Well, if I hadn't just spent
half the morning
(and a good portion of yesterday evening)
​with my iPad camera 
pointed at this little tapestry,

​I might have gotten
to writing to you
​a while ago.

marveling at the light playing with its facets,
and noticing
how a slight shift of angle
could render it
 statuesque ​from one direction, 

Outside the frame of the camera
it is actually somewhat diminutive--
here is my friend Poppy for scale--
and though I made the darned thing,
the relative power of framing and angle
is still a surprise. 

At any rate,
I had a lovely time weaving this tapestry 
(on a PVC pipe loom as you can see--
one of my all time faves for some weird reason)
 though what I actually made
​turned out to be not at all
what I imagined when I began.

The original point
was to let each facet
explore some color theory idea
​and see what happened.

I planned to
mess around with
hue, saturation, triads,
split compliments,
or relative warmth--
whatever grabbed my fancy.

But as so often happens these days,
after only a few little squares
I was the one that was saturated
and almost unwove
those first busy reddish-orange shapes--
even though I loved them--
as it felt like it was going to be
just too much in no time at all.

But before I could begin undoing though,
I remembered a thing Archie Brennan once said,
about changing your perception of yesterday's red,
by adjusting the colors you weave with today.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact quote
(Archie was a supremely quotable fellow
and I'm sure he said it with with perfect pith and pointedness 
so if you read/heard him say it, please let me know his real words),
but the principle was just what I needed.

So on I went.

And now that I think about it,
my variations on a theme of cream
actually has a little analogous/value stuff going on,
so I guess I got in a bit of inadvertent
​color theory practice after all.

At any rate,
since Marjorie asked
for more filter cutting/spinning info
in last week's comments,
​choosing these colors 
gave me a chance to try
to film a few of the steps.

Naturally, I got totally involved in that idea
but not being a video gal,
 had to cut quite a few attempts at filming
before I had something that made sense. 
And then,
even though I deleted a lot of footage,
 realized it would take forever
to upload all the video onto this post
so put them into the
"highlights" of my Instagram page.
You can see them by clicking
the three little circles under my name.
(Start with the circle on the right).
Below are two snippets  to give you an idea
of what I was about.
At the very least, the sound of hte scissors
​is weirdly soothing.

For those who would prefer still photos
this blog post  also has some how-to-cut pix
that cover essentially the same territory.

And now I've gone on and on as usual,
but before I close 
I do once again want to say
how VERY much I appreciate 
your supportive, kind, and heartwarming comments
which are more helpful than you can imagine
in the midst of this double  (or maybe quadruple?)
c-word moment:
cancer/chemo/coronavirus/Covid19.
And to show you that for the time being
we're well protected (after a fashion),
I'll end with a photo of the freshly blocked
Somewhat Slanted  Suit of Armor
I just finished for Dan--
(huge though it is, at 2 sts/in the knitting flew along).
As you might gather,
he's a teensy bit taller than me --like a foot, actually--
but suddenly, I'm thinking
that with slightly shorter arms,
I could sure do with
​ a Somewhat Slanted Dress)

I hope you are well
and staying safe
(at home if you can be there,
at work if you cannot),
and send a silent cheer to you/us  all.

Frankly, 
I haven't the foggiest idea 
​what to write about today.

Not for lack of ideas --
Oh no!  
I've been awash with those.
I mean, 
a paper gansey dress?
a suit of Somewhat Slanted armor?
There is much to talk about
​in the realm of my making existence.
Yet this is actually my third try
at trying to be coherent.

Part of the problem
may have been
that "somehow"
all sorts of non-blog things
have arisen ​to take over my Tuesdays,
and, deciding to be efficient
the first two blogging attempts
were made yesterday.

What a disaster!
Not a single coherent sentence
​ could I write,
and most of the photos
turned out badly lit
or poorly framed-- 
poorly framed, that is,
unless your hearts desire 
is. to see a corner of my
Sarah-Dippity clad butt
and the bra/underwear pile
of my laundry-in-waiting?

Tuesdays, you see
are old lady (and gentleman) day at the Food Coop
(actually member over 55 gets a 10% discount),
and what with the layers of gloves
and careful spacing and all,
it seemed a good idea
to keep grocery-getting
and blog writing
​separate too.

