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?

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?

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--

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?)

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."

How else but with two aprons,
 to pick ​rapidly ripening raspberries

and carry a garden watering timer
​(aka phone)

when neither your linen shirt
nor the  hand-me-over-unfinished-skirt
you're wearing underneath
​has a pocket?

Not that I couldn't remedy that.
A nice patch pocket on the skirt
would be the work of a moment.
​
And the shirt
is a continual work in progress--
the fact that it already has
a teensy tapestry pocket on one side
no reason to neglect the other.

It's just that I wear the shirt so often--
 like every day I'm not wearing
  the linsey-woolsey one--
that I just haven't gotten around to it.

Yes -- it's hard to tell from the drawing
that I'm wearing the linsey-woolsey shirt.
But it is  only short-sleeved shirt I have,
so not a tricky deduction.
Besides, it was just a few days ago.

Also, though I occasionally
bend the absolute truth in my comics
(for narrative clarity only),
I generally aim for sartorial veracity--
if only because I love my clothes
and am oddly attached
to the idea that  future me
might like to enjoy seeing them too
(while remembering what. weenie I am about shopping).

It also helps with the laundry.
("I seem to have worn Sarah-Dippity Skirts
in almost every drawing for this entire diary--
definitely time for a bath!")

But I digress.
Paper pockets
were the topic of the moment.
And they might actually be
a compelling experiment. 
Though the coffee filter yarn
is itself pretty fragile,
especially as singles
(I can't imagine using it for warp for instance),
it seems to stand up remarkably well
 tightly packed in a weft faced plain weave--
at least to the wear and tear 
of life as a diary cover--
growing soft, pliable,
and almost leather-like
​(if a little grubby),
with daily use.

And true shifu,
(woven from hand spun washi)
has been used for clothing for centuries,
so the idea is not totally outrageous --
except of course, that washi
(and the resulting kami-ito)
is often specifically made
for strength and longevity
while coffee filters are (usually)
single use items.
Though expected to withstand
 boiling water and soggy grounds, 
they are definitely not​
as intrinsically strong as washi.
But who knows?
In case you haven't noticed,
my life is a constant work in progress --
my chief delights arising from
​experiments with the materials at hand,
no matter the source.

And as we all learn daily,
you never know 
what is going to happen.

Indeed, I'm super excited
about watching the evolution 
of this diary I just made.
Not only do I get to play
with the wedge weave tapestry
I wove last May.
(2-ply vs the singles of the last one)--

​but I also got (and get) 
to see how the dog bane binding cordage
(made in the fall of 2018),
behaves with constant handling.
It's pretty rough right now,
but super strong
even if I did have to punch
​extra large holes in my signatures. 

Now what was this post supposed to be about?
No idea. 
Undoubtedly something
satisfying and insightful
that would rock all our worlds--
though nothing could equal
the roller coaster ride
of real life just now--
my mind growing, I hope,
as strong and flexible
and welcoming of change and possibility
 as dog bane cordage.
So a bit of paper-induced absurdity
never hurts alongside, say, things like
the recent groundbreaking
 Supreme Court Decision
that almost half of Oklahoma
falls within a Native American reservation!

So I'll just end with this photo--
because it makes me happy,
and is a good reminder
to enjoy the hidden richness
in even the simplest
of moments.

​ps. Tiny chair carved by Linda Ligon's grandfather in about 1915 --
and though this chair didn't start
Thrums Books , Long Thread Media,
and the once-upon-a-lifechanging  Interweave Press,
Linda did, and all three make (and have made)
the world a better place for textiles
and their makers.

pps. Squash plant--a volunteer,
​grown by itself from a bit of compost,
whose contributions to my world
are blossoming even as I type.

ppps.  Because it has to be said:
​Fuck Trump

It's been a while
since I've woven on
a continuous warp,

​and had forgotten
​ how delightful
it can be
​to slowly swirl
​an emerging tapestry
​around the top and bottom beams

as the prickly plants
gradually emerge,
a letter at a time.
(The names I use for the plants, that is,
​since I do not know what they call themselves). 

