the view from here

It has been a full week around here.
Not that I went anywhere (who did?),

but two fresh fleeces arrived from Montana,
and  fleece washing time 
is usually  packed
(especially when scouring delicious fine,
​seriously greasy, Cormo and Targhee/Debouillet),

​Happily, the results
​ are always worth the effort.

Clean soft fleece + a pair of perfect spindles 
definitely equals contentment--
both ​for present and future me.

As it happens, however,
though I'll be drum carding for days
and happily spindle spinning
for months and years,
present contentment sometimes lasts
only as long as the time
between the completion of one satisfying task
and the moment of being
struck/taken over/flattened
​by a brand new and un-ignorable idea.

Ok, yes, I know --
the coracle/mask I wrote about last week
was also an un-ignorable idea. 
It, however (the pulled warp coracle),
did not grow to be a source
of long-lasting satisfaction,
​while I think this project will.

What's the difference?
You might well ask
since it is so hard to tell in the moment.
With the brilliance of hindsight, however,
I'm pretty sure that  I started the coracle/mask
as an attempt to relieve
 the persistent, pervasive, fearful angst
of this moment in time,
(no need to explain further, methinks),

while carving a funky 8-dent rigid heddle
from a scrap of wood I found in the basement,
was pure, self-indulgent  joy,
and joy, a rare and delightful thing,
is perhaps a more useful a source of angst relief
than all the reluctant mask-making in the world,
if only because it wells up from inside
rather than falling on one
like a mildewed, news-laden blanket.

At any rate,
hyperbole aside,
one way or another
making the rigid heddle
led me to a forward thinking,
elementally satisfying place, 
where in fact,
I already rather badly wanted to be:

that is:
​cross-legged on the floor,
weaving paper and linen
on a backstrap loom.

Not that I had a vision
of exactly that thing.
I've just been missing the feeling
of working on my backstrap loom,
and vaguely dreaming about
the kinds of things I might make on it--
while still cutting and spinning paper
with persistent pleasure--
and these two things
seemed mutually exclusive. 

Mutually exclusive, that is
until I saw the tiny rigid heddles
that Kirsten Neumüller has been carving
from a fallen juniper in her back yard,
and was immediately smitten.

Now, I did try to set aside
my instant  longing to make one myself
( "it's just an idea storm-wait it out").
But happily it was un-set-aside-able. 

Indeed, in the three days since I saw hers
the thing shaping up to be a source
of idea-consolidating calm--
an unexpected doorway 
to both immediate and long term pleasure--
like fleece and spindles
with the added benefit
of getting to make a half-assed
yet fully functional new textile tool.
​
And I am a total sucker ​for such things
as you may have noticed.

(If you're unfamiliar with Kirsten Neumüller's work, her beautiful, useful and charming book Mend and Patch: a Handbook on Repairing Textiles has just been translated into English, and though I haven't yet read her  earlier book on Indigo, I can only imagine it is  as good).

So that was my week
and this is where you find me today:
right  back  doing the things I have been doing,
with a slightly different perspective,
a cool new tool that keeps me planted in place
(except when I need to mow and dig in the garden)
and much less angst,
for which I am most grateful. 

How's your week been?