taking up space

I’m just going to start with the piece that was conceived for the space, as a way of introducing my art show, which has been up for some time, and has two more weekends before closing on May 1. The show is called Yarn, Cloth, and the Pull of the Earth, and it’s hanging at the PNW Quilt & Fiber Art Museum in La Conner, WA. It’s quite an experience to have a space that I can fill all by myself - an interesting, faceted, space, since it’s the third floor of a historic Victorian house.

One room of the show, on the upper floor of the museum, with me weaving by the far window.

The walls tilt inward, about 5’ from the floor, and this was actually perfect for what I wanted to do. Most of the pieces in the show involve two layers: a woven ‘ground’, hung against the wall, and suspended ‘lines’ of handspun yarn, which need to be higher and a few inches in front of the ground. Without this tilt in the wall, it would have been tricky to figure out, but the space had what I needed, so I could just hang the work. The colored cotton panels with bunches of wool in between make up the one piece that I made specifically for that wall, after visiting the space to scope it out. In this sense, “taking up space” means I used the space almost as a medium for the work, taking it up as one takes up a tool in the hand.

Handspun, handwoven cotton in natural brown and green.

The woven cotton is all handspun, essentially whatever I had ready to weave, supplemented with some new brown and green fiber from Vreseis and Traditions in Cloth. It’s all two-ply yarn, and I plied same colors together until I ran out, then some skeins were mixed, then I likewise wove until I ran out, so the color changes in the weavings happen by chance. They are interspersed with walnut-dyed wool, a gift from Devin Helman, spun rough with no prep and plied back on itself. In several of the pieces for this show, I’ve been exploring the expressive potential of strands of handspun yarn, the way they are like drawn lines or brushstrokes, handmade marks that have unpredictable voices of their own.

Coffee Lines - a handspun yarn based on the theme of coffee, hanging at the top of the stairwell before you enter the exhibit.

Handspun wool lines, with handwoven ground of walnut-dyed commercial 10/2 cotton.

Handspun wool lines (rescue sheep’s wool), handwoven ground of commercial warp, handspun Navajo Churro weft.

Taking up space is the real value of the show for me. Having this opportunity to fill two rooms with my work, my priorities, my ideas about what is important, and hoping to help others appreciate the wonder of yarn and cloth. The nicest moments have been just sitting in there, weaving in the light through the window.

Detail of weaving in progress, all cotton, at the museum.

A special day when I coordinated well with my weaving. Thanks to Dana Weir for the photo.

View from room 1 to room 2, through white lines. Cotton Strips on the right - more handspun cotton, in white and grey.

Caravan handspun, on ground of linen warp, handspun wool weft.

My Caravan yarn got to come out and play, hanging with a new woven ground. The pieces are all interacting with one another, creating something with their crosstalk.

I also included some microscopic images of fibers, taken when I was doing conservation study and using polarized light microscopy to identify fiber content. The images were so beautiful, I wanted them to be shown as artwork - and they emphasize the theme of looking closely. There is more I could say, but it has taken me long enough to post about this show, and I’d like to leave this here today.

about that string

A word about the string. Eine Saite, a string, is the title of this gathering place of  thoughts and images. It comes from a poem by Rilke, Am Rande der Nacht (On the Border of Night), which sets up the speaker, the person experiencing, as a string: 

Ich bin eine Saite,

über rauschende breite

Resonanzen gespannt.

 (I am a string, stretched over rumbling, broad resonances.)

The full poem and translation are posted in the about page. I recommend reading the German aloud, if you can come close to pronouncing it. The rhythms are wonderful.

RIlke loves a wide open space - field of Queen Anne’s Lace and big firs during the heavy snowstorm days.

It has appealed to me to have “A String” be the title of a website that is mostly about spinning, weaving, sewing, textiles. However, I’m feeling the need to admit what German speakers must already know - although have been too polite to bring up: the string in Rilke’s poem is a musical instrument string. The word in German would be different if he were talking about yarn, thread, spun fiber. Strings for instruments are usually made from sinew or metal - a different material entirely. So there you have it, I admit to knowing that the stretched string in the poem is not the same kind of string I have stretched across my studio for weaving.

Beginning of a walknut-dyed weaving. 10/2 cotton warp and weft, mill spun.

And yet. We are in the world of poetry, where meaning is specific and also deep, layered. Any string of any material can be stretched across rumbling, broad resonances. The strings of my warp contribute to the vibrations within a vast space (more so, if I’m weaving outside.)

Weaving linen outdoors last summer.

The poem culminates in the realization: 

Ich soll zilbern erzittern - I must silverly shiver! 

(My translation, my exclamation point) The person who is a string suddenly knows how to participate, how to create something that will cause “everything” to “live under me” - or as I interpret, to enliven in that space over which I am stretched. And this is another parallel - when my yarn is spun, and stretched, and woven, I silverly shiver. I choose my participation, that will resonate around me, through all the enlivened things. 

Handspun cotton catching the sunlight

This is elusive, but it has been deeply known to me since I first read the poem: that there is a way to be in the world, activating your own sound, evoking harmony, resonance, dance, light.

My writing slows as it becomes harder to make the words say what I understand from Rilke - but it’s there in the poem.

In Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows’ translation, they say:

A silver thread,

I reverberate:

then all that’s underneath me

comes to life.

My neighbor finds resonance in shaping found wood sculptures and suspending them.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a long time, and about other things Rilke… so many unwritten Rilke thoughts! But especially lately, I’ve thought about poetry and translation and what words mean, because it’s important for subversion, for questioning what we’ve always been taught.

I learned about and ordered this book, an interpretation of the Therigatha, delving only slightly into the stir that it caused around the question of whether it could be called a ‘translation.’ (The current subtitle, “original poems inspired by…” is modified, post-stir.) Without going into my own reading of the original Pali text and various officially sanctioned translations, I will just say I’m more interested in finding out what a poem can do for you, how it cam make you feel and possibly change. (And this version of the poetry of enlightened women does more for me upon first reading than years of referring to the literal translations.)

And I also tend to think that anyone reading poetry, even in a native language, is engaged in translation to some extent, because we each bring our own history of understanding to all words, and we cannot say or know what a poet “means” with a certain word, apart from how it affects us. (Ooh, intent and impact… there’s another thick topic.)

I truly hope to bring more poetry here, alongside the weaving, since they are intertwined in my body and mind. This pulling of myself in the two directions, from words and intellect to hands and technique, makes me feel that they are two ends of the same string, and that all these meanings are present and vital, if not for Rilke then for me, through the intersection of his words and my life.

that soothing rattle

High on my favorite spindles list is one of several from Peru, a little one-ounce spindle with a captive ring. The loose ring makes a sound while the spindle spins, a rattle that gives the spindle its Quechua name. I’ve heard various theories on why the captive ring, from audible tracking of the spinner, to woodworkers’ showing off. But in wandering around my own neighborhood spinning, I’ve found another, somewhat enchanting role for this chattering sound.

A passel of Peruvian spindles, with the chac-chac on the left. At least a couple of these are constantly in use around (or outside) the house.

We have a lot of birds around my house. Really, concentrated near my house. I can walk for over a mile with my binoculars, and not need them until I’m back within 50 yards of my driveway, where all the birds hang out. During the winter, it’s mainly American Robins and Varied Thrushes, Chickadees (Black-capped and Chestnut-backed), and Kinglets (Golden-and Orange-crowned), with Spotted Towhees, Dark-eyed Juncos, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and Anna’s Hummingbirds year-round. So, I’m wandering around outside with my spindle. This has, I realize, become an essential spiritual practice during pandemic times: walking outside with my spindle. On most days when it’s not (as now) pouring down rain, I tend to get out there at least for a spell, and it helps.

Bare chac-chac spindle, with a low whorl by Allen Berry, wool dyed by Abstract Fibers.

Recently, I was wandering up the hill behind my house, where there is an unbuilt lot full of trees, a band of partial forest very popular with the juncos. They are usually flitting around there, dashing across the open space by the drive, chipping and chucking their rapid, abstract calls. On this day, I was able to mingle quite closely, moving very slowly and standing still for long stretches of time, but never ceasing to use my chac-chac spindle. It rattled along, renewed with each flick, and the birds were never disturbed. On the contrary, I believe (and this is not the first time I’ve had the thought) the spindle’s irregular purr actually allowed me to get closer to the birds without causing alarm.

Orange on orange - love when the spinning matches my clothing!

The gentle sound of wood against wood, natural but irregular, may be similar enough to bird calls to mesh with their soundscape. If I knew the kind of language that had beautifully rich single words to express whole phrases, I would name this spindle “soothing to the birds.” As I stood there spinning amidst juncos and towhees I thought, this is really what it’s all about. This is belonging. I realized in that moment that the work of my life is to learn not how to stand out, but how to blend in.

It has been fun to gather images of soothing-to-the-birds from the various times I’ve taken pictures over the last few years. Lately the spindles have mostly been working toward the weaving above and its future companions, with stripes of Navajo Churro, dark Coopworth, Manx Longthan, and madder & indigo dyed Corriedale. The spinning moves me closer to the weaving I wish to be doing, the people who have practiced before me, and now the birds who share this place with me.

(Sometimes I put my musings about spinning over here in the spinning blog, in case you’re looking for more.)

finishing, and other distractions

This tiny snail was on the stem of my CSA broccoli, and I remembered I have a camera with a good macro setting. So I was diverted by looking at the snail and taking lots of photos as it scooted around on the stem. I called this one Snail Side-eye. That shell! The delicacy was entrancing. The shell is only about 1/4” wide, maybe 5mm.

You know that thing I said last time about how once I’ve finished something, it already seems old? That may be one reason why it’s hard for me to get around to sharing Finished Object photos. The other is the distraction factor, because the thoughts and images that elbow their way to the front of the queue are never exactly what I thought I might intend to talk about. Witness, the tiny snail.
But anyway, this weaving is finished, except for the fringe/edge treatment. I’m still undecided on what I’m doing at each end, but here’s three panels, joined with figure 8 stitch. It has been incorporated into the textile array in the low seating area that we call the majlis, our couch, where I am currently ensconced among weavings and pillows.

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Bedouin style weaving, from handspun Navajo churro wool, 3 panels stitched together.

Now, I meant to include this next item with the petticoat details in the last post, because they are related. The Sarah-dippity skirt is, at long last, finished. The picture below is from nearly a year ago (this has been a long-running project). I tried it on when I had finished knitting the panels and put buttonholes in the last panel, whose shaping was made with short rows - and yeah, I could use some short row shaping finesse, but I decided what’s a little hem wonk among friends?

Backing up as I realize I may never have shared the in-progress bits, possibly because I was waiting until it was finished…..? Sigh. However, this is backstrap-woven fabric, begun in October 2019, 100% Harrisville Shetland wool yarn in a random stripey warp that was a bit of a circus act to wind, but satisfying to weave. I knit the intervening panels with the same yarn, using up the dark brown cone. I was sewing the panels together in February 2020, prior to knitting the final front piece. My waist-to-hip ratio required some more radical deductions in fitting the wedges to the straight pieces, which added to the delay in getting through that phase.

