Keeping very busy…

It’s what I do…

There have been some pretty dark times in my life. We all have them. And we all have different ways of getting through them. My way, is to stay so freaking busy I don’t have time to dwell on anything I have no control over. And so that will be my solution to the darkness that has set over my small family, with my son’s deployment to Syria.

NJ is sending 1500 troops from the 44th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, their largest deployment since 2008, to bases in Iraq and Syria. I am heartsick of course, and will worry constantly for all 1500 of them, because right now, that part of the world is in crisis and no one knows how to fix it. Mid month I joined my son in Trenton for a large send off, speeches by our Senator, Governor, and all kinds of higher ups that said meaningful things, in support of our troops.

My son is the bald guy right in the middle.

At this point, he has deployed, first through Texas, and then will be making his way to Syria. I won’t know until he can get word that he is there, and I don’t expect to be able to hear from him regularly. Internet is poor, and of course Verizon doesn’t have a cell spot in Syria. He dropped his jeep off for safe keeping and final hugs on Saturday, while I was teaching a two day remote workshop, with the Baltimore Guild, each participant making a vest over the two days. While the workshop was wildly successful, I’m glad they didn’t see my tears when I came in from outside, because my glasses had turned dark from the sun. And I’m incredibly glad I was in the middle of a workshop, and had no time to grieve.

Mid January is my guild, the Jockey Hollow Weavers’ Learn to Weave class, which I teach, along with my daughter. I bring 15 Structo Looms, and the weather cooperated. I bring prewound warps in 8/4 cotton rug yarn, and they set up the loom in a pattern gamp. They get to weave all sorts of structures with different wefts to experiment with color interlacements. It was a really fun day, and I’ve passed on 12 of the Structos to another guild member that would like to carry this forward.

I signed up for 8 workshops this year at Peters Valley School of Craft, because they all interested me, and because, I’m trying to book myself into oblivion! The first workshop took place over the last two Sundays, and thankfully it was recorded since I missed the second installment as I was teaching. The class, taught by Natalie Stopka, who is one of the best teachers I’ve ever taken a class from, was on Natural Dyeing, and it was remote. In January. I have never worked with botanical powders, and couldn’t have been more pleased with the results. My dye kitchen worked extremely well, I didn’t have to buy any new equipment, and the kit Natalie sent provided everything I needed for a successful natural dye experience. The second session was working with a fructose indigo vat.

So these are the results. I dyed the samples with madder (salmon color), weld (bright yellow color), logwood (purple to black color), and of course indigo (the chambray blue color). On silk…

On cotton (Note that I also played around with resists with items included in the kit.)…

On wool yarn…

Ombré effect on a silk scarf from my “to be dyed” stash…

Ombré effect on a cotton scarf provided in the kit. I used the indigo to overdye the weld producing a pretty aqua color in addition to the blue.

And to exhaust each of the pots, I used up the remainder of the dye with skeins of silk and wool. The blue indigo is still wet.

There is something about creating color in January that just makes me come alive.

And of course, it is not lost on me that the mother of all projects fell in my lap last fall, a retrospective of my work over the last 45 years, at County College of Morris in their main gallery opening February 29th. There was some major divine intervention that allowed this huge project to absolutely consume me in one of my darkest months since my husband died. I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other to get this all organized. There are something like 90 works involved. The really cool thing is that I’m pouring over archives, storage, attic, scraps, closets, 40 year old slide images, searching for each of the components I need to pull this off. I spent two hours the other day on the floor of my late husband’s closet looking for an image from 1994. I was just ecstatic when I found it.

And in all that I found a few things I’d completely forgotten about. Like this handspun sweater I made from cashmere, somewhere in the 1970’s. It’s been in the back of my closet since then. Miraculously it fit, and I like it, and it is unbelievably warm. It is my new favorite thing to wear. Go figure…

The gallery staff requested I have handling swatches with each garment. I know the public really appreciates it, most weaving conferences require it, and I spent at least five days rooting through the archives, attic, basement, and even my teaching bags, which I no longer need, and my design journals looking for a scrap of the original fabric. I found all but two maybe?

