Oops!
Looks like a proper blog post
is not going to happen this week.

Time — sometimes
she just vanishes--
and she takes Energy with her.
Sigh.

Have you noticed this?

That said
after all the thread and sewing machine love last week,
​I can’t not leave you
​with this:

https://youtu.be/8lwI4TSKM3Y

and
a wee comic--
the only medium I’ve yet found
that allows me to do
all the things 
at once.

When the sewing machine
your son found for $25
and returned to working order
so your husband could make you the jacket
you wear as you type--

--prefers the the spools of polyester thread
your adorable ex-grandmother-in-law
included in a care package
back in 1983
(nestled among
dented cans of tuna,
month-old brownies,
and a pile of her favorite Harlequin Romances)

--thread you have ignored for years
because you are a natural fiber snob
yet still could not bring yourself
to use or discard--
thread that has waited in the back
of your sewing machine drawer--

--so was more than ready
to take center stage
in the work of resurrecting a quilt--

--a hand stitched quilt
made you know not when
by you know not  who--
a quilt with very specific demands
 patiently spelled out
back in 2015 when the mending began)--

-- well,
when all those things come together
there really is nothing for you to do--

--but go with it.

And since hand/arm rest
IS the order of the day
I'm not even going to edit
or re-type  all the above nonsense 
but rather,
and against the better judgement
of my inner Storymaker
(who prefers things to be tidy--
or at least not to end so abruptly),
I'll hit Post
because really,
why not?

One of the lovely things
about being a creature of habit--

--is that I get to follow ideas
from their first glimmer--

--on into half formed experiments--

--and if I'm lucky,
further still--

--until eventually they flit away
of their own accord.

A drawback to this persistence,
is that I am a teensy bit inclined

to overdo.

 Which means that on this occasion,
it is I who need to flit away--
or at least pause this beloved series
( all 37 of which are now on the 2020 and 2021 archive pages)
while I attempt to rest.

Or rather,
(since I'm terrible at resting),
while I do the myriad stretches and exercises
prescribed for the future existence
of  my yarnish ideas.

Luckily, so far
there have been many wonderful things
to read--

like the gorgeous essay by 
my brother Benjamin C Swett
What I Wanted to Tell You About the Wind
in the Spring 2021 Orion Magazine:
(also myriad others in this unputdownable issue)
and
Carson Demers' book, Knitting Comfortably
(delightful, eye-opening, and occasionally mortifying
when I see how casually I've treated my poor old body)

as well as watch:

like Rebecca Mezoff's beautiful (and informative)
tribute to the work and life of inspirational tapestry weaver  James Kohler
on the tenth anniversary of his death
and
the webinars organized by Fibershed
(I just watched this one that Redbird did on Dog Bane
that hopefully will be available soon as a recording),

and oh, so much else.

Along with reading and learning
I shall also practice hand rest and rehab
which so far means
learning to use a mouse with my left hand
and doing a little studio spring clean
in order to clear both my head
and some space
for whatever parenthetical idea(s)
eventually take pity on me
(naturally using only large muscle groups
which are, truth to tell,
in far better shape than my small ones).

And perhaps you,
if you are so inclined
(and are not so foolish
as to have taken your hands and shoulders
as for granted as I),
will feel free to weave
a few of your own precious words--
those that you've shared in the comments in the last two weeks
or which are quietly rattling around your brain.
Because how not?
So many wonderful ones await.

And though this comes under the heading
of shameless self-promotion and blog support,
if you are interested in the word thing,
or at least attracted to crisp stacks of tapestries,
with no ends dangling in any direction
(ideal for tapestry Post Cards)
I cannot not recommend
the Fringeless Four Selvedge warping class
I did with Rebecca Mezoff,
and
my little zine Tucking the Tails .

Or if you're truly ambitious
 don't have a loom
and don't want to make one
there is always that other
goofy and miraculous four selvedge technique
Weaving a Bag On a Box.
Imagine a list, or  poem
going around around and around a bag
that can be carried around and around
wherever you go....


But enough of that.
I already have more bags than I can use in a life time.
My oh-so-ergonomic broom awaits.
And it's time for some more stretching.

Never a dull moment--
though wouldn't one or two be grand?

So you know what's cool?

Well, lots of things are cool:
spinning
and weaving
and looms
and friends
and solitude
and vaccinations
and sunshine
and rain
and baby plants
and one syllable four letter nouns...

Today, though
the thing that delights me
more than I can say,
is noticing--

that I no longer notice--

that I wear a hand spun/knit wool shirt
every single day
summer and winter.

Well-- truth to tell--
in the summer I occasionally wear
those handwoven linen
and  linsey-woolsey shirts.
But still--
(and somewhat to my amazement),
I've made more than enough
next-to-the-skin-soft
wool shirts
 to see me through.

And though I wasn't thinking at the time
about  why it was possible,
one of my great daily pleases
these last months
has been dressing up for my loom every day.
And I think the loom appreciated my effort.

But I had  forgotten--
until tidying up a stack of
"magazines with articles I wrote"--

that once upon a time
having enough such garments
was a deliberate plan--
my mid-life self
committing
to the sartorial comfort, pleasure
and general well-being
of me,
now,
at 60.

So golly thanks, former Sarah
for the serendipitous Magic Medium--
for the blissfully approachable Somewhat Slanted
(of which I now have five)--
for The Cloisters (pictured above)--
for Kestrals Alight back in 1996--
for all the unnamed others
(many of which I've given away)--

--for all the glorious fleeces
(and the sheep that grew them)--
and for uncountable days and weeks and years
of pleasure--
past, present and future.

And yes, also for my Sarah-Dippity Skirts
which though they are not shirts
and were completely unplanned,
I nonetheless wear so often
that I'm now having to patch them.

So you know what's cool?
That the midst of one of the weirdest
and most unsettled
and oddly fascinating times of my life so far--
that even as I am taking a break from knitting
to rest and reset--
it is yarn, once again,
that is seeing me through.

Wow-
it's March!

How are you doing?

Me--I am well,
(how happifying is that?)
And the snow is melting!

It's amazing to be back here--
 familiar and strange
at the same time.

I mean
after three months
there is so much to say,
and also, nothing at all.

For while listening
to other people express essential ideas
with perfection and beauty--

--I've been spending my days
with one word at a time.

I mean--
quag.
Isn't it lovely?
What a thing
to get to balance
(or try at any rate)
on its delicious
q-centric
syllable.

And really,
does a person really need
entire sentences?

Even my inner Storymaker
has been mostly OK with it.

She is all about words to be sure,
usually ready to cram in
as many as she can
(Verbs!!! Adjectives!!!!!
Parenthetical Asides!!!!),
but it turns out
that reading dictionaries
studying etymology,
and debating the merits
of this word
or that
is wildly entertaining.
(OMG--a double ff-- YES!)

Almost as satisfying
as having chopped
the ice dams
off the roof.

Now it could be
that writing this essay
back in December
for my friend Debbie Lee's
monthly blog: Witness Wilderness,
was all the Storymaker needed.

Or maybe she has just been biding her time,
waiting for the thaw
while the Luminist blissed out
on quiet(ish) winter days.

Either way,
we're decidedly out of shape
for this blogging biz
and it might take a while
 to fully emerge
from our wintry ways.

Though I suppose that is
what spring is all about, eh?

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.