Shetland wool stripes in progress on backstrap loom, leather backstrap of unknown origin in foreground. Handmade bamboo reed in use.

Shetland wool striped fabric finished - about 8 x 100'“

What the skirt really needed, to be finished, was some elastic in the back half of the waistband, which I inserted in a sleeve of brown wool, a remnant from my lovely long skirt. And the buttons were pulling at the knitted fabric, so I wanted to add button bands. Another job for my new best friend, handwoven tape! I had some handspun tussah silk yarn in appropriate colors handy, and got to work. the cool thing is, being custom-made, the tape has woven-in buttonholes.

Hanspun tussah silk yarn, in natural, rust, and bronze.

I kept the skirt in my lap as I wove the buttonhole band, and buttoned each button as I went, so that the length between would be correct.

The skirt has already been recruited into use, but I don’t have fully-done photos yet. I’m sure you’ll see it underneath some weaving in progress eventually.
Meanwhile, how about some sleeve gussets? The next FO is actually a radical mending, or a reboot. A linen dress I’ve had for a very long time, love dearly, and never liked the fit of the sleeves. In sewing a linen shift, I learned a thing or two about gussets, and I wanted to apply that to this dress. But the sleeves were joined into the princess cut in such a way that merely adding gussets in the underarm was not enough. I had to cut the whole sleeve off and insert a wedge at the shoulder.

The linen dress on my work table, one sleeve reconfigured. The original sleeve is angled so low that anytime I raised my arms, it was too tight around the upper arm. Simply adding room below did not solve this problem - I had to reduce the angle from the shoulder, make it nearly straight out.

I’d been searching for linen of a harmonious color for these insertions, but my smart friend Ann suggested using a print fabric that shows right up, and carrying the insert all the way to the sleeve hem. Which sent me stash diving and gave me the joy of using more long-held fabrics to not only enhance function but jazz up this dress.

Whee, freedom of movement! I’ve worn it many a day since making this change. Seen here with a necklace made of weaving-enhanced driftwood, work of my friend Tininha.

It’s interesting to think about what counts as ‘finishing’ in my little textile world. I meant to show things that are done, wearable, no more work left until they need mending. But I realized that each plied ball of handspun yarn is also a small finished object. There are many stages of finishing, and the sense of accomplishment comes whenever I wind off a ball or a skein of yarn.

Four balls of handspun yarn, from top left cotton 2 strand plying ball, Corriedale plied, Coopworth 2 strand plying ball, Gnomespun dyed Gotland 2 strand plying ball. All of these have been plied since the photo - woot!

My life is filled with balls of yarn like this. And I never know what will strike me when sorting, or moving, or plying, or grouping them. As it happened, I went through the main ‘weaving yarn’ bin the other day, and found the Syrian silk in there. This stuff is heavy, in more ways than one. It has weight. Just holding three skeins’ worth was like a presence - I held them against my stomach, as if carried in the womb, and I remembered the market in Damascus. The Souq al Hamidiyyeh, a huge covered arcade of market stalls where I searched for the yarn shop a friend in Doha recommended.

I was there the end of February, 2011, only months before the rapid disintegration of what was then normal life for Syrians. It is sobering to think of these places now, and the yarn holds all of that.

Shelves of the yarn shop where I bought my silk, Souq al Hamidiyyeh, Damascus, Syria.

I wove some of this silk once before, along with some textured corespun yarn in the warp and an additional wool yarn in the weft. The resulting scarf was sold to a friend at an art fair in Doha.

Handspun yarn and Syrian silk scarf, modeled on the roof of my Doha apartment, 2011.

As I realized then, this silk (I call it silk, it may have some viscose in it, but they said it was silk, even when my Arabic speaking friend bought it,) needs something to stabilize it, something less slippery and lighter weight. It occurred to me to try weaving it with plain, white, handspun wool. This juxtaposition of flashy, shiny, bling yarn and earth-grown, undyed sheep’s wool parallels what I encountered in Arab culture. There is a deep history of pastoral connection to land, animals, and hand-worked materials, which coexists with a love of gold, sparkling jewels, and lush adornment. Very broad strokes here, but I could give examples if this post were not already getting lengthy. Suffice to say, this combination felt right, as an honoring of the yarn’s place of origin.

Syrian silk yarn and handspun CVM/Romeldale cross wool from Bellingham, WA.

I probably want to make something large-ish, as the yarn allows, but first I needed to sample my idea. I spent much of a day working up this sample, and I can’t even express how much I adore the fabric.

Sunlight on weaving in progress.

The sun was shining on this day, and I enjoyed the glint of sunlight on silk immensely, broken up with all the little dashes of wooliness.

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A small sample, a tiny little piece of fabric, but I love everything about it, the hand, the texture, the rhythm of bright and matte surfaces, and the way the light shines through.

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The rug in the background is also from Syria, bought on the same brief visit. Through my own weaving, my heart honors and hopes for the place and the people, that they (and we all) may thrive in some new form.

motley

I’ve come to accept that I always have a motley collection of intentions, a patchwork of projects, each inching along at its own pace.

Warp-faced strip of two handspun merino/bamboo/silk yarns who have long awaited being woven together to see what happens.

The slow pace can sometimes drain the excitement, so that by the time I share or finish something, it’s already old to me.

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Handspun cotton accumulating in the to-be-washed pile.

But maybe the slow pace is the excitement, or the importance of the thing.
Not rushing can be a subversive, significant act.

Linen shift stitching in progress - felling a seam.

Valuing flashes of brilliance over steady accumulation of skill and knowledge is part of the prevailing illness today —- why not glory in taking a long time to slowly make a thing?

Which I do. In several different directions, all at once.

Twisting some fine cordage from long leaves. Love the fineness, but the fingers get tired, and my joins need work.

Closeup of backstrap woven bath mat in progress, with weft of cotton t-shirt strips and carved Allen Berry sword beater.

I wanted to share an update on my 18th century-style petticoat skirt, mentioned at the end of this post. The fabric is so light that the skirt simply crawled up my legs when I walked in it, so something needed to be done. I thought of adding a handwoven hem band, probably getting the idea from Lao skirts and the separate hems they often add to the main skirt fabric. Looking at the photos, I realize now that even when a separate hem is not sewn on, the additional woven decoration at the bottom adds weight (as in the second photo below.)

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Lao tube skirt (pha sinh) - the ikat upper part is the main skirt, the brocade weaving below is a separately woven hem section.

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These pha sinh are woven in one piece, but the borders are decorated with supplementary (brocade) patterning.

One of my narrow woven wool bands looked good against the skirt fabric, but I wanted the hem band wider. So I scaled up the pattern using my handy Inkle Visualizer app, and wound a warp in the same colors, closer to 2”/5 cm wide. As often happens, I miscalculated length because I don’t have a good sense of takeup percentage (how much length is lost in the weaving), so I ended up with a nice hem band that was about a handspan and a half too short.

Backstrap-woven, handspun wool hem on petticoat.

What to do? Standing in my studio, the stacks of folded fabric catch the eye, and in my life “patchwork” is more than just a metaphor. The solution was obvious.

Patchwork fabric infill, at the back of the skirt hem where the woven band did not reach.

I actually padded the patchwork strip with batting, and put in some quilting stitches along the seams for strength, since the patchwork needed to be equal to warp-faced woven wool. Solving these little problems of durability, weight, and behavior in garments teaches so much about how and why people made clothes in various ways, throughout time and place!

And the tiny bit of quilting sparked something else, the memory of my love for that act, that set of skills and motions. As it happens, I had a fully assembled, partially quilted project handy to get back into the joy of hand quilting. This is a 20-year-old piece with its own story, which I will feature at another time. Suffice to say it has a theme of colonization, refugees, and war, which unfortunately never ceases to be relevant. Meanwhile, I also find it beautiful and highly evocative, with memories of Dharamsala, India, where it began.

Patchwork quilt in hoop and on the floor below, big basting stitches and quilting stitches shown in the hoop.

Hand quilting in progress, red thread on cotton and Tibetan silk fabric patches.

Even these photos are already a few months old, because I somehow got distracted from working on this, as well….. As I said, it’s a constant, swirling dance of discovery, my inching along with each project as the mood strikes. But the stitching here may have fed into the stitching on the linen shift, which is nearing completion. It’s all moving, deepening and spreading like water filling a dry, rutted patch of earth. Something will grow here, surely.

Self in linen shift, showing finished neckline and cuffs, in nice afternoon light.

weave on

As long as I have one, or two, or maybe more, weavings in progress, I feel secure in the knowledge that I have Something to Do. I can always put in a few rows or inches, especially if one of the projects is plain weave. I was happily, if slowly weaving along on the gold warp with a mishmash of weft yarns, destined to be several yards of 15” wide cloth for sewing, when another project suddenly took hold.

Double decker weaving. When you have one tie-up spot for larger pieces, they have to make way for one another. The gold warp is chained and secured at one point, so it can move side to side. I weave it while sitting in the rolling chair. The wool warp is secured on a loom bar, so it faces the tie-up (antique treadle sewing machine, that is) directly, and I sit on a cushion on the floor to weave it.

It all started with this Navajo churro fiber that Ameila G. was unloading before a big move. I happened to mention that I like that fiber, and a huge box came home with me. I spun the white and dark brown a few years ago, and the medium grey-brown just recently, a soothing pandemic spin. I had the skeins posed on my table to share a photo with my weaving friend.

Three shades of Navajo churro fiber, from the large stash I acquired thanks to Amelia Garripoli, spun and plied on my Louët S10 wheel.

Well, backing up, it all started when I had the idea to try to do a Bedouin-style weaving with the churro. Back in 2017, I started weaving the side panels - two strips that would mirror each other, with the patterning of al ‘ouerjan. The plan was to have a center strip with the shajarah supplementary warp technique, an improvised pickup which allows for the choice of dark or light color in each pattern warp in each shed. I’d learned the weaving methods while living in Doha, Qatar, through a combination of visiting Um Hamad, a Bedu/Qatari weaver in Souq Waqif, and consulting Joy Hilden’s book, which gave me the vocabulary to talk about the techniques with Um Hamad. I set up at home using my backstrap arrangement, rather than the ground loom or frame loom typical of Bedouin weavers, and while I wove a few practice pieces and made some projects with al ‘ouerjan, I only ever did the shajarah once, on a band which I later gave to Joy Hilden. So this idea for a larger weaving came from an urge to give “real” Bedouin weaving a try. What I mean by that is to use handspun wool of a heavy carpet weight, to do a warp-faced piece with multiple panels, and to use both types of supplementary warp technique. The pounds of churro fiber I had handy were just the thing.

In sending the photo to my friend, I then got out the side panels to show her what the yarn was for. And with everything sitting out and looking tantalizing, it was only a short step to winding a new warp. (This is why it’s important to have weaving friends.)

Brown and white wool side bands, and the three colors of yarn in the middle. Yeah, I can’t really figure out why the patterned bands are so different in these two, but I’m ignoring it. Symmetry is not my strong suit.

It had been so long (and had predated the sensible weaving notebook I now use) that I did not remember what length I had wound for the two warps. I decided, based on finished length, the most likely answer was “the full length of the table” - which is a standard unit of measure, at least in my studio.