My guest rooms are packed with dress forms, which come in weekly. My cat Mulder of course likes to help whenever he can, especially if there are boxes. And there are a lot of boxes.

Each form is bulked up with bubble wrap because the forms I purchased, which were very inexpensive, have hips that are only 33″ wide. I don’t know anyone with 33″ wide hips. There are no words… But the forms work for me, and bubble wrap adds the additional couple inches I need to fill out the work. I’ve had to do repairs on some of the pieces, especially ones I wear a lot, and even had to reweave a small area on a major piece when I discovered a cigarette burn all the way through. That was one of my more impressive feats. So one of my guest rooms is pretty packed with forms, each one ready to display, with handling swatch and temp label. The permanent labels will be fixed to the wall.

The college van comes Friday for the first load.

And I think the universe is sending multiple angels to help support me, suddenly people who have been off my radar are popping up in unexpected places and encouraging me to get out, meet up, do lunch, and just be with people. A former guild member reached out to see if I’d help her jumpstart back into spinning and we had such a delightful morning, as I dusted off my wheel, my old Ashford Traditional which I bought after my freshman year of college and still gets the job done, and we sat together spinning, and decided to do this weekly. It felt amazing. I think this is handpainted merino but I’m not completely sure…

And so dear readers, know that I am really fine. There will be moments of course, and all I can do is hope that all 1500 return safe and can get on with their civilian lives. I have people who are watching out for me, and I hope that my late husband is watching out for my son. Thank you for all who reached out privately, I know I’m not alone, there are 1500 other families who are in the same boat. I have turned off notifications on all of the news feeds I subscribe to, I can read the local paper each morning and that’s it. I cannot follow the news 24/7.

Back to writing artist statements and dressing forms. Stay tuned…

New Year/ New Challenges…

So now it is 2024. All of those things that I didn’t have to think about, because they were so next year, well they are closing in upon me! Lots of remote lectures and teaching. Seems guilds, including mine, are taking advantage of knowledge gained via Zoom, and booking their dark winter guild meetings, with potential hazardous weather, with things that can be done remotely. I have already given a couple of lectures, and have a number of upcoming workshops to teach, all remotely, but alas, prepping for them, even though they are remote, is still at times onerous. Getting the contracts out, the correspondence, which guild wants what, shipping kits if necessary, letters to students, materials lists, and PDF’s of the presentation… Still all that makes my head spin and I’m trying to keep everything straight. There is always that fear, and I had it when I taught on the road, that I’ll show up (even via Zoom) and have the wrong presentation and materials! Fortunately with Zoom, I have other lectures loaded into the laptop, so it is easier to switch. It only happened once in my career, and I had the correct topic, but grabbed the wrong bag of samples. Still…

I briefly mentioned a few blog posts ago, that the local community college is planning a large installation of my work in their gallery, and I have more than 60 garments, plus all of the artwork. Since I wear many of the garments that will be displayed, each needs to be cleaned, de-fuzzed, pressed, bagged, and a handling swatch included. Mostly I’m hand washing everything, I’m not sending 60 garments to the dry cleaner, and they don’t always clean what I want and how I want. So that means that I have to start now, working on a couple a day. I bought a good fabric shaver from Wawak.com, which helps take pills and fuzz off surfaces. Works like a dream. I have to dig through bags of scraps to find a piece for each garment to be used as a handling piece. I have to make the occasional repair. And garments I opened up for viewing in my videos have to be stitched back together. It is all a wonderful challenge. But it will take time and this isn’t something I can do at the last minute. The end of February will be here before you know it.

Next Weekend is my guild’s Learn to Weave class. I bring 15 Structo looms and pre-wound warps and I check the weather every hour starting January 1st to see if weather will cause the class to be postponed. It is always a nail biter. I had a guild friend come and help me wind warps. We make a cross at both ends and then fold the warp in half and cut, so making two warps for our efforts. The class is full, with a waiting list, and I’ll get the final letter out to each student probably tomorrow. It looks like the weather will be warm and rainy.

