Yesterday Brianna and I headed west to volunteer for the day. We’ve done this before [1], and we work well as a team, and it is fun to watch your daughter interact with the public, explain the history of looms, of weaving, of lace traditions, and take responsibility for a historic building for a day.
Every year we try(though lately we haven’t succeeded) to volunteer at least a day at a historic village on National Park Service property, this particular one, isn’t far from Peters Valley (where I’m headed this afternoon), called Millbrook Village [2], it sits nestled up close to the Delaware. Millbrook sustained a considerable amount of damage from the hurricanes from hell a couple years ago. The weaving building, Hill House, dating from around 1840 or 50, survived the storms but there is a constant battle with the mice.
There is an 1850 rug loom, and a 1790 barn loom, used for demonstrations, and an assortment of four shaft and two shaft table looms set up to allow the public to try weaving. The first thing Brianna did when we arrived, once she put on her cobbled together costume, was to try out each of the looms to familiarize herself with what was on them. I jumped on the barn loom, and quickly figured out the rosepath pattern.
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Brianna tied herself to an old Victorian tape loom (actually a replica) and quickly figured out what was happening there, the warp was in a bit of a mess, so now it is all back the way it should be.
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The day was slow, since the NJ State Fair started this weekend, and it is just down the road. But a Photography class from Peters Valley came by and the students and the teacher all had great fun shooting close ups of threads.
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Brianna and I used the time well, we brought many things from home to work on, including spinning and bobbin lace making. Brianna learned the basic first pattern years ago, but never had the patience or interest to sit down and learn more. Recently she discovered that her grandmother was in the process of making her a wedding handkerchief and was 3/4 of the way around the hankie when she put it away, getting too old to see lace or be able to do that kind of fine work anymore. When she died in 2006 at age 99, I inherited all of her lace making pillows and equipment, and the responsibility of finishing Brianna’s hankie. There are no weddings in the near future that I’m aware of, and Brianna may not even marry, but the hankie exists, partially completed and it is hers. I think Brianna wants to finish the hankie herself, out of respect for her grandmother and desire to not let lacemaking die.
So she quickly mastered pattern number one.
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She quickly mastered pattern number two.
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She was rather annoyed that I didn’t bring along pattern number three to Millbrook Village, but later on in the evening, she pulled down the pillow with pattern number three, and mastered that in just a couple of repeats. There are no words.
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We’ve pulled out all of the lace pillows I have, mine and my mother in law’s, and I could see Brianna calculating in her head, which one to tackle next. Her time here this summer is drawing to a close, she will be spending a week in Maryland at a dairy farm, and then head up to Massachusetts the following week to return to school, and I think she is scrambling to figure out how to fit all her new found passions in her car, along with all the rest of the stuff she brought, and what to work on in the dark days of winter when the only thing there is to do is study and watch marathon Netflix.
Brianna has done some amazing work pulling together archives and files, and organizing areas I thought I’d never get to. The latest task was to take a huge bag of yarn reelings, that had been dyed with food grade dyestuffs, like Kool-aid, and Easter Egg Dye and organize it by color in a binder with formulas. She is a great sleuth, and deciphered all the little scrawled pieces of paper from students that went with each sample.
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The end result is a terrific reference.
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My son heads to the middle east this week after a month training in El Paso. My husband is scheduled to leave for Istanbul the end of next week, for a month, but that can change at any time. I’m heading out in an hour or so, with 14 frame looms, 14 full size inkle looms, and 14 Structo four shaft looms, to teach weaving to a group of High School students at Peters Valley. Bri got all the looms up and working, made all the kits, wound all the warps, and actually figured out how to fit it all in the car. I will miss her terribly when she is gone, she is a great worker and wherever she ends up in life, they will be really lucky to have her…
And the produce continues to pour in from my generous gardens, my husband did an outstanding job this year, (like father like daughter?), and if he does indeed head to Turkey for a month, I’ll really really miss him too. This little farmstead we have is not a one person job I can assure you. I might have to investigate which one of my son’s friends is around to bribe with ham sandwiches…
Stay tuned…