Should I have put this behind a spoiler, for those who are made twitchy by the sight of a hectic warp? Sorry, this is my M.O. I wound in three bouts. I fixed tension issues in one set of white warps later, while getting set up on the loom bars. Joy’s book is open to some shajarah designs, to help me decide on the number of pattern warps to use.

For this supplementary warp technique, you wind one of each color held together for the full number of rounds equalling your desired pattern warps. I went for 30. Each shed thus gives all 30 warps, with the option to choose either dark or light for each one. Much improvisational freedom, with an emphasis on the smooth diagonal lines that are easy to achieve. The textiles I’ve seen seem to show a disregard for long floats on the backside, but I find myself designing in order to catch floats before they get too long. And as I wove, I realized this could explain the role of a certain type of framing I see in the pattern bands of Bedouin weavings. See Um Hamad’s work, below.

The very beginning - working out some kinks. A simple repeated hourglass pattern gives me a feel for the numbers and the pickup method, as I try to snug the warps closer together in the pattern section.

Um Hamad points out the patterns in a weaving. The rows of black diamonds seem to make boundary lines between designs, and would also serve to catch any long floats.

A weaving Um Hamad made in 2011, spinning and dyeing the yarn before weaving. Repeated rows of black diamonds again frame improvised sections of pickup.

The back of Um Hamad’s handspun piece, showing the floats in the shajarah section, and the bright orange, blue and red of the narrow stripes - dyed with packaged dyes from India, in a loosely plied skein. The yarn is plied tighter after dyeing.

Bedouin traditional looms have string heddles that are raised on props, with a shed stick behind them. The shed is opened in opposition to the raised heddles with a wide sword, or simply punched down, leaving the heddled warps raised. Raising my heddles with my hand and punching down the wool is a physically satisfying experience, getting me deeply involved with the wooly, three-dimensionality of my warp.

Heddles being raised, shed opening.

Having an improvisational design entices me to weave, with the promise of the unknown and the chance to experiment. This weaving has been a good place for me to settle during the past month.

More thorough explanation of Bedouin weaving as seen by me in Qatar, and lots of pretty pictures here.

Woven cloth with pickup design in the middle, grey stripes to either side, white borders that will join the white of the side panels. String heddles and shed stick behind. Heddled shed is open, design is picked up.

Souq Waqif rug arcade, Doha Qatar, 2011 Layered examples of different weaving styles.

reinforcement

I love weaving tape! Plain weave tape with warped-in design is enormously gratifying right now. It’s a way of always having weaving in progress that is simple, straightforward, and practical. It’s also a way of using handspun yarn that I may not have enough of to make something larger, but I want to see how it functions in a weaving. The tussah silk above is a good example of that - and I’m very happy with it as warp-faced tape. I feel like making a whole garment of some kind, just for the sake of using that silk tape as an edging.

Being preoccupied with weaving tape means I’m noticing garment edgings more, such as these details on Uzbek robes, again from the beautiful Susan Meller book Silk and Cotton: Textiles from the Central Asia that was. All the robes have edging, some of which is embroidered, some woven on with a “loop manipulation” technique that I’d like to research further, and some woven separately and sewn on. It makes sense, these were hard-wearing garments, meant to last through many years of daily use, and the edging protects and reinforces the most vulnerable parts of the cloth.

This is also the reason and rationale for the card-woven hem that Morgan Donner recreated, using the Medieval Garments Reconstructed book, which analyses archaeological textiles found in Greenland. And it’s why I decided to try the technique on my recently completed long wool skirt. In fact, I think weaving this edging did even more for getting me interested in exploring garment edgings, and noticing their various manifestations.

Shetland from a sheep named Kevin, Superior Fibers in Edmonds, WA. Romney lambswool from One Straw Ranch, Nordland, WA.

The skirt after sewing was finished, prior to adding woven binding. This is my winter uniform: handspun sweater, long-sleeved shirt, scarf, handknit hat, wool skirt, boots (leggings underneath.) I can put together an outfit made by me except for leggings, underpants and boots - but in this case I did not make the shirt or scarf.

The beautiful Italian wool suiting from my skirt has a deep brown warp and a charcoal grey weft, both of which were wools available in my stash (surprise, surprise!) I spun up some of the dark brown Romney lamb and the grey Shetland, both from nearby sheep farms, and got out the cards from my 2017 class with John Mallarkey, and got to it.

Card weaving in progress. The tricky part was figuring out how to hold it, to keep the shed open, tension on, stitch the weft through, etc. Hand had to learn the best method to avoid hours of awkwardness. The point nearest me is pinned to my belt, and the far end attached to a clamp on the table.

Hem view of nearly finished cardwoven binding.

This was quite the learning experience (hint: Morgan makes it look extremely easy), but so gratifying to see a sturdy, handwoven binding develop along the hem. The weight and density of it enhances the twirl factor of this skirt, giving it a liveliness as I move around, and it has become even better suited to my inclination to wear it ALL the TIME this winter.

And you know, I didn’t even realize I was going to talk about that, but it is closely related to this narrow tape weaving, and all of a piece with investigating handmade clothing and the relationship with my weaving and spinning. The other thing that made band weaving extra fun was the new release of Inkle Visualizer, a charting software application for warped-in plainweave designs (no inkle loom required, as long as you can weave warp-dominant construction.) It’s essentially a digital coloring book, making the testing out of stripe patterns very quick and entertaining. My tussah silk band motif came from my Inkle Visualizer experimentations, as did the design for the handspun wool band below.

Spindles-spun wool in heathered green, deep purple, pale orange and bright orange with warped-in design. Ball of green handspun wool.

My only regret for the ones that work well is that I did not make a longer warp. So far I haven’t done more than a couple of yards, but I’m thinking of trying some longer lengths, to store up some serious yardage for future use. The ones that aren’t long enough to use as garment edgings can always be ties for backstrap weaving, or bundling things, or as tape for making hanging tabs on dish towels, or as straps on bags…. I’m convinced they will all come in handy somehow.

My handwoven tape stash so far: six tapes, mostly cotton, one handspun wool, one handspun silk.

trees

All I have today is a poem, because finding words is hard.

My hope is for transformation… for new and DIFFERENT ways of being American.

Not just because of a change in administration, but because we see the truth and act to do things differently.

The Trees Around Me

Calling this family

because

every day you see them

in different light

and the small ways in which they change

and the big ways in which they don’t change

and you slowly, imperceptibly

come to know

that they are supporting your life.

T. Hudson, 2021

madder, indigo, persimmon, cloth

So why all this knitting and spinning and weaving and sewing and stuff? Well yes, handmade clothes and fabrics are wonderful, but the truth is, many of us do this because we love handling the materials. Fiber, yarn, and cloth are sources of discovery and wonder, and so we’re forever coming up with new ways to explore with them and through them.

Ending up with reliable results is a sign that we are gaining in knowledge and skill, but getting there is often most of the fun - including the dreaming stage, the beholding of some material that compels us, either ineffably or viscerally. The Japanese shirting was doing that to me. Both the ochre version from which I made my petticoat, and this striped blue and neutral. They kept talking to me, insistently, requiring that I pay attention to them. I realized the striped one reminded me of indigo and persimmon, natural dye colors that are commonly seen in Japanese textiles.

I bought a remnant, again (when I can’t think of a concrete project for a fabric, I wait for it to be a remnant, then bring it home as a pet.) This sat in my basket, on view, for a while. Here it is with a Japanese indigo dyed piece my husband bought me while we lived in Japan (late 1990’s). It is loosely woven asa fabric - asa is a generalized term for native plant fibers, from what I can tell. The base yarn is colored with persimmon (kaki) and overdyed with indigo, in a way that involves folding and dipping.

Striped Japanese shirting and indigo/persimmon dip-dyed plant fiber cloth, detail.

Large scarf made of plant fiber dip-dyed with tapered horizontal stripes of indigo in alternating light and dark tones. Creased from being folded….

I found that I had enough for a sleeveless bodice, and began looking for a skirt. Enter one more beloved Thai sarong. This is apparently the year for me to use my Thai sarong fabrics. I wore this one quite a bit. It was a functional garment already, and had been sewn into a tube. When I put it next to the Japanese shirting and knew they belonged together, it struck me that this fabric also had a natural dye referent - it reminds me of madder and indigo. It’s not even a true batik, just a print, but I suspect that people dye and print commercial fabrics with colors that are traditionally pleasing, consciously or unconsciously hearkening back to natural dyes.

Print sarong, showing underside. Intricate batik-style patterns in shades of pink/brown and indigo blue, with black and white highlights.

Button band of sewn bodice, with 19th century China buttons in blue and white. These are my first machine sewn buttonholes, ever.

I don’t have to go far to find examples of madder and indigo among my fibers and fabrics. They are my favorites, and make their way into the stash with ease.

Madder-dyed wool spinning in progress, on a Peruvian spindle. I dyed the fiber in a workshop with Local Color Fiber Studio of Bainbridge Island. The weaving underneath I made with my rigid heddle loom, two shades of indigo cotton from Laos.

Working with these colors and fabrics is the joyful part - placing them next to each other, seeing how they communicate and what they have to tell me. Being able to wear what I make with the fabric, practicality meets delight. I made a sleeveless Hinterland dress which may serve as an undergarment until it gets warm out again.

Detail of dress, Japanese striped shirting on top, China buttons, Thai sarong on the bottom. Soothing blue and muddy cinnamon….

Another example of persimmon (painted onto stencil paper for use in stitch resist dyeing) and indigo (handmade paper made and dyed by Laura Mayotte.)

Natural colored flax yarn, spun by me, indigo dyed hemp yarn from Rainshadow Fibers, a Japanese bag made from plant fiber and dyed with indigo and possibly persimmon, but maybe walnut, underneath.

I’ve done that thing again, where I write about another topic and put it on a different page. Still thematic to the textile riches of my life, a contemplation of a camel trapping in the threads page.

sturdiness

Another couple of garments, or more.

I’ve been on a quest to make clothes that are suitable for yard work and walking in the woods, because on any given day I may suddenly start doing one of those things, and it can be inconvenient to have to change clothes first. So comfortable, warm layers that also work for outdoor work or adventure. I knew I wanted skirts. I love wearing skirts. The only problem with skirts is that they are often designed to not be sturdy, but flowy, or dressy, and such garments are liable to catch on things, and tear easily, and otherwise cramp one’s style in the forest. But there’s no reason a skirt can’t be a perfect forest garment, if made from the right fabric. So when my husband gave me some old khakis for the donation pile, my mind went ka-ching!

Plotting and scheming - my sewing notebook has the idea and measurements, fabric is being auditioned for pockets. I added the orange fabric by sewing one side to the khaki, then putting it on my body and drawing a line where the other seam needed to be to give me enough flare. Not very scientific.

Inverted leg of khaki pants, spread flat and bordered by orange cotton blend - half the skirt in side view, with drawstring, before pockets.