Meanwhile, that guild friend, is planning on long term borrowing 12 of my Structo looms to do some teaching of her own, with the goal of bringing weaving to underserved communities. It is a pleasure working with her, but if I give her 12 of my Structo looms, and the gallery exhibit at the college is planning a hands on component, I need some additional looms for that purpose. I have a total of 30 Structo and Leclerc Sample Looms, and a bunch are 8 shaft. I had set up the fifteen not reserved for “Learn to Weave” with various structures which I’ve enjoyed over the past year and a half, but I need to clear a few for our joint needs this year. Clearing a Structo table loom with 5-6 yards of fine warp… Well I’ll be honest, is not my favorite task.

I could just cut off what’s on the loom and call it a day. And that might happen. But I started with the easiest one, or so I thought, and wove off the huck sampler I had warped, maybe a year ago. The sampler is from the Weaver’s Magazine “Best of Huck”.

The linen warp, came to me pre-wound on spools when my late Mother-in-law gifted me the Leclerc Sample loom probably 25 years ago. I believe the linen spools were original, so I have no idea how old they are. The linen is in good shape, but this is the warp that never ends. I have no idea how much is on them.

I picked my favorite part of the sampler and just started to weave. I have no idea how much I’ve woven and I have no idea how much is left. I just keep weaving…

The next loom I wanted to clear was another of the Leclerc Sample looms (I have 5) which had a double weave sampler, based on one from Jennifer Moore’s book. I threaded it in a different set up than she suggests, because some weaving buddies and I were embarking on a study group, and I found it tedious to have to translate each part of the sampler into a different treadling, or in this case a lift plan. I managed to do a few of the sample drafts, and a section of pick up. This pick up had quilted stuffing in it, and I didn’t like the lines I was getting, so I dropped the stuffing half way through and liked the results better.

So I brought the table loom over to one of my many floor looms, and decided to transfer the warp, once the sample was cut off, which was sort of hilarious. With just a few hours of work yesterday, everything is now on the floor loom, with treadles, and threaded in Jennifer Moore’s suggested threading. Life is good.

I blew through the first exercise in short order. Ok, I’ll admit, table looms are laborious. Necessary yes, but I didn’t think I’d ever get this woven off on the table loom.

I wove my little heart out between Christmas and New Year’s, and suddenly the knots in my 10 yard warp were coming up over the back beam.

The towels are all hemmed, and I’ve distributed those to whom I had promised a towel. This is a variation on my custom runner draft, a combination of structures, and some color and weave effects on 4-shafts. I’m pretty impressed with this, and I already have plans to put on another run as I have a ridiculous amount of 8/2 cotton on the shelves…

The coming year will be particularly challenging for me, as my son is about to deploy to a part of the world that is tough for me to imagine. My plan is to stay so busy I won’t have time to worry, but I’m a military mom and I understand my role and that this is what my son signed on for, and he is good at what he does. God Speed Eric…

So I’ve booked myself, on top of everything else, 8 classes at Peters Valley, some are remote, but I want to learn new things, and stay inspired. And I’m hoping all the new landscaping plans, involving native plants, will be underway in just a few short months. I look forward to lots of time on my knees in the garden getting muddy.

I wish all of you a gentle year, full of inspiration and creativity, surrounded by those you love and lots of fibery stuff.

Stay tuned…

Spa Day

For much of my career in textiles, I’ve focused on handwoven garments, and that has been a wonderful and challenging path to explore. I’m pretty good at it. But at this point in my life, I’m pretty well stocked with clothing from my hands. Closet is full, and honestly, almost no where to wear any of it. I have my favorite go to’s, and as I write, I’m wrapped up in my handwoven sweater jacket I wear every day and wrote about for an article in Handwoven Magazine, but honestly, the longing to create more clothing just isn’t there.

