is ready to go out into the world!

At any rate, it is as ready as it and I can be today
given the messiness of process, 
the joys of editing and rewriting, 
the trails of drawing and and redrawing,
my penchant for carets, corrections,
and the angst of sharing all of this.

Once upon a time I hoped to have this done back in June, but along with all of the above (and the distraction of exhibitions),
it took me a while to figure out the ins and outs of actual production.
Backstrap Dialogues is almost 3x longer than the Bag on a Box zine and after making a bunch of proofs I decided I wasn't ready to photocopy, fold and bind that many pages myself.
Actually, I  would love to have done the binding, but once you have someone's machine print and fold hundreds of sheets, it turns out to be a huge hassle not to let them staple too.  
I also wanted to use a heftier paper than standard photocopy paper, but not so hefty that the mailing cost would go too high, so had to do some experimenting.
​ It's amazing what a difference the weight of the paper makes, both with mailing costs and how the booklet fits in its envelope--esp for shipping overseas-- and I really want to keep them in the first class letter category. 
But perhaps this won't be as much of an issue with this zine, as I am offering it as a downloadable PDF as well as a paper booklet. Yipes!
As with everything I undertake, it's all a bit of an experiment with a steep learning curve.

But as of today, my Etsy shop has
1. Backstrap Dialogues-- 56 page saddle stitched zine
2. Backstrap Dialogues--56 page downloadable PDF
3. How to Weave a Bag on a Box--20 page saddle stitched zine
4. How to Weave a Bag on a Box--20 page downloadable PDF

​Off we go! 
(hope it all works... eek)

ps.  As I don't have any system for computer generated address labels, everything is hand written, which means it takes a little bit to send them off
Thanks for being patient!

These last months have involved an inordinate amount of movement:
packing, unpacking, packing again, doing travel laundry.
 I can make yarn wherever I am, thank goodness,
but since I like my summer days to look like this:

​as they did last summer, 
rather than this

as they seem to this summer, 
it takes a certain amount of effort
to make sure I'm not mentally half out the door all the time.

​Happily, while I was off on some trip or other,
my husband made me this fabulous light table:

so when I'm home I can at least draw warp and weft,
remember the pleasures (and frustrations) of my backstrap explorations of the last year,
and work on this other project -- a thing that you probably already figured out about from the drawings in previous posts-- that i'm calling a comic instructional memoir.

There is still  a lot of work to do  -- not only writing and inking
(then re-writing and re-inking),
and hopping back and forth between contemporary and medieval technology, 
but also scanning, fixing ink blots, deciding about color (yes? no? watercolor? digital color?), figuring out about printing (me? someone else?),  actually getting them printed etc,
but eventually I hope I'll be able to talk about it more specifically
 as I get closer to getting this new zine into my etsy shop to keep company with How To Weave A Bag On A Box. 

​And in the meantime, I will pretend my days are only full of these:

and these,

and that more packing is not hovering on the horizon.

Happy summer, my friends!
​

One of the things I really love about the third floor gallery at the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Textile Museum is the slanted ceilings which allow the tapestries to hang slightly out from the walls, so they can move with the air and cast shadows in all directions.

Indeed, I was so taken with the dynamic feel of this that I mostly took videos rather than still photos, completly forgetting  that I can't post them here--
for why else do I take photos if not to share them with you?

Here are a couple of links to Instagram videos though:
Casting Off (@sarahcswett)
Rough Copy (@sarahcswett)

The show itself is lovely.
 I can't thank the staff and volunteers at Pacific Northwest Quilt and Textile Museum enough for their kindness, generosity and the glorious job they did hanging the work.  
Do visit if you have a chance - and be sure to check out the fantastic thread drawings of Kristin Loffer Theiss on the first floor, and also her website and the video of her drawing with her sewing machine.  

One of the best things about exhibitions of course, is the joy of getting see, and even have the odd conversation with  friends, old and new, who made the huge effort to come to the reception..
I can't thank you all enough.
 I also got to spend extra time with extraordinary artist and friend, Carolyn Doe
and the marvelous Rebecca Mezoff , tapestry weaver and teacher who  flew all the way from Colorado so we could share our delight (and ideas and techniques and gossip) about this marvelous thing we happen to do.

My heart is filled with Gleeful Gratitude.

ps -- The air b and b  cabin I rented was heavenly,
and the rocks on the shore did not seem to mind me gathering, arranging and then returning them to the beach (I try to be a catch and release  rock collector). 
Or if they did mind, they were polite about it.

I slipped off to the canyon
and with me I brought:
books,
​food,
yarn
a spindle, 
​a very old dog,
and a pocket knife.

The new position
(horizontal instead of vertical warp
and sitting on the floor leaning against the backstrap),
was astonishingly comfortable--
so pleasant that when the first  warp was done,
​ I put on another.

Finer yarn and a closer sett led to a tidy surface.
My ever-so-slightly increased proficiency led to straighter selvedges.

Soon, however, I wanted to see what else this amazing little loom could do.

I turned it around,
shoved the warp closer together,
and tried a balanced plain weave.

Turns out I'm better at keeping my beat even
and my selvedges straight
with a weft faced structure. 

No surprise there -- I haven't woven a balanced plain weave in over 20 years.

A little more practice time is definitely in order. 

A few days ago, Summer Larson just wrote a thought provoking blog post about time.
"How," she asks, "will you spend yours?"

Making cloth, methinks.
​
Making cloth. 

​

mething I have to say,
but only the yarn knows what it is.

My job is to show up and listen.

Some time the 1960s, my mother bought a pair of quilts in Pennsylvania.  

With hand stitched appliqué strawberries and hand quilted swirls, they kept the family warm in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Time and use did their thing 
Someone with a zig zag machine tried to slow down the disintegration of the polka dot fabric, but it probably seemed hopeless.

  Eventually, I had fabric that matched -- kinda sorta, in its own way. 

First, I covered the worst spots

so  I could wash out the dust of decades

and render it usable once more.