Tuesdays are also 
my husband's new chemo day
(used to be Monday)
and since I usually try to  do a little tidying
while he's off getting infused,
 I figured if I wrote the blog on Monday
I could take my time
​with the scrubbing,
​the shopping
and the writing.

But Monday,
as I said,
refused to cooperate. 
After a bunch of confusion and angst
it became clear 
that while there are times
and places 
when thinking ahead
and being practical
(wearing  rubber gloves
out in the world etc etc)
is just the thing.

So Monday got to be
the thing it wanted to be,
full of tunes and pink coffee filters,
and I headed out to the Food Coop this morning
where,
be-gloved and bemused,
I had several magical moments of
distant socializing with dear friends--
our plastic coated hands waving madly
from one end of an aisle to another--
and also got to feel
​ a good solid sense of gratitude
for all the beautiful produce
and marvelous, helpful coop stuff
who are keeping us supplied
​for our once-a-week excursions.

And  the cleaning?
Well, I shook out a few rugs
but mostly skipped it entirely,
save for washing
and blocking
the coffee filter Gansey dress
because my imaginary elf self
wanted to wear it
and anyway
I can mop things tomorrow.

But that, the elf comment, reminds me
of what I really wanted to say today,
and why I was trying to take selfies yesterday--

which is that is that my friend Vicki
has designed the coolest hood
for the Somewhat Slanted sweater
and I finally get to tell you about it.
Somehow she managed to combine 
both the utterly practical
(cozy, easy, protective, snuggly),
and the utterly "im"--
(I get to be a wood elf
and a Monty Python Knight
​at the same time),
while making something that is
totally in the "make it as you go" spirit
of the sweater itself. 

Such a favorite, indeed, 
that I'm giving you a second opportunity
to critique my slovenly laundry ways,
my pink Sarah-Dippity butt,
and the polka-dotted apron I forgot I had on,
so you can see the whole thing,
backlit and all.

And speaking of Dan
(though he'd probably rather I didn't)
I do want to say
how VERY much I appreciate 
all your wondrous words and hopes and thoughts
in the comments in last week's post.
I was going to try to answer them all,
but it only made me cry,
and also feel so very grateful
that you are all there,
that we're all in this together
in many different
and many of the same ways, 
and that I get to write to you--
even going on and on
despite thinking I had nothing to say--
and that we can madly wave,
our carefully gloved hands
at one another
from across the world,
and the other side of town,
and feel connected
with our yarn
and our thoughts
and the joy
of the fragile,
​the lovely,
and the absurd.
So, ah,
​thanks.
​
And, onward we go.

Gee Whiz --
is this wild or what?

Everything shifting so much
that it is hard to know
​from moment to moment
what to think--
or even how I feel.

Sometimes,
​happily,
it is all perfectly clear:
when in doubt
​make stuff.

Then five seconds later,
my brain has gone racing off
on unhelpful imaginary voyages of its own--
and in an effort to calm it down
all I can do
(short of panicking about toilet paper),
is to remember how useful it can be

In some ways
I've been in training for this time
all my life.

Decades of making stuff
makes it seem obvious
​to turn to the work of my hands
when things are less than ideal--
as well, of course
​as when they are bloody marvelous.

At the same time
none of it is easy,
as you know,
and can't  tell you how helpful
it has been
these many months
to draw that freaking out person
I sometimes am
(hard to believe, I know, but true ;-)
and to have a place
from which I can look back at myself,
and laugh, or commiserate, or whatever,
​ even while whatever it is
is still happening. 
(Some day, maybe, I'll even share
a few chemo side effect comics...
​ but not today).

it is also wildly wonderful
to have companions along the way
who are also turning 
their prodigious attention
to the making of things
that are perfectly ridiculous.
​
​​And really,
​was there ever a better time?

ps. And now that I'm about to close
I suddenly remember how much 
I also want to thank you
 for all the marvelous comments
in last week's post,
and say that there is not much to 
 these curled wire hangers
beyond that they are made
from 16 gauge wire
I found in the basement,
that I gently unroll
then twist about with my hands
(and sometimes a cheezy pair of pliers for the tight curves),
until the thing balances--
which sometimes takes a while.

pps.  and one  more quick more thought
​on perfectly ridiculous projects --
weaving a bag on box is a prime example --
and also terrific
if you want to try your hand at weaving
and don't have a loom--
but do have a cardboard box!