However… I want to weave, I like long warps, and I mentioned last time I had decided to weave me some bath towels. Or rather spa towels. Because these aren’t like any bath towels I’ve ever used… (3.75/3 cotton from Peter Patchis sett at 12 epi.)

And then came the knots…

And then the whole ten yards was in a pile on the floor, headed to a hot wash in the machine. I was disappointed in that I miscalculated the amount of shrinkage I’d get from the collapsed Waffle structure, so the last of the four towels was about a foot short. Nevertheless, the whole thing went into the wash…

Just a warning note here, if you put 10 yards of 45″ wide Waffle weave woven from unmercerized cotton, there will be a lot of lint. A Lot! I had to open the dryer every 10 minutes to clean out the lint screen.

I mentioned last time, that these 8 shaft waffle towels had hems in doubleweave, to reduce the amount of flair that happens when the structure collapses and the hems don’t. I went to the sewing studio and carefully pinned the hems in on themselves, and handstitched them closed.

Turns out, the towel that ended up short, fit perfectly on the raised tile deck for my walk in shower. I wouldn’t use them on the regular tile floor, as the Roomba travels over it daily, and I think that these cuddly cushy towels and my Roomba wouldn’t be a good pair. And so yesterday morning I got to take my spa shower and wrapping myself in this cushy absorbent towel and stepping out on to the cushy absorbent mat were just the best. I highly recommended the spa treatment!

Meanwhile, my project for earlier in the week was to replace the disgusting destroyed cushion I had made for the bay window in the living room. This is the dogs’ favorite place to hang. They come in from outside, and go right to the window, shedding and muddy and there is just so much you can vacuum and clean a foam cushion and it ends up pretty ratty. Plus this more recent version I whipped up a couple years ago, was too small for the area, and would go flying every time the dogs jumped in the window.

I took a trip up to Joann’s, and bought a 2 yard wide slab of 2″ foam and pieced together the remainder of a fabric we had done some upholstery projects with. I had some synthetic microsuede I got as a remnant in Japan, and used that for piping. I reused the zipper from the old cushion.

And so, to keep it from flying out of the window, I added three folded vinyl tabs, that slipped under the double hung windows, and stuck out from behind the window enough to slip a small piece of a chopstick into the fold. When the window is shut, the tabs keep the cushion from going anywhere.

And to keep the animals from destroying it immediately, I tossed a couple of synthetic fleeces from IKEA on top. It is very cushy for the dogs, and I might get a couple of years out of it at least.

Friday night my daughter and I went to see the final production of the year for my beloved Shakespeare Theatre of NJ. They did a winterized retelling of Midsummer Night’s Dream and we laughed through the whole thing. The cast was amazing, and it was definitely a wintery romp. And all my hard work on the costumes paid off. They were brilliant. I’m just a volunteer stitcher but there was a lot of stitching to be done! And in the lobby of the theatre was a little pop up shop, with a table of my work, proceeds are donated to the Shakespeare Theatre. It was fun seeing all my work together in one place. The show runs until the end of the year, it is really delightful, a perfect holiday treat. Click here for more info.

And I continue plodding along on block number two of the appliqué quilt block of the month, which my mom unceremoniously handed to me in a paper bag last year, from 1999, after she broke her shoulder and realized that at 92, her arthritis and multiple broken achy bones would prevent her from doing the fine handwork she once loved. So I took a look at it, and after getting advice from a couple of my students on how to do this kind of appliqué, I reluctantly jumped in and found that I adore this kind of lovely easy zen like challenge. I finished block one back in September then took a break to make stuff for my guild sale.

So block 2 is almost complete, a bit more appliqué work on the face, and then the embroidered whiskers and name, and I’m on to block 3. I believe there are 10 blocks, or something like that, so I’ll be at this for awhile.

And we are now up to the week before Christmas. Which means my holiday gift towels should be just about hemmed and ready for distribution. Except they weren’t even on the loom. As a matter they weren’t even designed… I was too busy making myself spa towels.

