Hurricanes and Vines…

Grab a cup of tea, or your liquid of choice (go for the wine) and grab a seat, it is going to be a long one.

So much for retirement! If these last couple weeks have been any indication, I’m toast! Almost all of the events of the last couple weeks have been ones I chose, ones I intentionally put on the calendar, and I don’t have a single regret. But I’ve worked hard…

At the end of August, shifted by a few days for a scheduling conflict with one of the students, I had a couple of, I really can’t call them students as they are at this point old friends, come for a five day retreat to sew their pile of patterns, and garments from their handwoven cloth. These are friends who have studied with me for years at one of my regular venues. They immediately found the part of my property where they loved to sit and rock and have wine at 5 o’clock. Friends help me find new ways to enjoy what I have, in the studio, in my yard, and in my house.

They came with an agenda, and I’m happy to report that they accomplished everything they had on the list, and then some.

One of the students brought pieces from a handwoven coat, she had made years ago and never liked, and using my 1800 zippered jacket pattern, created this variation. I’m always thrilled when I or one of my students repurposes.

This student brought a dress from commercial fabric she made on her own, but didn’t like the way it fit. We were able to take up the whole dress from the shoulders creating a more attractive neck. The pattern is from Merchant and Mills, the Dress Shirt

She also tackled a piece of loosely woven handwoven fabric, which we saved by using a fusible underlining to create the start of a dress, The Augusta Dress from Grainline Studio. She is experienced enough at this point to finish the dress on her own. It was a complicated asymmetrical neckline, but she pulled it off.

The other student started with a handwoven fabric from her stash of Zephyr Wool and Silk from Jaggerspun. She created my 200 Jacket with a shawl collar, and used this wickedly cool silk lining she had in her stash. And she spent the first day learning to insert a perfectly matched welt pocket.

She also fitted and sewed up a really cute summer cotton top from a crinkle fabric she had in her stash. The pattern is from Simplicity D0676.

And then she copied my 1000 swing dress, with the A-line variation, something I cover in my YouTube Videos, The Weaver Sews. I think it was the episode on Combining patterns. She had a length of handwoven fabric she had woven a few years ago, and decided that everyone needs a brightly striped dress for the summer!

So mid week, we had another visitor named Ida. This visitor wasn’t part of the agreement and was definitely not welcomed. My sewing studio is in the basement, and through the years I/we took steps to mitigate water issues, new gutters, a sump pump, and a replaced retaining wall under the front stoop, keeping water running off the street in an exceptional situation from entering the foundation. This is a 100 + year old house with poured concrete over a dirt cellar floor. There are cracks and in the boiler room where we ripped out the old oil, converted from coal furnace back in the 80’s, there are even holes going down to the dirt. The floor is porous, but I rarely have issues. I did design the studio just in case, to accommodate a bit of water, just in case.

So Wednesday night Ida came to visit, wrecking havoc in NJ and NY, and of course all the states in its path. When we moved here in the 80’s we knew that more than half the town was in the flood plain, but we were up on the hill, so we knew we wouldn’t be flooded at least by the river. We have watched our neighbors in the flood areas of town lose everything many times over the years since we have been here. It is always devastating to see. The flooding here was catastrophic. Because I am higher up, river flooding isn’t an issue, but 10″ of rain in four hours is too much for the storm drains coming off the hill, and if it hadn’t been a hurricane and dark outside, I would have loved to have stood in the street and watched rivers of water come cascading down my street, jump the asphalt curb and run right into the front wall of the foundation.

I would have been teaching up at Harrisville this week had I not chosen to retire. And had I not had students, I wouldn’t have been in the studio late to turn things off and move a few pieces of sensitive equipment like sewing machines off the floor, just in case. The sump pump was happily humming along, so I was pretty confident I’d be OK. I turned to walk down the little hallway in front of the boiler room, which is walled off, to head upstairs and I was horrified to step on a mat with water squishing out everywhere. I yelled for my daughter, and thus began our evening, finding every towel in the house, because, yeah, we had a mess. We opened the door to the boiler room and were appalled to see water just pouring in the front wall of the foundation and actually seeping up through the floor. I stood looking at the water and said to my daughter, what did we have in the house that could suck up water, because I had given away my shop vacs, as I didn’t need them and needed the garage storage space for my 39 shaft looms. She looked at me, without batting an eye and said, “A Turkey Baster”.