They are not usually
​the point of cloth --
​
​cracks, I mean--

places that light
shines through.

Certainly tapestry weavers
generally work very hard
to make elegant and subtle joins
between shapes
and areas of color.

And at  all cost
we avoid hanging the works
anywhere near direct sun.
Until, ahem,
​we do.

Yesterday I warped a loom--
and began to weave a watery landscape
(complete with lots of hatching and color blending
cuz -- you know-- so many great colors of paper).

Then several inches in
I stopped,
 unwove the entire thing
​ and began again.

The landscape,
lovely though it was,
had no interest in 
(or, it seemed, capacity for)
playing with the light-- 
or, apparently, with me--
too anxious to be done
to enjoy actually weaving. 
​
And who wants to feel like that
about a work in progress?

Yet those plain little squares--
and the slits between them--
are seemingly just the thing.

As fun, just now---
as very plain knitting.

I've been, indeed, a bit bemused
by my equal opportunity entrancement. 

On the one hand--
the ​unpredictable energy
of ​knitted paper.
(Sweater Somewhat Slanted as promised).

On the other,
 the tranquility
of geometric tapestries.

And then I notice,
(yet again),
that what I am embracing 
​is paper and light.

So what can I do
but go with it?

My sister has left, alas,
and our lunchtime knitting-and-gab-fests 
are no longer a thing.
But as she headed home through the skies,
​a slew of unstoppable ideas
for the coffee filter yarn I made during her visit
flew into my brain.
So naturally, I had to try them.

First up was a little vessel.
At least that is what I keep calling it,
though when I look up the word
in the two nearest dictionaries
(as I did a moment ago)
I find that vessel
may not quite suit.

One definition begins like this:
ves.sel n. 1. a. any large boat or ship
esp. one larger than a canoe or rowboat,
designed or equipped  for
conveying passengers, cargo, etc
b. Law. any floating structure.
2. an airship

​​Both go on to talk about canals,
 blood vessels, and woody ducts in trees,
none of which quite apply
to this little object
since transportation of liquids in any form
is not something I foresee
in its  future.

Not that coffee filter yarn,
(cellulose fiber that is), 
isn't perfectly capable
of  sucking up water.
That is, after all, what it was designed to do.
But wet paper, even spun and knit,
is exceptionally tender,
and once immersed,
 the perky little structure
will simply collapse
into a sodden heap of loops.
​
So not, I think, a boat.

She is, however, 
extremely willing 
 to hold light and air,
and is perfectly capable of transporting me
(with a little help from the sun),
into a world of luminous,
shadow-rich
​ rapture.
​
So perhaps a kind of bird?

At any rate,
whatever she is called,
once the little vessel-bird
showed me a little of what she was capable of,
light-wise,
I had to cast on again
for something  larger,
and with bigger holes.

Here she is.

And since I know you're going to ask,
here are a few technical tidbits:
​
Vessel-bird 1 (left, below)
-Melita filters from my kitchen,
-​some dyed with indigo,
-cut with scissors into strips approx 1/4" wide
-spun Z, plied S
-Knit on size 5 (3,75mm) needles

Vessel-bird 2 (above, right and below)
-Commercial Coffee filters 
-collected, unearthed, washed and dried
by my sister Evelyn R. Swett,
-cut with scissors into strips approx 1/8" wide
-spun Z, plied S
-some dyed with indigo
-Knit on size 5 (3,75mm) needles​

Here is a link to a post
 from two weeks ago
which includes a brief comparison
of three coffee filter brands/styles,
 Stay tuned for more experimentation--
though of what sort, I cannot, alas, predict.

And that, my friend,
is all I know so far.

But happily,
​these light-filled objects,
speak for themselves--

as, indeed,
​can we all--
 given time,
attention
and a moment in the sun. 

ps. And speaking of moments in the sun,
my recent coffee filter experiments,
received a lovely mention in Episode 18
of the marvelous podcast
Mrs. M's Curiosity Cabinet.
Meg's experiments with nylon-free sock yarn,
growing her own luffa gourds
and more, are always a treat.
​ I highly recommend a listen --
to all the episodes