Thank goodness for facebook memories. Facebook to the rescue. This popped up in my inbox the other day. I loved these towels from 2014, especially the color combo. This yarn was a cotton linen combo, which is no longer made, but hey, I have a wall full of 8/2 cotton and there had to be cones in there that could replicate this feeling.

I pulled down what I had, and used the 4 shaft draft I did for the custom runner I made back in the spring. The draft is available here in my shop. I wound the warp. This was Saturday morning.

I threaded yesterday afternoon, before leaving for another theatrical production at a different venue, and this morning I beamed and dove in on the weaving. I probably don’t have enough black 6/2 weft for the whole 10 yards, but I have navy, so that should work.

I’m in love with these towels. I might even save one for me, even though my drawer is full, I’m finding great fun making textiles for the home, which I can use daily, instead of garments which sit in the back of my closet.

As we close in on the end of the holiday season, give thanks for what you have, no matter how challenging the world is around you, for it is the little miracles that pop up in the oddest places that give us the nudge to keep moving forward. I hope your days are full of brightly colored yarn, and warm furry friends, and I highly recommend a spa towel or two just because…

Stay tuned…

But where are the pictures…

This has been one crazy month, just like old times. Which I would have been happy just leaving in the past. But I have no one to blame but myself, adding so much to the calendar, I felt like I was running on five cylinders for a month straight. It was all good stuff, but oddly enough, bad social media influencer that I am, I took almost no pictures.

I had a pair of students in for the week just prior to my guild sale. They made lovely jackets. I took no pictures.

My guild sale the first weekend in November was a smashing success. Record sales. I was there for the Friday night opening and all day on Saturday. Selling my little heart out. Just like I used to do in the 80’s when I did craft fairs. I took no pictures. There were others assigned to that job. But nothing to share with you. Except these two images of my work packed up ready to go to the sale on that Friday morning.

In the end, I sold a lot of stuff. All of the bunnies are gone, and three of the four squirrels. Almost all of the totes went, and a large number of greeting cards. Almost all the work I showed in the last post has gone to new homes. One of the buyers of my handwoven ginger jar was so pleased with it, she posted a photo in her own blog after her husband picked up some pretty fronds.

The rest of the leftover goodies from the guild sale that didn’t sell, went on to the Shakespeare Theatre for their Pop-Up Shop during their final production for the season, A Midwinter Night’s Dream. The show opens December 6th. This is a particularly complex set of costumes and I’ve spent a lot of hours there volunteering as a stitcher. I’m heading there tomorrow as well. Of course, there are no pictures.

The Shakespeare Theatre had its annual gala/cabaret fund raiser the weekend after the sale. Lots of glitter and sequins. I wore this long vest. I took no pictures of course. It was a fabulous event. There is a knitting group associated with the Theatre, called ShakesPurls. I sat at a table with them. Lovely to be with like-minded people when surrounded by incredible theatrical talent.

And work continues on the complete destruction of my yard. My invaluable handyman, who has taken all this on as a personal project, has removed nearly 30 invasives, mostly Japanese Barberry, and couple of surprise Callery Pears, and a few Japanese Honeysuckle. There is lots more, but I managed to find maybe a handful of plants that aren’t invasive, a few hiding American Holly, and a Ninebark, which I didn’t know I had. I took no photos. Except, before all the leaves dropped, I tried to identify what’s left, using a plant finder app, and each time I focused in on a plant I got something like this… Sigh…

I, of course, live in the northeast, that little smudge next to Pennsylvania, little dense NJ. Lots of corporate landscaping. All lawn and invasives.

I had another student, one of my dearest long time students who studied with me at Sievers, came for the week. We worked on a gorgeous Harris Tweed plaid she bought in Scotland. We made a fantastic coat. I took no pictures.

Thanksgiving was Thursday. My daughter and I drove to my son’s apartment in the next county, where he cooked a lovely Thanksgiving salmon dinner. She grabbed a photo of him cooking. I took one picture, of my dinner plate.