The length of the thing
means there is time and space
to notice unexpected words,

It has also been fun,
just after writing
Tucking The Tails,
to find another place
where the practice
of working in the ends as I go
adds moments
of enchantment
to weaving:
getting to glimpse
the elegance
of letters in reverse
out of the corner of my eye--
to admire grace of their shapes-- 
to relish the confusion of
of thinking a 'd'
is a 'p'
and trying to figure out
what word I had
 inadvertently written.
​
And how not to delight
in the dignified nod
of two 'r's
(distantly socializing as now is normal)
as they pass by, 
one going up, one down?

I'm weaving the letters
with naturally dyed wool.
The colors were a surprise
as at first I thought 
I'd write all the words
with black and charcoal fleece,
and I really appreciate 
the indigo and madder,
weld and lobaria pulmonaria,
insisting that they, too
​ get to promote
 the loveliness
of some of the sharp things
in my world.

The two-ply used coffee filter yarn
also had its way with me,
​thank goodness.
For though it is almost
too thick for a sett of 8 epi
(and anything but smoothly even),
it is a pleasure to touch,
to tap into place,
​to think about,
to make,
and to photograph. 

Using the two fibers together
does take a little getting used to--
 the extreme difference
in how each packs into place
 a little disconcerting
especially when I'm trying to count passes--
but I'm getting pretty good at eye-balling
how much the wool will pack down
in relation to the paper,
and the juxtaposition
of warm brown beads of coffee filter
against the smooth fuzz 
of fine spindle spun wool,
is a continual source of delight. 

Even if you're less
easily amused than I,
how not to adore
the exuberance
​of an 'e' coming to life?

I am hoping to fit
two more prickly things
onto the last few inches of the warp
and though am not quite sure there is room,
( the shed will be tiny no matter what
and I haven't even gotten to 
my list of local burrs),
I'm still going to try.

And luckily (hopefully)
I can soon put on another warp
for  apparently
my beloved PVC pipe loom
loves a good continuous one
as much as it loves four selvedge--
and there are so so many more
weirdly wonderful prickles
to investigate,
a letter at a time. 


ps. And in case you care about such specifics
 the warp is that merino/silk,
I wrote about back in May.
As you may recall
it didn't race my motor 
in the cloth samples I was weaving then,
but it does make a glorious warp
as I had hoped (3 ply for this tapestry),
​and I'm delighted that I have plenty more.

Oh goody--
back to the blog
after a whirligig of a month.

Except -- 
this business of typing words--
​ I think I must be rusty.

(Listening to Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi 
and here with Yo Yo Ma)

(Ki/Kin Pronouns from Robin Wall Kimmerer )

And oh yes,
a chemo holiday
​ is an amazing thing.

A few days ago,
weaving along and geeking out
on the continuing love affair
between plied paper
​ and wedge weave,

I  happened to glance down 
and notice
​ that the tapestry I was making
bore more than a little resemblance
to the clothing I had on--

colors, lines, squares,
and the underlying pleasure
of working with what is at hand
coming together in beloved jeans,
a tapestry in progress
and last summer's tabby-tapestry
linsey-woolsey shirt
(about which I just realized I wrote four blog posts;
if you're interested you can find them here, here, here and here).

Well, that was fun, I thought,
​and got back to work.

Imagine my surprise, then
when the next day,
as I carefully Tucked My Tails,*
I noticed it again --
not quite as marked, perhaps,
though the silvery-grey/brown combo
went well with the pieced linen shirt
 (prototype of sorts for the linsey-woolsey one),
if not the tattered trousers 
(almost as thoroughly mended as the jeans).

*readers of the guide might note the  use of passive weft in the top middle square above, and the tapered end on the top right one

By the third day,
though I did not make a plan,
​I was a little less astonished
when the same thing happened.

This is getting silly, I thought,
​weaving on and blissing out 
on the energy of the tidy little squares.

The day after that
the white hemp pants I chose 
(prototype for the worn out brown ones
and significantly more robust),
did not have much to do
with the colors I was moving into,

but I can't say I was astonished
when I noticed that I was wearing
a Somewhat Slanted Sweater.

The particular pleasure
of making angled squares
is apparently as irresistible just now,
​as turning compost into yarn. 
​
​And sometimes the colors work too.