It so happened that a trouser leg, cut open and free from pockets, waistband and zipper, then flipped so the cuff is on top, is just the right size for the side of a skirt. The two cuffs nearly fit around my waist, and I just had to fill the front and back wedges with another strong cotton cloth. I had this orange stuff from Thailand - may be part synthetic, so I wasn’t in love with it, but for this purpose it was just right. Threaded a drawstring through the cuffs-now-waistband, and added huge pockets using some of my hand-dyed fabric (also unloved, in theory, but perfect for this job - it’s amazing how that happens.)

Side view of garden skirt, showing full inverted trouser leg panel, with large yellow & green pocket, discharge dyed with square grid stencil.

Back hip pocket with secateurs, taken while on my body, so not great. Pocket cloth is brown Thai sarong fabric, same as back of Lichen Duster skirt.

This immediately worked as a gardening skirt. All I had to do was add a back hip pocket, since my secateurs are hard to retrieve from the voluminous side pockets. What a revelation, that a pant leg works as a skirt panel. I hope Sharon Kallis is proud - it’s the sort of thing she would figure out. I would plan to do this again & again, except that this skirt will probably serve me for a good long time. It is hard to give away high quality fabric, though, so if more donation pants come my way, maybe in a darker color…..?

The second new garment is made of new fabric. When I saw the rust denim for sale at District Fabric, I knew it would be my next Sturdy Outdoor Garment. Priority wardrobe items for me are those I can throw on over top of whatever else I’m wearing. I am big on layering, and live in a place conducive to it. In the last couple of years, most of the clothes I’ve made are of the tunic/apron/jumper genre. (And I say jumper in the American sense, not the British sense of sweater or pullover.) This rust denim jobbie is what I grew up thinking of as a jumper. As you can see, it goes on over everything I’m wearing, in this case sweatpants and a wool sweater (a jumper over a jumper, wot?) And yeah, I’m really happy with it.

Rust denim jumper over sweatpants and neutral wool sweater, as worn indoors (over my basic house clothes, that is)

Huge pockets again, an enlarged version of those from the Odacier Elizabeth Shannon apron, which I’ve made three times now. For the dress itself, I started with a base of 100 Acts of Sewing Dress No.3, and made large armholes in place of sleeves - I did sew a mock up of the top section, to check the fit. This is such a great, warm, rugged outer layer. It’s exactly what I need and has been into the woods with me several times already.

Ok, this is a lot of clothing and sewing and me pictures, so here, have some clouds and sky.

Clouds and tree silhouettes over the bay and the low, distant mountains. A beautiful evening.

I gotta say, for everything I write about here, there are a dozen things I don’t write about. There are usually about a gazillion thoughts in my head that I would love to share, but the process of getting those into this “space” in a meaningful way is kind of clunky, and so there is usually less here than I intended to include.

Anyway, we’re still on the theme of making clothes. Another category of clothes I love is the underlayers. I’m happy when I can put something on over everything, or under everything, and I made an underneath layer recently, too. At some point during perusal of historical clothing and sewing videos, I saw the 18th century style of petticoat, which is made from two rectangles, with a split at the top, and tied from back to front, then from front to back on top of that. This struck me as brilliant, because cloth is not cut and shaped and yet, it can be sized large enough and gathered at the top to fit nicely. I am a big fan of rectangular cloth as garment, but in many cases, such as Southeast Asian sarongs, the fit leaves something to be desired on this body. I knew the 18th C petticoat would work, and I fully enjoyed the calm demonstration of its construction by Burnley and Trowbridge on YouTube.

Detail of the slit where the two halves join below the waistband. There is a small bar tack sewn at the base of the slit, instructions for which are included in the B & T video. This is one of my favorite details!

Super closeup of the tape, sewn to the pleated top edge of the skirt. I did all the basting recommended in the video, which gave an added sense of security. Color is more true in this image. The shirting looks ochre yellow overall, and is actually woven from dark brown, rust orange, and bright yellow threads.

I had two remnants of a beautiful Japanese shirting fabric that I bought for the admiration of it, not knowing what it would become. This is cotton, but it’s a tight weave, so as a layer, it adds warmth. I often wish for something underneath skirts or dresses, and like my other handmade garments, this is not part of a conscious outfit, but a needed element that will fit nicely who-knows-when (or possibly all the time.) The tape I was weaving a couple of posts ago was finished with enough length to make the back and front ties, and I stitched the entire thing by hand, just because. Half the reason I sew clothes is to work with the nice fabric, so sewing by hand adds to the pleasurable experience - and this was an exercise in honing my hand-sewing skills (that video really got me going - see captions.)

Apron pattern from Odacier on Etsy. I have another one of these, closed-back style, that I wear All The Time. It can be thrown on over everything for instant presentability and pockets!

Back of apron. I had fun centering the floral motifs of the sarong - and the floral border at the bottom was a serendipitous surprise.

Here’s a picture of me wearing the petticoat, under the Elizabeth Shannon apron I impulsively made from another long-treasured Thai sarong. See? The petticoat is going to go with everything. And this is apparently use-the-sarongs year. I’ve sewn no less than four into garments, so far. I know! I’m making tons of clothes! But it’s constructive self-soothing, and for the most part I own the fabrics already, or have long wanted the type of garment being made.

As the post title says, the point lately has been sturdiness. Each of these should last for years and years, and I’m not afraid to get out and do stuff in them. They can handle it, which is another reassuring aspect of this activity. Nothing like being able to make what you need, and knowing that it’s well made.

thoughts, revisited

A bit of context: I write in my journal a lot, and have since I was 10. I often like to go back and re-read past journals to see if I said anything personally noteworthy. Sometimes I tap back into ways of thinking that were helpful, and that I want to revisit and continue. The excerpt I’m posting today was written the end of March, when the pandemic experience was still relatively new. It was also prior to the sudden death of a very dear relative, which changed my outlook dramatically at the beginning of June. I developed a second layer of “before and after”, so it’s interesting to go back into that first layer and see how I was thinking.

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Pencil and oil pastel on paper

3/31/20: Already, for the last few years, I’d been trying to examine the system of valuation I was raised into, and this process continues in the midst of, and highlighted from various angles by, the pandemic. (Everything is now framed in terms of “before this”, and whether certain lifestyles pre-existed this situation or not. This is another reason writing has been difficult: everyone’s lens on oneself is now distorted in some way by the current, somewhat inconceivable, reality. And so to continue any prior current of self-examination, we have to make adjustments, calibrations to account for slippage of reality.) However, the pandemic seems to be mainly exaggerating things I was previously aware of and questioning. All the more reason to continue.

So, walking around outside my house spinning, I was thinking about the innumerable forms of valuation that come into our daily lives, and to what extent this grows out of a culture of measuring, comparing, competing, seeking productivity. Now, possibly more than before, there is a sense of needing to account for our time, to give evidence (on social media especially) of the things we are doing, which have accompanying valuations of healthy/not healthy, active/lazy, stressful/relaxing - along with the subtler nuance that distinguishes between indulgence and “self care.” It’s as if there is a spreadsheet (some actually have them, or bullet journals) that list and account the actions and inactions and where they fall within the overall plan for how to live. What I’m noticing is that while I can see this to some extent objectively, I have also internalized it, and part of my mind is weighing and valuing in spite of my resistance to it.

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Spider web sparkling with dew, spindly cherry branches and leaves behind, my house in the background.

There must be a term for this in the context of feminism or other struggles - the attempt to resist the system from within it, which is ultimately ineffective because the system itself has to be exited. One has to step out of the self-perpetuating cycle, and to extract its residue from one’s own way of thinking….

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Winding sunlit yellow handspun yarn off a spindle onto a reel, Afghani and Bedouin rugs in the background.

In concrete terms, I was thinking that if someone can report, “I went for a walk,” it carries more value than to say I was wandering around my yard spinning and standing there looking at things. But what this means is we have, in focusing on currency and valuation, we have taken away the value of that which cannot be valued. I already knew this, I’ve thought about it for ages re: textiles - the inherent benefits in an activity are diminished as soon as one tries to commodify them. And it’s this very effort, this idea that it even needs to be measured, valued, etc, that eats away like acid at people’s capacity to engage with the immeasurable.

(weaving content also posted, on this page)

learning: the many little missteps

I’ve been thinking about skill again, and how we develop skill not only through repetition, but by making mistakes. Not necessarily big, bad mistakes, but all those small misjudgments that need correction. This happens sometimes on a larger scale, and often in the moment, almost constantly, infinitesimally. While it helps to have someone point out the larger errors before we make them, the tiny ones are how we learn, and they are necessary steps to learning - they’re even joyful, because that’s when the mind suddenly sees the right way, the best option for here and now, or at least a better one. It’s the kind of learning that sticks because we’ve discovered it ourselves, we know it with the body.

I’m just going to meander through the things I’ve been doing, and see how these thoughts may apply. I’m also surely going to get distracted by the robins whooping it up in the madrona tree outside. The berries are ripe and red, and I’ve never seen such a robin party. I’m still not used to seeing them in the fall, anyway, having grown up in Missouri where they are a springtime bird. We have flocks and flocks of birds right now, as if trying to make up for the quiet of August and the eerie silence of the fire smoke weeks. Goldfinches, in their duller plumage, are still here in force, favoring the madrona across the way, but occasionally visiting my bird bath. You’ll have to take my word on the bird scene, because I don’t have equipment or skills for good bird photos, and backlit tress with indecipherable blobs in them would not be convincing.

Anyway here are the berries - madrona tree branches laden, no robins at the moment (they flee if I come this close, of course.)

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Same handwoven natural cotton tape, with wooden sword beater. Not handspun yarn. Woven with string heddles.

Handwoven tape!! This has grabbed me for real. I’ve been enthralled by the idea of it for some time, seeing both the Susan Faulkner Weaver book a friend owns, and another friends’ exploration of the Japanese manifestation, Sanada himo (Ravelry link). A few months ago, I got out the “knee heddle” that I own (because people give me weaving tools) and tried some tape weaving. I got quickly frustrated with this heddle, because not only is it unclear how many hands you’re supposed to have to open the shed, pass the weft, and beat, the distance between knees and waist is short enough (on me, at least), that the warps remain spread apart and it’s difficult to get a true warp-faced look. Which is fine if you don’t want that, but all the tape I’ve seen has it, and it’s what I want.

Wooden “knee heddle” with crochet cotton tape being woven in stripes of rust and grey, with blue down the middle. This image shows how the warps are closer together in one section, which I’d prefer for the whole length.

Handwoven crochet cotton tape, spooled on top of a navy blue T-shirt being converted to a skirt.

Any long woven band with integrity is a functional thing, and this worked nicely as a skirt drawstring. But I immediately warped for another, to be woven with string heddles in my more accustomed manner. Much more satisfying - and I did not like the crochet cotton either, so I chose a natural colored laceweight which lives in my weaving yarn bin for some reason. Very much better!

Warp-faced natural colored cotton band in progress, brown-green-brown lengthwise stripe, about 1/2 inch wide, held in the sun against my fingers (this was in May, when life was sunnier.)

This same cotton was also used in my current band, shown in the first two photos. I warped up 4 yards or so this time, because I aspire to the hefty bundles on the cover of that book. And with that much to weave, I can already see one reason why people may have preferred heddles: less abrasion. I still want to see a demonstration of this knee heddle thing- I can find only pictures of it and written explanations, and haven’t seen anyone showing how it’s done. I find it awkward, and ended up pushing it away beyond my knees, and letting it hang. In which case, a sweet little, small heddle would be much better.