However, my head has not been idle… I look at my yarn shelves, which are overflowing, no more room at the inn so to speak. I picked a random style of yarn, a 3.75/3 cotton, in eight colors, from Peter Patchis, and sat looking at it for a couple weeks. It is a bulky unmercerized 3-ply yarn, and rugs came to mind, but I’m not really a rug weaver. I’ve always wanted woven bath towels, but could this really work? I looked at Waffle Weave structures, and have been thinking and perusing ideas, looking at books in my studio, and along comes an article by Elisabeth Hill in the Nov/Dec 2023 issue of Handwoven Magazine, talking about tutu’s. Not what you are thinking of. Apparently, when you weave a very collapsible weave structure, and do a plain weave hem on either end, once washed, and the structure collapses, the ends don’t and you are left with a ruffling tutu. I had never thought about it, and duh… That would have been an issue on a large bath towel. The article goes on to explain that by breaking the hems into two layers and doing double weave, that would resolve the density of the warp ends juxtaposed to a collapsed structure.

So I sat with software, and a calculator, and the article, which had examples that didn’t quite work for what I wanted. As a matter of fact, one of her drafts shows a “double weave” that isn’t exactly plain weave top and bottom. But I got the idea. I wanted the waffle cells deep, because of the size of the yarn, so I drafted, and redrafted, and came up with something, on 8 shafts, straight draw. The treadling is a five-end point threading.

I took a deep breath, and wound 10 yards, because that’s how much yarn I had, which would give me four 75″ x 45″ bath towels. Which I knew would shrink probably 25%. This was all a giant guess…

I got the whole thing on the loom last weekend.

It was pretty important that I sampled, cut it off and washed it, though I’m not sure if it didn’t work what I would do with the 10 yards on the loom. I chose a sett of 12 epi, and it seemed to weave pretty square. I did a double weave hem.

I cut the whole thing off after about 6″, and tossed it into the washer and dryer along with the sheets from my last guest. Hot water wash and a hot dryer.

Damn I’m good…

I even tried to dry myself off after the last shower with the small sample. It got wet pretty quickly, but the sample wasn’t enough to wrap myself in, so I really don’t know how well they will perform, and they certainly won’t match my bathroom, but my whole point was to turn yarn on the shelf into something interesting that pushed my skills.

I’m all tied on again, and weaving the first towel. I thought the color changes and treadling sequence which are all carefully orchestrated would be really difficult. It is very easy, though I did have to dig out my widest temple to maintain width on the loom, since this structure collapses even under tension.

Oh, and right after the guild sale, I made a down filled pillow from a large square of handwoven fabric I found in my stash, which I wove back in 2005 I think? My first hand painted warp project. Leftover from this jacket. It is mine, and I have it on my bed when I want to sit up and read all about invasive plants.

And so dear readers, I am furiously rehearsing for my last recorder concert of the season, you can find the info here, December 3rd in Montclair NJ. And tech week starts next weekend for the Shakespeare Theatre, so my roll as a stitcher will be finished. And my yard work is done. I hope life settles into a lovely winter routine, winter is when I usually get out the dye pots, so I’ll do a bit of that, which sketching out what I want to plant where in the gardens.

Hoping for a lovely holiday time for all of you my friends, no matter what you celebrate, fill it with things that make you happy and bring you joy, and surround yourselves with those who hold you in the light.

Stay tuned…

What do I want to be when I grow up?

This is going to be a long one… Sorry… With lots of pictures… Not sorry…

I went to a concert today, called a cabin concert, popular with singer songwriters, in someone’s house, way out in the woods, where people gather, to listen to invited artists play. It is intimate, and entertaining, and I usually enjoy myself when I go. One of the artists featured today is a good friend. She is a wonderful song writer, her songs are based on things that happen to her in every day life.