It feels like I should be able 
to draw some important conclusion(s)
from all of this matchy-matchy
makey-mendy stuff,
but at the moment
I am actually caught up
in the drama of the triangles
that have suddenly shown up
here at the very end of  this long narrow tapestry--
for after the calm of the simple squares
the pointy shapes make my heart beat
in a disconcerting (though not unpleasant), way
and I want to see if what I weave next
will calm it down again--
or not.
And if it does,
whether the underlying wedge weave energy 
(currently contained by the warp tension)
will go even wilder
once released from the loom.
​Stay tuned!

ps.
the "skirt" of today's outfit
​is a hastily wrapped scrap
of a worn-out sheet that
ultimately proved to be beyond mending,
wrapped around my waist
to make a pair of leggings
feel like real clothing,
Because sheets are more real
than stuff I buy at the store?
Go figure.

So here's a question.

When a bunch of ideas
all show up at once,
is there a hierarchy among them--
 materials, tools, technique(s)--
​and if so, what is it?

Do the demands of one idea--

just to take a random example),​

After all,
that's what I used last time.
And I'll pretty much always choose (assume)
hand ​over mill spun yarn for everything.

Well, when the only two ply hand spun flax in my stash
is so rough and uneven that I have three breaks
 before I've woven an inch--
a choice must be made.

First choice: a post-warping application
of a flour and water size.
This tamed the hairiness but didn't thin out the thick spots.
Second choice: enlarge the heddle holes --
not possible without the risk of going through the side walls
given my super simple tools and rough construction approach.
Third choice: change either warp or heddle.

 Now were the warp yarn the most important/exciting thing
I'd perhaps have re-threaded,
as I think it would have worked just fine
with a plastic heddle's larger, smoother holes.
And I did considered it-- briefly.
But the other ideas rebelled.
I wanted to use, or at least try, the firewood heddle.
And anyway, I needed its sett of 8 epi
​for another part of the puzzle.
So a new warp of ​mill spun linen
​ it would have to be.

And a doubled warp can be a very handy thing--
as readers of Tucking the Tails now know,
(perhaps also noticing how, in the photo below,
I combined the wrapped tail and double warp techniques
to begin the wedge weave square).

Oh right-- WEDGE WEAVE --
that was one of the other unignorable ideas
I wanted to mess around with,
 a prime mover in my  'need'
​for a new heddle with a sett of 8 epi.

Though I'd never done it before,
just hearing the words "wedge weave"
as part of the discussion on Change the Shed,
led me to try a sample on the last bit of warp
from the  book of light and color--
and then again, somewhat more deliberately,
 with a four selvedge warp on a pvc pipe loom.

This second photo
(of the clean back of the four selvedge tapestry
as it is being released from the supplemental warps),
was supposed to be a demonstration
of the joys of Tucking the Tails
(if not four selvedge tapestry weaving as well),
but I forgot to put it in the post.

Too busy, I think, geeking out
about the weird and wonderful pleasure
 of a somewhat slanted weave structure--
and the love at first pick
between wedge weave 
and plied coffee filter paper yarn.

Unfortunately,
the two weaving samples
had used up all my plied paper.
No biggie to make some more--
except then came another idea.
What about plying the singles paper 
with some singles hand spun linen?
Would it create a wonderful yarn with linen strength
and the delicious hand of the coffee filters?
Or would I be doing a disservice to them both?
And, in the aforementioned
hierarchy of ideas, 
was that a question to ask, 
or a thing try? 
Try, of course.
At the very least, if I hated it
I'd get to cross the idea off my list.

In module 4 of her Tapestry Design Class
Rebecca Mezoff explores
the reciprocal relationship
between loom structure and design.
In module 5 (which just opened),
she talks about the interactions 
between design and materials.
​Who, or what, is in charge?
What choices do we have?
Wherein lies control?
And is control even a desirable thing?
How much adventure feels right
or is even possible given the grid of warp and weft?
How much subtle delight can a person stand?

It's fascinating stuff.
Except--that there are never any definitive answers,
at least for me,
beyond the ones I am experiencing
and the choices I am making in the moment, 
as this color, this warp, this tension, this sett,
this light, this position, this way of opening the shed,
this hand motion, this mug at my side, this bobbin,
this skill set that I have, this level of strength in my hands today,
this funny heddle notch where my thumb fits so perfectly,
all come together, randomly or no,
to help me make whatever on earth it is
that I am making today.

So that's all I know for sure.
And may the questions keep coming.