Cover image of Susan Faulkner Weaver book Handwoven Tape, with my crochet cotton blue and white band on top. I was imitating the pattern third from left in the bundles shown.

At any rate, this warp-faced tape is a surprisingly deep rabbit hole, teaching me more than I expected very quickly. The one above, for example. While I’m still not convinced that the one in the picture has more than one dot in the center, and absolutely could not find a way to make that happen and still have symmetrical embracing wavy lines, we’ll leave that aside. Just to get those symmetrical lines, I had to discover that mirroring the pattern doesn’t just mean warping another blue round in the same position. No, look here. The lines are crooked, right? They jog right and left with each pick. and they all jog the same way. So the first one comes from winding a round of blue - it forms the left and right jog. But for the second one, we want the jog to move in the opposite way, so it has to be wound half white, half blue, then half blue, half white. I don’t expect this to make sense unless you’re either well-versed in warp-faced structure, or way beyond me in the logic department. I had to make use of Warp Visualizer’s oval chart to spell it out for myself. I’m the opposite of whatever logical mind it takes to grasp this kind of thing at a glance.

Anyway, moving on - that image on the cover is what really keeps me coming back to this book - those beautiful bundles! So much handwoven tape, in natural dye colors that look so reassuring and earthy. The second from left also wouldn’t let me go, with its two zig-zag lines of indigo. So I wound another warp, since I was conveniently located in an undisclosed location (not my home!) with a very large amount of available yarn.

Brown and blue warp-faced band, 5/2 cotton, weaving in progress with small rigid heddle. Short sample with different warp scheme, woven with string heddles.

And look! There was also a wee, handy heddle in this place, so I could try again to compare the rigid heddle experience, without the bulky knee heddle causing me frustration. The truth is, my habits are so ingrained that I heddled up with string and started weaving before I remembered that I meant to use the wooden heddle! But this was good, since I’d also noticed that I wasn’t getting the double zig-zag I intended. My zig-zag was happening in the middle, where two blues were right next to each other. Second thing I learned about warped in design for warp-faced bands! When I cut off the string-heddle bit, I was able to place the threads in the correct position in the rigid heddle to get the double zig-zag. So cool! So fun! So pleasing!

I may still favor the type of fabric I get with string heddles - the difference is clear in this instance, with the same yarn.

Double zig-zag band in progress, with small wooden rigid heddle, draped over my lap - and I’m wearing my new rust denim jumper, recently designed and sewn by me.

One thing leads to another, and an Instagram post of the blue and white band got the attention of Cassie Dickson (Instagram link - she’s also profiled nicely here.), who is a masterful weaver and flax whisperer. Seeing her handwoven flax and her tantalizing processing pictures reminded me of how much I want to get better at spinning flax for weaving. At this same location with all the yarn, there was also some well-aged flax which needed hackling, so I took it home to test it out and see how it compares to the varieties I have. It’s beautifully blond, and seems in fine shape, after hackling. Not long ago, I got the tip from Sharon Kallis, who was told by Karen Barnaby (more IG links), that spinning flax from the fold is a good way to go when using a spindle. This was revelatory, because it’s true, and it gave me a way to take my flax with me as I wander about, which is my preferred spinning method and gets a lot more spun than the stationary techniques.

Hackled flax, folded and tied, and spinning in progress on Ashford high whorl spindle.

My addition to this approach is to wrap a cloth around the flax, so it can be held in the hand without mussing it up as too much handling will do. This is a great use for some of my vintage ladies’ hankies, which are delicate and lovely and I never use them (I prefer a larger, less precious man’s style hankie for actual hankie needs.) But I have a sweet collection of beautifully hand-worked hankies, most of which came from my grandmother. Perfect chance to show one off below, which has been washed and pressed - different from the one in use with the flax.

Spindle with flax cop and flax fiber folded and tied into a hankie. Green plants and trees in background.

Vintage hankie detail. Whitework and cutwork embroidery and edging. not showing scale, but this is very fine work. The whole thing is only about 9” square.

Spinning flax is what made me think about learning and making small mistakes. I’m constantly making mental notes about what works and what doesn’t because I’m still getting to know this fiber. I learned, while spinning the largest of the three clumps shown above, that I should use smaller amounts at a time with this from-the-fold method. It has less chance to tangle and mat within the wrap of the cloth. I’m learning what’s too thin and what’s too thick, and how to join, and how wet I want my fingers…. and that this is a great choice for the rain/sun/rain weather we’re having, giving me lots of little drops of water to dip my fingers before drafting.

I hope to keep this up and compare some different types of flax, before getting distracted by something else, although there is a new warp going into the bamboo reed at the moment, and another on standby. And I also intend to keep increasing my bundles of handwoven tape. And of course, my wool spinning and weaving is always calling to me as well… the dance of learning is quite syncopated around here, but it continues.

Handwoven warp-faced wool with pickup designs, Navajo churro is the main color, bundles of cotton handwoven tape, a few skeins of handspun wool yarn, in a basket on top of a Turkish handwoven salt bag.

If my captions seem obvious, it’s because I was looking up the low vision accessibility of Squarespace, and saw that the captions of photos will appear as alt text image descriptions automatically. Trying to make sure this works for people. If anyone reading knows of other things I can do, I’m open to suggestions. I enlarged the main body text a while ago because it was hard for me to read, but the caption text remains very small. Some things are within my control, and some are not.

Slug’s eye view of me spinning on the trail the other day. Lots of sky, clouds, trees, me in a skirt made from a Lao handwoven sarong (sinh mukh kho) a handknit sweater, and spinning a little Turkish-style spindle made by Allen Berry.

Thank you for being with me, and keep doing those things that keep us real.

poetry: la fileuse

Yes, there is an interloper who has hijacked the leadership of this country, the USA. Hijacked also the values, the motivations, the very structure of the government that many of us cherish as a democracy. Not that things weren’t rotting in many assorted crevices before, but the flagrant, unabashed corruption and disintegration of what makes a democracy is alarming.

I have been waiting, for these several years, for people to stop turning up the volume. To mute, to mark as “ignore” - not the concrete damage being done, but the endless harmful and ignorant rhetorical spew. I agree heartily with Ursula LeGuin, who wrote in her blog in 2017 of the golem, a creature created from mud and enlivened by language. The whole post (the whole blog archive!) is well worth reading, but here’s the key thing she said:

I honestly believe the best thing to do is turn whatever it is OFF whenever he’s on it, in any way.

He is entirely a creature of the media. He is a media golem. If you take the camera and mike off him, if you take your attention off him, nothing is left — mud.

There are things to do, such as phone banking to empower voters. Here are a couple of options: Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and Unite Here’s Take Back 2020 campaign, calling on behalf of the hospitality workers’ unions. I’m sure you can find more, and by all means take to the streets when necessary. But I refuse to listen to, or repeat, anything uttered by this person, and fervently hope that the flood of voters, activists, and new candidates for office will reduce it to mud.

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I have to believe it benefits us to look away, to cultivate our own sanity, to keep building up the notions, ideals, and convictions that are being threatened.

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Looking UP - hello, trees.

What I do intend to listen to, read, and write about is poetry. My friendship with poetry goes back a long way, to earnest high school sonnet writing attempts - I’m sure they were awful, and none saved, but I was learning about structure and how a strictness of form can open up pathways of expression. I’ve constantly collected poems, written and tucked into notebooks here and there, most of them not my own, but once in a while I write them too.

There have been a few that I internalized early, and that keep me company in a consistent, affirming way. Portions of Adrienne Rich’s Transcendental Etude, a glorious long poem, do this - my favorite bit is conveniently cited here, only she cuts off the end of it. The stanza ends “only care for the many-lived, unending forms in which she finds herself.” My emphasis. I could not emphasize that part enough, at the time I started reading it. And still it rolls on, reminding me.

Another example is the Rilke poem from which this website derives its name. Have a look at the ‘about’ tab, and scroll down for the full poem in German with my English translation. I’ve had that one memorized, the German version, for almost 30 years. I remember reading, in Jung Chang’s Wild Swans book, about the imprisoned woman reciting memorized poetry to herself, and made a mental note to add some more to my own internal library. In a culture of readily accessible writing and reading, it’s easy to skip over memorization, the oral power of language. Another reason that poetry is grounding, engaging all the elements of sound, texture, and shape.

As an undergraduate, I wrote my Comparative Literature thesis on the work of Paul Valéry and Rainer Maria Rilke. I was studying their writings on visual art, but also seeing how their aesthetic manifested in their own poetry, that deep interlacement among the artist’s moral imperative, the tools and techniques, and the finished works. Oh, I can wander around in that stuff all day! And these two are rich, in that respect. So once in a while I still just hang out doing this:

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Recently I’ve been rummaging in Rilke, aided by the Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows compilation A Year with Rilke. I have most of the poetry in German, and in other translations, so I read the translation in Barrows and Macy, refer to the German, and compare with Stephen Mitchell or one of the stuffy previous translators, to see how the meanings well and spread, or pool into an unutterable depth. Rilke is an acknowledged spiritual heavyweight, often quoted and well-loved, so it’s not hard to find wellsprings of inspiration there (although whoa it’s deeper than you think.)

But Valéry is a bit more… removed, austere…? Not a name you hear bantered around much, anyway. (They actually met, Rilke and Valéry. I’m reading Rilke’s letters, and haven’t gotten to that part yet ((yes, I make myself read in order, as if it were a fictional story)) - anyway, looking forward to seeing what Rilke has to say about the old guy.)

So for some reason I pulled out my fat, La Pleiade edition of Valéry’s work (shown above - the pages are fine, like that of a Bible) and imagine my surprise when, starting from the very beginning, the first poem in that whole book is called La Fileuse. The spinner. One of the earliest poems he ever wrote, and it’s about a woman spinning wool with a wheel! Somehow I made it this far, having studied this poet extensively, and having studied handspinning for the last 15 years, without knowing that there was an overlap. I had to give that page a doubletake. Then I had to sit down and read the whole thing, dictionaries at hand.

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La fileuse, c’est moi!

Do you mind if I just talk about this poem for a while? I’m not interested in explication, or analysis - just a personal response, a musing. What else is poetry for, after all? I like the way Karl Ove Knausgaard talks about poetry, saying that when you start to read a poem, it either opens itself up to you and lets you in, or it doesn’t. There are plenty of times I feel unwelcomed by poetry, and I leave and don’t come back to that work. But often enough, especially with poets I know, I enter as if to a familiar place, even if I have to look up half the words. Somehow the surroundings are drawing me in, telling me things, and I try to hear and translate what they’re saying - even if it’s purely internal, or more of a visual image.

This poem is like that, highly visual for me. I can grasp it better as a complete, interactive picture than as a word-by-word translation. The poem is written out in French, and with an English translation here (scroll to the bottom), but I’m going to write a prose description, a narration of it. Let me say, right off the bat, that I don’t know what this poem means. Really, I don’t. It forms part of the Album de Vers Ancien, which includes poems about Helen and the birth of Venus, so perhaps this spinner is one of the Fates, but there is nothing that indicates her actual role in the world…. which makes it an interesting evocation. We know a woman is spinning, but there is no why.