I sat next to a woman, who is also friends with this artist, though we didn’t know each other. When in musical settings such as this, there are standard questions, “Are you a musician yourself?”, and other kinds of openers. I shake my head, and mutter something about playing recorder with an early music group, but I was there to support my friend, and enjoy the afternoon. The conversation kept going, and this is always where it gets awkward, because what I really do for a living is very complicated, there are no easy ways to describe succinctly. I mention I’m in the arts, or I’m an artist, and right away, there is the assumption that I’m a painter. Which I’m not. Eventually I mention I work in fiber, and that sets off a whole other series of questions, ending with I’m a weaver. Well what do you weave? Clothing. The conversation with this fellow concert goer then dropped into amusing territory, huge assumptions on her part, and I end up just smiling as this person has no clue what I do and what I’m interested in, and I’m really not in the mood to explain. Since this person has experience with reenactments, of all sorts of wars, she felt certain that I’d make a killing taking my handwoven clothing to reenactments, especially the one in Fredericksburg, MD, where there are knowledgeable people who want handwoven anything, and are willing to pay for it. Sigh…

I’ve come across many people in my career who think that they know what’s best for me and my work. Who wouldn’t want to make a killing in the right market? I was glad the music started up again, because the thought of setting up a booth with my handwoven clothing, which I did all through the 1980’s, made me slightly nauseous. This is definitely not the direction I am headed.

So where am I headed…

I’m in a unique position where I’ve done a lot with my life, and I’m proud of what I’ve done. I’m proud of the students I’ve empowered to create from their hands, and I’m really looking forward to fiber as a hobby. Imagine that…

I live in Suburban Northern NJ, about 20 miles west of Manhattan. I have a small half acre of land, which my husband and I meticulously landscaped in the late 1980’s after we added a sizable addition to the house, and needed to create decking and tiered plantings, and so we hired a professional landscaper to draw out plans. We did the work ourselves, but what plants to plant where, was all designed by this professional. I need to mention that in the late 1980’s, landscaping took on a completely different direction, because all the new exotic imported plants from Japan and Asia were becoming available and they created lovely color and texture all year round. We planted profuse amounts of Japanese Barberry, Kousa Dogwood, Burning Bush, Continus or Smoke Bush, and a number of other things that now are considered invasive, not native, and in the case of Barberry, destroying the understory in all of the forest parts around where I live and really, the planet. The push is on to remove everything that is not native.

I recently attended a number of lectures, and listened to a few podcasts, all on invasive species. Some of the lectures were on foraging these materials for textile use, making baskets, weaving, eco printing, natural dyeing, and even papermaking. Some of the lectures were on planting native pollinators to attract caterpillars which attract more bird species because we all know the planet is in trouble, and all I can do is fix my own backyard. I went to a lecture last Sunday at Greenwood Gardens, an estate garden open to the public in Northern NJ, featuring author Doug Tallamy, University of Delaware Professor of Botany and other things.

Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy

It was probably the best lecture I’ve ever heard and I came home miserably depressed because my beautiful yard is destroying the planet. Well I’m being overly dramatic, I can’t fix the rest of the world, but I can try to fix my own.

So this is just one corner of my front yard. Note that every other bush is a Japanese Barberry. I have a gardener, and I’ve finally convinced him that each bush eventually has to go, but in it I can research native plants, and possible plants that can work for natural dyeing, basketry, weaving, eco printing, etc. So I have the smallest of hope here that I might make a difference with my little corner of the planet and add to my textile fun.

I’m pretty expert at making handwoven clothing, but I’m enough of a novice at everything else to know I don’t know anything. Except what we touched on in college in the 70’s. So I’m taking things very slowly. My gardener removed two of probably a dozen Barberries this week, and I’m getting opinions as to what to replace them with. Meanwhile, he has a black walnut tree in his front yard and brought me a huge bucket of black walnut hulls. I made a dye with them. Both skeins are dyed with black walnut hulls, the darker one on the right has an iron modifier, rust water from a bucket of rusty iron found throughout my house added briefly to the end of the dyebath.

And I did scamper across the street, to a huge patch of overgrown weeds between two properties, and didn’t think anyone would mind if I stole all the pokeberries from the two bushes there. And yes, I do know that anything purple with anthocyanins is not light fast and will fade with washing over time. Still, it was fun, and for now, I got a really pretty magenta on this skein of silk and wool.

