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.

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."

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--

​

As you probably can tell--
we're continuing to have
​ a great time.

At least I am.
Though I still know so little

Indeed, though I can, apparently
describe a few actions:
"here we did this
​and there we tried that"--

And really, how could I know
if the approach we took on such and such a day
​with a batch of last year's stalks
(very little of which I had time to process
back then when it was fresh)--

--will hold tomorrow
​when I have slowed down still more
and had my prejudices exposed
yet again
by this toughly gentle plant?

In these photos, for instance,
having combed and re-combed
for consistency,
I documented the careful separation 
of the fibers by length.
It seemed a good idea at the time,
for is't that how a person is supposed to learn--
documenting the evidence
for later perusal,
​critique and summation?
And isn't it essential to 
show my work?

Also, this is the process I used
with the batch of fresh stalks
​I wrote about here and here
and though I didn't outline each step
my categorizing brain
had already decided 
this was THE WAY TO DO IT.
​You can see the resulting skeins
neatly laid out below
​(and captioned!)

Except --
this life is not
 an algebra exam.
There is no paper to write,
no quiz.
 I'm not applying for a grant,
or, indeed, waiting for any power
to give their nod of approval
and tell me I am
(or am not)
doing viable work
in accordance with
some list of measurable criteria. 

(I don't even have to worry
about my permanent record
that loathsome childhood school threat--
"time to tow the line
as everything, from now on,
goes on your permanent record."
Does anyone else remember that?)

Now that I think about it though,
the milkweed itself
may well be taking note.
How else could some processes 
seem so utterly natural
​and others -- just a little off?
The strands, however,
speak directly to my hands,
and neither uses words,
so they generally  do their thing
without connecting 
to the recording device in my brain--

which may well be why
it took me ages to notice
that ​"grading" the fiber by length
made me feel kind of icky--
to understand that I was using the ruler
as a kind of 'goodness measure,"
 creating a hierarchy
where none needed to exist--
 imposing my internalized beliefs
and  accompanying judgements
about efficiency, control, and organization
onto a plant that will contentedly grow
by the side of a gravel road,
spaced as it wants to be spaced,
feeding butterflies
and producing amazing fiber---
 all of which is useful.

It's that idea
​that agriculture isn't a thing
unless the plants
are in rows. 
At any rate,
and for whatever reason,
when I had the good fortune
to get another 7 or so
fresh stalks of  Milkweed
from a friend's "garden waste pile,"
I decided to forgo the combing altogether.

And the medium sized lengths of fiber,
are twisting into cordage just beautifully,
complimenting the longer pieces
to make the whole
even smoother than it was before.

What  I'll do with the yarn --
when I'm done--
whenever that will be--
I've absolutely no idea.
 I know for sure today
is that the more time I spend with this fiber
and the slower we go,
the longer I want this part
to last. 

ps -- because there always seem to be
one or two (or four) more things to say:

1.
A lovely handmade book
about another milkweed relationship:
Poor (Wo)man's Asparagus
by Velma Bolyard

2.
The Nature of Things:
Essays of a Tapestry Weaver
by Tommye McClure Scanlin
will also be out this fall and though
I didn't realize it when listing books last week, 
it is also available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller.
Wonderfully inviting essays on Tommye's design process and tapestry life.

3.
Nettle Fiber Resources
For those of you who have access to Nettles rather than milkweed
Allan Brown shares many resources here and here
and
Sally Pointer has several Nettle Videos. Here's one. 
Of course nettles are not milkweed (as I keep finding out!),
any more than milkweed is flax, 
though apparently, nettle can handle some flax-like techniques!

4.
​And just because:
A marvelous blog by Tracy Hudson --
Thoughtful in all the ways I find satisfying