 
you're going to write about this
on your blog because....."

And so on.
You probably get the picture.
No need to quote it all
because the point is that this time,
instead of rebelling against this voice,
or trusting that it has
 my best interests at heart
and is only trying to keep me safe
(as it insists),
I actively encouraged it. 
"Ooooh -- tell me more!"
I cooed, as green willowy curls
fell to the deck beside me.  
"Tell me ALL about 
 how I should conduct myself?"

And here's what it wanted me to do:
-make things that were faster (ie produce more stuff)
-make thing that would make money,
(whatever those might be),
-at the very least go watch more videos,
so if I had to do weird shit
I'd at least do them the right way
and at the same time
contribute myself as fodder
 for the attention economy
and maybe develop a craving
for an unnecessary plastic object
I never knew existed while I was about it
(perhaps a purpose built willow bark peeler...).

It's then that it became clear
that this voice was not really mine.
The tone was wrong
And so was the language.
Though my voice,
does want me to stick with projects,
it is generally because
it is immersion that I crave and adore,
passion that has proved to improve everything,
slowing down, opening up
and falling in love with the materials and work
that leads to the making of magical objects
that I'm thrilled and proud
to sell/share with other people.

Also, I knew perfectly well
that I would never, EVER use
​ spindle spinning and backstrap weaving
as weapons against myself,

How very very interesting, then.
And what a relief!

If it is not me
trying to 'sabotage myself'
I can carry on with glee
and curiosity--
learning more
 about materials, 
and about those pesky
​and very rude voices.
How else have they been
having their way with me?
I want to know!
And what fun to poke at my brain,
watch it go all scared and protective
and close up like a sea anemone,
then coax it open again
to let in a tide of fresh perspectives
​I never knew existed--

--thrilling ideas
with which our tricksy
and wildly unpredictable world
is now awash.
Ideas about 
kindness,
​equality
​(in pay as well as health care),
conviviality,
curiosity
community,
​connection
and maybe even
​cordage?

Darn it -- once again I went off on a tangent.
Thanks as ever for sticking with me --
and for all the marvelous marvelous encouragement
in the comments last week.
​You are the BEST!