And another area, which has always fascinated me was plant tinctures, because before big pharma, we had herbal medicine. I usually obtain Sweet Annie (Artemisia Annua) tincture from my herbalist friend (coincidently the singer songwriter I heard at this afternoon’s cabin concert, who wrote a song when her Artemisia didn’t come up that year) but this year, she gave me a couple of plants and apologized because it will take over my yard. But I made my first tincture from Artemisia in 80 proof vodka and it is sitting on my counter curing. I look forward to my home remedy for curing colds, flu, and I’ve even heard it is great for Covid. (I did use it when I had Covid this time last year, and my symptoms were so mild I didn’t realize I had it, which could be coincidental)

I took a class last weekend in Eco Printing through my guild, using the dirty pot method. I’ve taken workshops before in Eco Printing, and am a fan of an iron blanket, but this was the workshop, and the results were OK, I wished for more clarity in the middle. The scarf blank is a silk/wool from Dharma Trading.

We also, while the bundles were boiling in the dirty pot (a pot of water, preferably aluminum, with iron chunks, and a copper pipe, and some onion skins, and whatever else she dumped in there), played around with flower pounding. I’ve never done this before, so this was fun and entertaining. I had an old cutting board and a hammer and we were given cotton towels, pre-mordanted with Aluminum Triformate, and I got a bit carried away.

Of course when I went to wash it a couple days later, after I heat set it with an iron, all the purples (from anthocyanins of course) washed out. Still, I have a fun dishtowel, and I can still see the ghost outline of the amaranth.

And we experimented with a heat press, pressing leaves and flowers onto treated watercolor paper. I don’t own a heat press, and have no intention of buying one, but it was fun to experiment. I have seen more interesting prints from Jane Dunnewold, but I love first time trying anything… You never know.

I went back to Greenwood Gardens on Wednesday, for a day of artistic sketching, painting, and photography. Bring any medium you like to work in, and park yourself and your easel and get to work. I picked the hardest building on the property, the two story summer tea house, with stone wrap around steps down both sides, and all sorts of sculptures, and proceeded to sketch.

I work in pencil, mostly because I’m rusty getting proportions right, and I erase a lot, and then I ink the important things. Then I use water color pencil, and later add water with a fine brush. Here is the result and it was a gorgeous fall day and I met so many interesting artists, oil painters, watercolorists, and a woman, probably in her 50’s who has been journaling every day since she was 10. I envy her commitment to a daily practice, though I’ve been writing this blog since 2008. With more than 900 posts, I’ve done OK for myself. I don’t care who reads it, because it is a personal journal that happens to be full of pictures and is available on the internet.

Anyway, the discussion of native plants and pollinators was part of every conversation with people involved in gardening. Turns out woman with the journals has a neighbor into natural dyeing and they just did some indigo. Small world…

Meanwhile, I have until the 24th to finalize all the stuff I’ve made for the Jockey Hollow Show and Sale, November 3-5. That’s when I submit my spreadsheet and get my bar coded tags back.

More bunnies…

More bear ornaments…

Zippered kit bags…

Zippered regular bags…

A Ginger Jar…

Tote bags…

And I’ve found an easy way to insert a separating zipper in the top without feeling like I’m wrestling an alligator…

And of course I have my constant companion laying in the middle of whatever I’m working on…

So what do I want to be when I grow up? A good steward of the land? A weaver that uses what’s available and is constantly learning new fields in botany, chemistry, and medicine, all with what’s available in my own backyard? It isn’t important for me to define my goals at all, because I’ve always been about the journey, and this is no different. I’m using up stuff from my old life, and repurposing it and creating something to help support my guild. What doesn’t sell will go to a pop-up shop in the theatre lobby of the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ’s final production this December. Giving back is important to me. I try to walk into town every other day, pick up the groceries for the day, and carry them home. The other morning, in a foggy dew, the spiders were busy creating webs for Halloween, captured by the morning sun. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’m going to be ripping all those plants out…

Stay tuned…