Ok here’s the scene: the garden, a melodious garden, is rocking, swaying, balanced on the crossing of two paths. The woman who spins sits there, in the blue, intoxicated, exhilarated, transported by the sound of the wheel, a snoring. She sits in the blue of the crossing, au bleu de la croisée. This is repeated at the end, it’s an important space, this blue. I think of it as a place where the sky opens up, because as the paths cross the trees and tall bushes recede from one’s field of vision. I also can’t help thinking of it as a crossbar whorl on a spindle, with that point where the yarn is fixed and rotating coming out from the center. And indeed, the garden se dodeline at this point, which means to balance or lightly rock one’s head (or an infant.)

She is tired, having “drunk the azure” - I think of when you’ve been basking outdoors all day and you get lulled by so much sky - and she starts to dream and doze, even while spinning la câline chevelure. Now the definition of câline in my Petit Larousse is amazing - it says this means one who enjoys caresses, who expresses sweet tenderness. Kid you not, that’s a real definition in the French dictionary. And chevelure is human hair, not usually a word used for animal fibers. So the fiber likes to be stroked, like a child or a cat, and the lullaby implications of dodeline are reinforced - this spinning is a rocking, a soothing, a caressing into being of a dream state.

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This fiber liked to be stroked. Spindles made by Janet Scanlon (not available, they were unique gifts from a unique and gifted woman.)

There is a shrub that sprinkles small flowers all around, like a water hose. There is a tree branch that bows graciously and pays respect to the spinning wheel, offering a rose.
The sleeping woman continues spinning une laine isolée - it could be the single wool thread that is alone, it could be the spinner who is isolated in herself. Meanwhile, the shadows begin to braid themselves into the the thread she has spun.

The dream winds off the spindle (now see, we can’t help but wonder, we fiber folks, if this is just an artist playing loose with terminology… the wheel would have a bobbin, unless it’s a driven spindle, and the yarn would wind on, not off - but the words used imply winding off, and fuseau is spindle, so I get stuck in technicalities.) But she’s also still caressing the chevelure, so we are still in the realm of multiple, shifting meanings, as in a dream. The azure blue starts fading, the woman is enveloped in light and foliage, the last tree lights up as if burning.

Then suddenly, the spinner is “you” - and your sister, the huge rose where a saint smiles, scents your brow with the luff of her blameless breath, and you feel the burning - you are extinguished.

In the blue of the crossing where you spun wool.

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Valéry said that he wrote this while sleeping. And the whole thing is about creating while sleeping, and all the elements are intermingled in the slippery logic of dreams: the flowers sprinkle like water, the fiber is a living being enjoying the caress, the sun radiates as a rose, all is overbright with color and light, especially blue.

I see la fileuse as sitting au bleu de la croisée, like a jewel set in the point of a cross, that point a fulcrum on which all is balanced. And as I mentioned, it’s also the point at which the spinning happens, where the yarn is formed - in other words, it is the point of twist, with the whole “garden”, that is to say creation, the world, rotating around it. And she becomes as if inebriated, but could this be the spiritual intoxication of a Sufi saint spinning, entering into a dream state that is not oblivion but a continuation of creative action? She is extinguished there, but “extinguish” is a synonym for release, or liberation… possibly a mystic merging with the wind and the light and the blue, as one more invisible element of life force.

As I said, I don’t know what this poem means - I’m just giving my own take on the vision it gives me. Spinners and weavers will understand the appeal of my interpretation, the magic of becoming the point of twist, dissolving into the act of creation - and I’m impressed that Valéry somehow knew that it’s really all about caressing the fiber.

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One last PSA for those in the US: you may know of Resistbot, but if you don’t, text the word RESIST to 50409 and your messages can be quickly converted into letters sent to your representatives in Congress.

time of two robes, part 2

I call the shelter-in-cloth robe Inhabit, and I call this one Flourish. This one, made from the Sew Liberated Lichen Duster pattern, is more suited for showing off, going out, being seen.

I challenge anyone to resist twirling in this duster.

May still have the stay-at-home face, but I’m working on that.

While I love to wear a big huge square or rectangular garment, there is something to be said (in this my home culture), for the slightly more fitted and tailored look. I mean, here’s a beautiful huipil that I wear an awful lot. I got it at the weaving guild auction, knowing it was handspun cotton, and later found out from Charlotte Kwon at Maiwa that it’s from Oaxaca, Mexico.

The Oaxaca huipil stack, Maiwa collection, Vancouver, B.C.

Backstrap woven cloth, being normally not very wide, is suited to big huipils, ponchos, and mantas made of panels joined together. This one is three panels wide. It feels so secure to be completely swathed in handspun cotton, giving away no hint of actual body shape. I dream of hanging out with these women in Chicahuaxtla, and trying out the floor-length huipil. (Instagram link, because otherwise I’m only getting Pinterest, and I’d rather send you to Ana Paula Fuentes.)

But the Lichen Duster! It’s a completely different approach, very distinctively shaped pattern pieces, meticulous and fascinating construction. It’s kind of the opposite of the Cut my Cote zero waste method - however, I did discover that the pieces are narrow enough (apart from sleeves and upper back) that one could use handwoven fabric of 14” wide to make most of them. Exciting! Food for thought!

And since I intended to use fabric I already owned for this first duster, it was a process of matching fabric to pattern piece, based on size. I started by printing and cutting out the pattern pieces (size 12, for roominess,) so that I could see exactly what was needed. I rummaged around in my bins, prioritizing some Indian khadi (handspun cotton) first. I have a large but dwindling amount of this, but individual pieces are not all that big. At the time of collection, I was buying a meter or so of each, just going for variety not quantity. I actually had to piece the two front khadi panels to get long enough sections - those center front pattern pieces wrap behind the neck to form the collar, so they’re long.

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Close up of two khadi fabrics. The upper left piece is used in my duster (from the pockets to the hem, side front.) The other one plays a bit part in the Inhabit robe.

As soon as I saw the dark brown Thai sarong in my bin, I knew it had to be used for the gores, at least. Since living in Thailand in 2004, I’ve used, worn, and given away a number of different sarongs, but this one I always held onto as fabric, because it’s so striking. The audacious color combination - deep chocolate, with a rusty dark cinnamon brown, and bright fuchsia, black, white, and taupe - it had to be featured someday. Letting those flowers peek out at the base of the skirt sounded perfect, and as it happened, I needed this for the center back skirt as well, since other fabric pieces were not big enough.

A little more rummaging produced a very large piece of cloth, one I’d dyed myself during the year I studied with Stanley Pinckney at SMFA in Boston. I want to link you, but Stanley is not an online-presence kind of man. Utterly brilliant as a teacher, he created an ideal space for cooking up far-ranging ideas, through the medium of Adire, resist dye techniques as practiced by the Yoruba of western Nigeria.

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Triptych made in Stanley’s class, using the eleko technique of wax resist. The wax was applied with wood blocks, which I cut and made myself. Stanley convinced me to make a “negative space” block, with the pattern removed from the block, to add depth and texture to the resist dyed design. The middle panel has an underdye of elo, the technique of binding and wrapping.

I could go on indefinitely about Stanley and his class, and his shipshape studio, and the slides he showed weekly of all his former students’ work, and the way he asked, “Are you plotting and scheming??” with a wicked grin on his face. Rarely have I encountered such unequivocal support and such systematic, organized teaching by someone passionate, focused and full of love for the work. So when I put this eleko fabric into this robe, it speaks all of that. It reminds me of how much I loved that studio, and how hard I worked that year. This piece was not ‘finished,’ but in its current state of pale lavender with sage green and the blush of pink, it somehow harmonizes with the fabrics I’d chosen. And it was plenty big enough for sleeves and (almost) upper back, so that brought me to here.

I laid the fabrics out, mimicking the robe shape, and was satisfied that this would work, visually. After that came the focused effort. It was remarkable how this project fit my needs at this stage of pandemic, isolation, mourning, outrage, and so on. Earlier, I needed the amorphous pulling together of cloth that was the Inhabit robe - no plan, just basting and adding stitches, solving problems in a loose, musing, stream-of-consciousness way, knowing I could always backtrack and take stitches out. At this point, I was ready for some step-by-step, intricate puzzle work. I’d read the pattern, looked at the tutorials, and even sampled all the different seams that might be used, so I was fluent and prepared. There was something appealing about doing everything just right, honing skills and being meticulous. It engaged my mind in an all-consuming way, which was a different sort of productive ‘escape,’ or let’s say alternative to the spiral of worry, despair or frustration that daily threatens. Because I don’t think making clothes is running away from anything - more of a running towards the priorities I wish to see reinforced. This project made me learn, think, and do in a very satisfying way.

Intersection of khadi and sarong, at pocket and front gore. The pocket construction is so cool.

And a secret, hidden fabric on the inside of the pockets - a good way to stretch the featured ones, since this part is folded in. I used a lighter weight fabric, to reduce the bulk of pocket seams.

I used FOUR different seams on this baby: flat felled for the back of the skirt, bound seams on the front, French seam to join back skirt and upper back, and faux-French for the sleeve join. Only a small amount of hand-sewing, on those sleeve seams, otherwise my trusty machine was a trooper.

And as I was saying at the beginning, a more tailored look. This pattern is so classy. I was pretty sure it would allow me to use a variety of fabrics while avoiding a radically eccentric, motley effect. I wanted it all to hang together and be convincing, and the structure helps with that. The collar, for example. With interfacing, the collar and front edge are nice and crisp. I didn’t even mess with the collar during this photo shoot - it behaved itself without intervention. Belted, this is a functional dress, suited for working with my hands and puttering around, which is key. I don’t need garments I can’t work in. A scarf was handy for immediate belting, and I’m working on a backstrap woven belt, using some sock yarn as warp.

Well, that’s about it. I may have forgotten things I wanted to say, and please ask questions in the comments if you have any. I’m quite sure I’ll be making this again - there are so many possibilities. Oh, the front facing cloth was over-dyed with walnuts, back in May. I collected them last fall and let them steep all winter long (the neglect-on-the-deck technique.) Shown below is my little Dye All the Things Walnut fest. The deflected double weave is a scarf made by Pauline Verbeek-Cowart, an esteemed weaver, teacher, and good friend. It was a snowy white, which was beautiful but I’d never wear it. Now it’s ready-to-wear, and will go with my Flourish duster! And hey, it’s almost time to gather more walnuts….

One more thing: if you live in the United States, please check that you’re registered to vote, please vote, and if you want to help ensure the process, here’s a website called Power the Polls.

inspiration intermission

Yes, it’s an overused word, inspiration, but I encounter it and rely on it, and seek to foster it as much as possible with regard to the realm of people who make things with love and devotion and goodwill. Lots of ands, and be warned there may be run-on sentences, too. This being an intermission (between the two robes, of course), it’s loose and unpredictable and does not adhere to rules of composition.

What matters to me is that people keep making things, high quality things, with their hands. It’s very important to me that I keep doing this, and keep learning and improving my skills, and I find that seeing other craftspeople, especially master (consider that word ungendered) craftspeople, is some of the most valuable food for this ongoing effort.

