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.

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?)

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

​

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 how many photos
does a gal have to take
of her backside

before she finally decides
that enough is enough?

I mean honestly --
all I wanted was to show
that the reason
​for the long narrow tapestry
​with the endless slits--

--was nothing more
than a desire to wear this skirt
(photo below)
without the bunchiness
​of a belt.
And now  I can!
Yet for some reason,
though it feels great on the inside,
my inner model and inner photographer
were not communicating this morning,
and every photo of the outside
is badly lit,
out of focus,
has me posed in front of
the only distracting object
on an otherwise empty wall, 
or my hair is in the way. 
And each time I checked out the photos
and said to my model,
"fix the elastic on your braid!"
did she do it?
Nope.
​
Ah well.
​We all have our little skills.

At any rate,
the skirt is old favorite
that was designed, alas, 
in that sartorially awkward moment
when retail clothing companies decided
that a "waist band" should sit
somewhere below one's belly button,
yet I've always loved it'
so awkward photos aside,
 it is delightful to be able to wear it
​without tripping over the hem
and/or displaying an unnecessary
​amount of stomach.

Why it took me so long
to think of this solution
​I've no idea,
as the fit of this
otherwise heavenly garment
has been annoying me for years.

But I guess brains,
like cameras
do not always focus
on the thing
that in hindsight
one might have preferred.
And since ideas
have their own pace
​ and agenda,
I can only be happy 
that this one showed up at all.

As you can probably tell from the safety pins,
I just cut the tapestry from my loom yesterday.
and wove in the the ends before supper.
After a quick bath
(a thing I do with all wool weft tapestries,
especially if it is a thing I'm going to wear --
though now that I think of it,
I'm not sure I've ever
woven an 'accessory' before),
I squeezed it in a towel,
laid it flat to dry,
and by this morning 
it was ready for a nice steamy iron.

 I was pleased to remember
to weave slits/buttonholes at either end
so the suspenders (braces)
could also work 
with this pair of pants
(extra satisfying when structure and function work together),
and am always happy
when Tucking The Tails
keeps stray weft strands
from sticking out hither and yon
on either back or front.

 I'm not, however, entirely happy
with the bulges/folds of the tapestry fabric
above the tiny house center panel
where the front straps veer off to my shoulders
(clearly visible in the photo above),
and I believe next time I'd either 
weave two separate straps 
that literally cross in the back,
or make that center panel wider
so there was more of an H
and a shallower shoulder angle.

This last would also make
a useful design space--
room for an entire landscape perhaps,
or, as in many Coptic garments,
a face looking ever outwards
watching your back,
and noticing 
where you've been.  

So many ideas--
I want to try them all.
Woven words?
(Logger World is traditional 
though what a place for haiku...)

Or a person could use a backstrap loom
and a rigid heddle
to weave a long narrow strip
of needlepoint canvas
then embellish it
with.... anything at all. 

And what about
warp faced pick up?

Oh dear. Off I go.
Please--
save me from this idea storm
and try one or two yourself?
What better way
to show off your glorious work,
and saying what you have to say
than by wearing your heart
on your shoulders?

And now that I think of it
this 194 grams of milkweed fiber
​(and some willow as well),
are calling my name--
really loudly.
Perhaps they, too,
have a sartorial plan
 (not yet revealed),
that will allow them to travel
exciting places
like --
curbside pick up
at the grocery store.

Ok, so there I was,
contentedly packing weft
into a long, narrow
tapestry warp--
doing all I could to
'em-blue-en' the smoky skies
with my yarn--

(convinced that  by today
I'd be able to show you
a completed
long narrow tapestry object
​but obviously, not yet)--

--when what should appear on my phone
but a text to let me know
that the Milkweed seed harvest had begun
at Thorn Creek Native Seed Farm
 and if I wanted some stalks,
it would be a fine time to get them.

Driving is a thing I avoid
at the best of times,
so it took a moment or two
for my legs to remember
their clutch/gas pedal coordination
(my neighbors laughed
as I stuttered out of the driveway
in the wee, mossy pick-up),
but it doesn't take long
to recall even long-ignored skills.
Nor, indeed,
does it take more than a few blocks
to get out into the
weirdly beautiful Palouse hills.

Because the technique I've been using
works best when the stalks are quite fresh
 I've been at it for the better part of every day--

--and on Saturday
when, blissfully,
finally, gloriously,
it rained
(that's me walking home
from the Farmer's Market
soaked and content)--

It was perfect --
cool, damp, autumnal,
slow, abundant,
and very comfortable.

Here is what I'm doing:
After peeling the outer/inner bark
 (starting at the bottom
and using my palette knife to
​get things going),
I lay each out strip and,
starting somewhere in the middle,
gently scrape away the outer bark
​to reveal the white fibers beneath.
A shell works perfectly for this,
as does a palette knife.

Grabbing the green stuff ,
I slowly pull it away,
then repeat
in the other direction.

The outer bark generally has
shorter lengths of fiber
that didn't come with that first pull
so I do the same thing
with the ever shorter bits
until each strip is spent.

3 or 4 hours
and 10 or 15 stalks later,
I might have
15-ish  grams of fiber.

​Note: these photos show a particularly abundant stalk.
Each is different.

There is probably
another week's worth of stalks
in the  pile.
​And I'm glad.

For at this moment,
when individually and collectively
we are all trying to cope beyond coping,
and everything feels balanced on a knife point,
it feels more important than I can say
to take my entire life down a notch,
and practice ​the revolutionary life skill
of choosing to allow myself
(with no plan, intended use or purpose),
to be delighted, fulfilled, and soothed
by the act of gathering fiber,
a strand at at time.