Josep Mercader weaving with willow. Vancouver, BC, 2014

Whoa, that took a while, finding that photo. Will try to stay on track and keep the topic focused. But Josep Mercader, the Catalan basket weaver, was one such person, observing whom I felt encouraged and fulfilled. It doesn’t matter whether I’m interested in weaving baskets - although I did make two willow trays that day, and developed a strong appreciation for willow as a material. It’s the work of hands, the mastery of those materials, that inspires and gives food for my own work.

Ok, that reminds me - here’s another one. This dry stone wall, being built in Kansas City last summer under the direction of Andy Goldsworthy. I got to watch the wallers work, and I could have stayed there all day. Again, it was that certainty, the confidence of people who know what they’re doing and enjoy doing it well. Somehow, there’s a connection between us as craftspeople.

Yes, that wall is walking down the steps. Do check out the link - every phase was beautiful.

Which brings me to the thing I wanted to talk about: the architect Abdel Wahed El-Wakil. By chance, I got to hear him speak, and see his work in the slideshow that cycled during his talk. It was in Doha in 2011, at a seminar hosted by the Qatar Foundation, and I don’t even remember why I ended up there, but catching Professor El-Wakil’s talk was one of those lucky, unrepeatable chances Doha tended to offer (others included seeing Venus and Serena Williams play against each other, and seeing Angelique Kidjo live, both of which were accessibly priced events - but I digress…)

The talk in the link may address some of the same points - I haven’t listened to it, but I’m happy to see from it that his work in Qatar went ahead. Someone was smart to choose him. The topic, using traditional materials in contemporary construction, is dear to his heart. He finds steel and concrete harsh and inappropriate, unsustainable in both their finished state and their creation. Traditional materials, those that are locally available in the Arab world, require and sustain traditional skills. So that when you build with them, you are supporting an integrated network of crafts.

He was speaking directly to me, addressing so many questions that were coming up for me about how to support traditional textile making - noting that crafts don’t survive in isolation. The spiritual, communal, and economic aspects all have to be involved. The work needs to be part of people’s lives, their character, their community. He spoke of the craftsperson’s generosity and nobility, that this person gives out of love. One of my notes says that man discovers his character through craft, and that manual work has been scientifically proven to be therapeutic.

The whole time he was speaking, a slideshow of his work was projected behind him, cycling through more than once. I kept trying to sketch certain arches, they were so serene and imperfectly beautiful, like a natural feature. I have never been able to find those same images, but his buildings all have a serenity, an integrity, that speaks through the lines, the shadows, the light, and the muted voices of earthy materials. I was utterly transported by this presentation, and felt uplifted as a person who works with my hands.

[Update! The arches that I kept trying to draw are from the Island Mosque in Jeddah, and the image is in the talk linked to El-Wakil’s name above - at 33:24. I took a screenshot for myself, but don’t want to put the image here because it would violate his copyright. Other stunning imagery throughout, especially at 27:45.]

A mosque built in Johannesburg, designed by El Wakil. He said that while people work, the Quran recitation is playing, so that the building is a spiritual process for all those involved.

Detail of same mosque, 2015

After the talk, I made a point of going up to him because I wanted to shake his hand, and I said only, “I am a craftsperson!” I felt full of honor, and he acknowledged my statement with happy confirmation.

I went looking for my notes on this experience because I have an urge to create, through reading and writing and gathering, an edifice: a multi-entranced, open-air dwelling place of the mind that would attract and welcome travelers walking similar paths. And in my imagination, it is something like the structures designed and built by El-Wakil. Clean lines and natural tones contrasting with the blue of sky, arches allowing a flow, and exchange, a flux of content. Nothing fixed and rigid here, except the commitment to keep learning and thinking.

time of two robes, part 1

Back in April (insert joke about how long ago that was), Jude Hill had this concept of ‘shelter in cloth as place.’ A compelling idea. I haven’t been hand-stitching much lately, but was drawn to the project of finding some cloth and living with and in it. I have plenty of cloth worthy of that task. I thought of the word inhabit.

This is the robe, Inhabit

This is a Lichen duster - will post more soon!

Jude’s paper doll measuring method and rectangle base provided an easy way to get started.

This post, where Jude plays with the plain rectangle as robe base, and all its many possibilities, gave me a way in. My own lifelong fabric stash provided the rest.

The robe was built from the inside out, because the first cloth I knew I wanted to live in was silk charmeuse dyed by Laura Mayotte, aka indigonightowl. It was in a gift packet years ago, and I’d always wanted to wear it close, but hadn’t come up with the right garment. So this piece became the inner lining, embracing my shoulders and back, full of the good energy of indigo and friendship.

You’d need to feel this - it’s like water, so soft.

A robe! A cloth with neck opening, tra-la…

The main outer rectangle is more silk. I know, so indulgent, all this silk. But I owned it already, this time from my art school dyeing course with Stanley Pinckney, who required us to work huge, practicing resist dye techniques on 5 x 8 foot pieces of cloth, in order to immerse and become proficient. I had a large piece of silk shantung that was dyed with a wonderful color - Procion MX “Pearl Grey”, which turns mauve on this silk, overlaid with a couple of long stripes. Like Laura’s indigo piece, this cloth was already soft as if worn for years, mellowed by the dyeing process. I took Jude’s advice and tried it on from the earliest stages.

I immediately basted these fabrics together, and they let me know right away that this was good.

Cutting open the front from the neck down.

The next thing I knew for sure was that the front would cross over in the Asian style, and Hmong batik hemp would be the collar. The extra piece for the front was again silk, from a dye workshop at the first fiber festival I ever attended, in Sedalia, Missouri. We used resist and stamping techniques with natural dye extracts (I forgot the teacher’s name but she used to own Table Rock Llamas in Colorado Springs.) These precious and unique fabrics had rested in my storage bins for years, awaiting their time. The Hmong batik came from the night market in Chiang Mai, Thailand, around 1998. Well-worn and still pleated from its life as a skirt, this cloth is not only soft and strong, but full of the skill of ages.

I stitched the long seams with the machine, but for the collar I worked by hand. Dwelling with this robe meant slowing down, which was part of the appeal. Of course the world in general was slowed by the stay-at-home orders, but my mind still buzzed, and I was not inclined to sit still. Once I started the robe, I found that it gave me pleasant problems to solve, questions and puzzles to occupy my mind deep in the night, a welcome change from random worrying and wondering about questions with no answers. I’d lie there and think about how to attach a button, or what fabrics might be best for the next step. Basting and hand sewing also gave me the chance to admire these fabrics which had been dormant for so long, like the glorious Japanese printed silk I used for the lower half of the lining.

I put a button on both sides, so it can be worn inside out.

The stitching and patchwork has gone slowly, after the initial rush of choosing and assembling the large pieces. I’ve added pockets (obviously essential, as soon as I started wearing it), and select bits of special fabric, even thoughts and hopes.

Another sample of Laura Mayotte’s indigo work became a medallion on my shoulder.

Embroidering a word makes you think about it more.

For the back of my neck, a place of vulnerability I want to transform.

This one is certainly not yet “done”, and I don’t know if it will be, ever. I’m sure there will always be something else to stitch. It’s also unrefined - very little of the stitching is as precise or tidy as this embroidered label. Some of it feels almost desperate - but such are the moods flowing through and around me lately. The main guiding idea is still to inhabit the cloth, and the robe is serving that purpose, welcoming me to wrap up on a cool morning. I reinforced the lower back lining with Japanese cotton, wanting some strength in there for outdoor sitting.

This robe may be silk, but it’s not meant for disengaging from the world. I wear it like anything else, for wandering in the wooded garden, for spinning and general household puttering. It is a stay-at-home garment, but that’s not the same as stagnant. It’s a reminder that the skill of my own hands can keep me company and guide a troubled mind, while reinforcing a supportive place in which to dwell. In my wanderings I have gathered and made these fabrics, and now that I’m staying home for a while, I inhabit them.

Basting the layers allowed me to keep wearing the robe as it was made. Sleeves of handspun cotton khadi from India, which are shaped because the fabric was cut for pant legs.

And yes, I did say two robes. I made a Lichen Duster - and it’s done, too! Shown up at the top of the post. But it deserves its own post with lots of photos. Coming soon….

feet

Finally, I have another warp on the Katu loom - the foot-tensioned backstrap loom which I acquired and learned to use from Keo and Mone Jouymany in Luang Prabang, Laos. As with other backstrap “looms”, it is a collection of specialized sticks, but the way it is warped and operated is different enough from my standard backstrap weaving practice that I had to work up to it. This is the fourth time I have tried this type of weaving, and I can possibly say I see a little improvement in my handling of the loom and the circular warp.

Warping with two-stranded balls of fine cotton from the market in Luang Prabang

The circular warp is wound directly onto the loom bars, using a frame of 2 x 4’s. The string heddles are added as the warp is wound. Preparing the 2 x 4’s and setting this up were a necessary part of the process of incorporating this type of weaving into my life. Last time, I warped using a wooden ladder, which sort of worked.

I was thinking about how the foot-tensioned style of loom developed in areas where people are often barefoot, due to climate and culture (southern China and the peninsula to the south, and islands in the region such as Taiwan.) This barefoot life gives the feet enough habitual dexterity to work the loom. Going around in shoes all the time limits sensory awareness, as well as foot dexterity. And somehow Western civilization decided that less use of the feet equalled intellectual advancement - an odd equation. Even now, having foot and toe dexterity is something that startles adults in modern cultures - it is the reserve of small children, hippies, and indigenous people pre-contact. We no longer use the word ‘savages’, but the uneasiness with bare, wide, skilled feet persists.

Tim Ingold observes in his book Being Alive that European historical and philosophical separation of the upper and lower parts of the body, with the mind in the head and to some extent the hands, has led to shod feet which are mere mechanical extensions, best for marching, pumping, treadling. Which brings us back to modern loom development, and the increasing mechanization of what the legs do, keeping the focus of skill in the hands.

The typical, unskilled foot shown here, in my first attempt to use the Katu loom. The default for those of us who grow up wearing shoes is to brace with the feet, as if the loom bars are pedals. My toes don’t even know they’re supposed to be involved. (Ock Pop Tok Living Crafts Centre, Luang Prabang, 2013) You can see this stance in The Weaving Sisters’ students in their Instagram and Facebook photos. Mone and Keo do a great job of coaching awkward Western students through the use of their loom, but we all seem to start like this, with feet planted as if on the ground.

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Compare with Keo’s feet and toes, which are fully engaged in the work - not simply applying force, but holding, manipulating, and controlling the tension of the loom bars. In this video, you can see that her feet are continuously making micro-adjustments as she works, then completely changing position to loosen the tension when the heddled shed is opened. Her toes work separately to hold the bars in different ways. It’s so cool to watch!

I had originally been thinking only of the practical, climate-related realities of loom design. Backstrap and ground looms persist in cultures that spend more time outdoors, with foot-tensioned looms (necessitating bare feet) in the warmest of those regions. Meanwhile, Europeans in colder climates developed warp-weighted looms, usually found inside the remains of buildings in archaeological sites. Then of course it was in Europe that treadled machines took off: spinning wheels, floor looms, eventually sewing machines. Asian spinning wheels appeared earlier, but were turned by hand and used a driven spindle, as they still are in many places, such as in Kashmir for fine fibers, and Laos for cotton.

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Cotton spinning in Laos, using a hand-turned driven spindle wheel (and recruiting the foot to hold the wheel in place.) (Ock Pop Tok Living Crafts Centre, Luang Prabang, 2013)

The reason this matters to me is that I want to use my foot-tensioned Katu loom, so I’m keeping my feet bare as much as I can, and trying to move and exercise them in a way that restores some foot and toe dexterity. One of the points Ingold makes is that the habitually shod foot is not anatomically different from that of the lifelong barefoot person. They just develop differently based on constriction or freedom, lack of toe use or the reliance on toes for additional work. I’ve seen enough feet in India, Laos and Thailand to demonstrate the range of possibilities of foot shape based on lifestyle. And the way I’ve seen weavers not only in Laos but also Qatar recruit feet into the work shows a clearly different attitude from those of us stuck in shoes. The feet are accessible and available, and can be relied upon for assistance (shoes may be worn, but they’re easily and quickly removed, so that the transition to bare feet is not hampered).  Laverne had a nice post about working with feet a while back, which included some of my notes about Keo. Of course with the Katu weaving technique, feet are essential, and this is what drives the whole inquiry and physical effort on my part.

Getting my toes into the game. Slightly less awkward, fourth time around….

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You want to know about that gorgeous piece lying underneath my current weaving? Keo wove that, and I bought it soon after I first met her. We had a photo session with Mone, shown here. It’s usually draped over a table, but I’m using it to wrap my weaving when I roll it up - maybe it will add good vibes from my teachers. If you’re not familiar with Katu textiles, all those white bits are beads, embedded with the weft yarn. I’m still working on my basic weaving skills before attempting much beading. For more of these sisters’ amazing work, look for The Weaving Sisters on FB or IG (linked at the beginning of this post), or if you find yourself in Luang Prabang!

For now, I want to avoid the whole West vs. the rest trap, and simply think about how skill develops, how there is hope for anyone who uses the body assiduously, with trust. Somehow along the way many of us have been taught not to trust our bodies (thus, the buy-all-the-tools approach.) There’s a reluctance, in extra-traditional learning (by which I mean learning skills without, or outside of, a community of handed-down, traditional methods), to believe that the hands, feet, or whole body can change over time, can acquire skills as an adult. As adults, we tend to think “I can’t do that” is a true statement, case closed - whereas if a child says the same thing, we encourage her to keep trying, knowing that “can’t” may be temporary. It can be grown out of - but also grown into. Too often we are given a pass as adults, provided with excuses. And of course, we each have our own physical limitations, but functioning limbs and appendages can be trained to work in new ways. As I challenged myself to pick up a pencil with each foot, one after the other, I remembered Christy Brown, the artist featured in the movie My Left Foot, who drew, wrote, and painted with only the one working limb.

A woman spinning wool in Doha, Qatar (2011) uses her toes to hold a large distaff, freeing both hands to spin.

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Toes are good for holding Peruvian spindles while winding a plying ball, too.

The fascinating thing is that western man (and I do mean “man,” since that’s where this agenda is coming from,) would deliberately cripple himself and then call that the ideal form - this limited, narrow, pale and soft foot with useless toes. And yet this is just what western civilization does again and again - cut off options, and then declare that this limited, narrow way is the way, in fact it’s the pinnacle of achievement. Ok, I did not avoid the trap, and I’m stuck in an epic eyeroll, but when I’m done I’ll get back to flexing my toes and weaving on my foot-tensioned loom.

Since this is a circular warp, there is an unworked layer of warp threads underneath the working shed. This also means the tension of the warp has to be correct at the winding stage - something that still needs much work, in my case.

fundamental

An excerpt from The Late Homecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, by Kao Kalia Yang

Grandma liked to work by the window in the natural light. Sometimes she mended her skirts…. Sometimes she used her scissors with the long handles to cut plastic bags from Rainbow Foods, from Sears, from Kmart, from Wal-Mart,... the white “Thank You” bags from the Asian grocery stores, into long strips of light brown, mostly white, sometimes red and green. In the last years of her life, she would spend hours before the window twisting the plastic strips into ropes, carefully massaging the lengths of cut plastic into the exposed, wrinkled skin of her leg. Wearing her thick reading glasses, she spent her days making bags and bags of twisted plastic ropes. She said that there were always uses for ropes in life, things to tie together.

Adding twist to strips of plastic bread bags with a Bulgarian spindle. I did this about a year ago, trying to quit wasting so much plastic. I wanted to crochet bags from it, but then would need to learn crochet.

Such a fundamental process of skill, fiber, material, joining. Someone who cannot not work with her hands, make useful things. It got me thinking. Some of us have been focusing on the fundamentals for a while now.

Like Sarah spinning coffee filters

Sally breeding sheep and cotton

Neanderthal 3 ply plant fiber cord

Jude moving from old bed sheet to temple robe

Abby explaining traditional irrigation

Spindle made from half an avocado pit and a stick. Spinning cotton from a pill bottle.

Handmade bamboo reed - sleying with commercial cotton warp acquired in estate destash.

The essence of who we are, as people, can be seen in our use of fiber. We who have distanced ourselves immeasurably in 150 years from these processes of hands, from the knowledge that grows from handling plant stems, pods, cocoons, locks of wool, wriggling lambs --- from the intelligence inherent in managing various sticks, knowing their size, weight, heft, details of purpose and potential --- how many of us have tools that are worn into softness by our hands’ continuous use? Not many, in the industrialized world. I don’t - I’ve only been spinning for 15 years and weaving for 10, and I use lots of different spindles and sticks, not the same ones daily.

Flax singles on vintage Bugarian spindles….. need more practice with this.

We can look at a culture, at the clothing and use of fibers for multiple layers of shelter or containment, and know how these people relate to their environment, how the lifestyle developed in a way that honors the processing of fiber into cloth or basket, net, bag, rope, blanket, house wall or roof. The expressions of textile making speak the essence of a traditional community.

Sweater from a Spinner’s Eden Farm fleece - a CVM/Romeldale ewe named Glenda. Bow fleece sale, Washington. Whitehorse sweater pattern by Caitlin Hunter, modified.

The modern world’s depletion can be likewise observed, in the lack of understanding and skill in fundamentals of fiber - in the assumption that clothing is a ready-made thing to be purchased, along with bags, nets, rope. Fiber needs are manufactured at a remove, by machine, with minimal human intervention, and the only relationship the mainstream modern person has with cloth is as a consumer, who chooses using money.

Money and the abstract ‘economy’ have come between humans and cloth, driving a wedge that separates us from the knowing of hands. As industrialization progressively took humans out of the equation of cloth making, even a weaver became someone who operated a complex machine, and understood not how to work with fiber and yarn, but how to troubleshoot the machine.

Hand carded Shetland wool rolags, from a Marietta Shetlands fleece. Bow fleece sale, Washington.

Getting our hands back onto the fiber is crucial. It’s the only way to really learn. Touch, handling, and practice inform the neural pathways that give us skill. It is the way back to knowing.

It starts with picking up a stick.

Coyote brown cotton from Fox Fibre, spun on Mexican spindle made by husband/wife team (found through Cloth Roads.)

Spindles made by friends, cotton and wool/silk handspun, Gee’s Bend quilts, Indian and US handmade wooden vessels.

There’s an essay in here somewhere, waiting to happen. But at this point, it’s just a collection of thoughts, piled in with some images, in hopes of taking your mind toward the small, important, hands-on things.

open studio

In contemplating what to offer his first grade students remotely, by husband pulled out my childhood copy of Frederick, which was my number one favorite book from the age of about four. And this is my favorite page of that book. Granted, the poem at the end is a bit insipid (sorry, Leo,) and I was never much impressed with it. But the idea, the role of Frederick as poet - as someone who noticed and listened and stored things that became invaluable to the hungry mice in winter - this was a powerful idea to me even when I was very young. And this page illustrates that idea best: the warmth and light generated by the calm, inspired words of the poet, causing the very stones to glow.

Throughout my life, the power of that notion has stayed with me, that artists are gathering, observing, collecting, and creating a storehouse that will come to the aid of people in times of need. The system of consumer capitalism would tell us differently, but I’ve never stopped believing that poets and artists are vital.

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Now, of course, I’m finding the truth of this confirmed, as I seek out and am fed by the warmth and beauty of words and images created, collected and shared by friends and fellow artists. It is essential nutrition right now.

~~~~~~~Erika Blumenfeld~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sarah Swett~~~~~~~~~~~ Thérèse Murdza~~~~~~~~~~ Jite Agbro~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything is disrupted, but the work of the artist is not much changed - our duties remain what they have been all along. And I want to beg my artist friends to stay faithful to your duties! Keep on with the work that makes you whole, and brings forth beauty and truth, because it is needed.

~~~~~~~ Helen MacDonald~~~~~~~~~ Camille Charnay ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bryan Whitehead ~~~~~~~~~ Sharon Kallis~~~~~~~~

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Plainweave on the backstrap loom, with commercial cotton warp, handspun wool weft. Bamboo reed controlling the sett.

Especially while isolating, conditions are ideal for immersion and intimacy with our own universe of intent and exploration. Mine is focused on weaving right now, with backstrap projects multiplying, and study of both plainweave and Andean pickup in full swing.

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Loraypo pattern in handspun yarn. Continuing my Andean pickup education, and trying to memorize this pattern.

I had the realization today that my studio is now never locked. I only lock it when I’m getting in the car and going away somewhere and no one else is at home. So now, the studio is always open. That’s an excellent thing, and it’s time to make it sing for everyone, for the love of this world.

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Studio activities include making a new bamboo reed for weaving.

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Halfway done.

P.S. I finished the band from the last post. It is now covering and protecting my phone.

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Phone cover, woven with #10 crochet cotton. Pattern from Laverne Waddington’s Andean Pick up book.

warp on

I always feel better if I have a warp on the loom. Either patterned or plain, something waiting for me to rejoin it and put in a few rows or inches. It’s a continuity I want to maintain, and for a short while I’ve had empty loom bars, so I’m glad to be back in. This is an exciting exploration of a complex design, typical of Chinchero, Peru (the bit in the middle, at least), that I have never tried because I was trying to work my way up to understanding it. Learning patterns in my mind without charts is a deep aspiration, and has gone slowly. Then a friend designed, created, and released a great program for charting weaving on the iPad, and that gave me the impetus I needed to just work from a chart and weave something above my actual comprehension level.

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How fun is that? My weaving on screen and IRL.

So I’m off and running. This is meant to be a phone case - another reason I just wanted to do it and move on. Speaking of weaving from a chart and above my actual level, I just finished another piece, which I’m writing about in more detail in the weaving blog realm of this website.

Handspun yarn, wide warp, confusing Central Asian pattern made for a challenging weave, but I’m very happy to see the end result.

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Finished spindle bag, with Japanese fabric band, Peruvian chak-chak spindle