For the next four hours, I sat on a stool, after channeling the water into the holes in the floor, sucking up quarts of water into yogurt containers, and Pyrex glass ware from my dye studio, while she hauled wet towels to the upstairs laundry and dumped the containers of water. All the dry concrete in front of me had been covered in water, so this was no easy feat. I’m glad I’m a textile artist with a lot of bath and beach towels.

We won. I’ve never been so tired in my life. When the rain stopped at 2:30 in the morning, the water stopped entering the basement, and I took a load of newly washed and dried towels and covered the area and went to bed. Class started again in a few hours and teachers gotta do what they gotta do… My students slept not knowing what was happening two floors below. I’m grateful I was home, I’m grateful my daughter was here, I’m grateful for a lot of towels, I’m grateful we never lost power, and I want to bronze that turkey baster and frame it as a reminder that sometimes the simplest thing can save the day. I will though, buy a new one for the kitchen, should I ever need to baste a turkey.

My students left on Friday night, and early Saturday morning I headed out to Peters Valley School of Craft for a five day basket making class using foraged materials. Because Peters Valley sits in a National Park Recreation Area, we weren’t allowed to forage for the actual materials, but the teacher Steven Carty, brought a van load of materials, bark, vines, tools, and everything we needed to create baskets from stuff found in the wild. (Note: they have closed the physical shop, but maintain a Facebook presence and have mail order basketry supplies available.)

My purpose in taking the class was to begin to identify what I had in my yard, what could be a basket making material, how to harvest it, store it and actually use it. I found out pretty quickly that almost everything out there is usable. I have to have a talk with my yard guy since I mostly pay him to rip out invasives, but now I need to harvest them and I have a lifetime of materials right out my door.

I discovered I had vines that I never planted, Bittersweet, and Akebia, and this one that has just the coolest leaf structure called Crossvine.

Anyway, we started with a simple garlic basket from rattan so we could learn to twine, and then he showed us how to make cordage. Which is something I always wanted to learn. I made a lot of cordage stripping the bark off wisteria runners.

Day 2, I made a basket with Arborvitae bark staves and wisteria runners, the bottom tier had the bark stripped which I twisted into cordage. The top tier has the vine with the bark intact. The rim is cedar bark and the lashing wisteria bark from the runners.

Day 3 we learned how to create a bark basket, scoring the bark so it folds into a container shape. This is pretty cool, but I don’t see myself traipsing around the woods looking to fell young hickory or tulip poplar trees. I don’t want to work that hard in my old age. We scraped the bark from cedar strips and used it for the lashing.

I spent the morning of Day 4 researching what was in my yard. I brought a few samples of the vines from my yard, and used his reference books and a couple of phone apps and Google to help identify what I had. So I started this basket, using more of the tulip poplar strips as staves, and started twining my vines, still green, so a bit fragile, because I wanted to see how they worked and how they dried. I started with the bittersweet at the very bottom, used trumpet vine, which was pretty fragile at the joints, and ended with the Akebia 5 leaf, also called Chocolate vine. That was great to work with green. I added a cedar rim, and that night I challenged my daughter to figure out how to end the staves, and she slit them lengthwise and braided them into an interesting top rim. The afternoon of Day 5 I made a few yards of fine cordage from Dog Bane, also called Indian Hemp, which I then used to lash everything together.

My daughter had assisted this instructor back in 2019 for a basket making class when she was the fibers assistant at Peters Valley. She loved making baskets and was really jealous that I took his class, and pumped me for information each evening when I came home. I saved some of the lashing work to do at home and I had lots of help from the cat. He happily stirred the soaking water for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that wasn’t necessary.

The morning of the 5th day, the class when on a nature hike through areas of Peters Valley, protected of course because it is federal property, and Steve showed us all kinds of flora and fauna, edibles, plants for dye stuff, vines, invasives, and I thought he would have a heart attack when he found a lone hemlock tree. Gave a new meaning to the word Tree-Hugger. Our goal was to reach a rock formation I did not know existed, dating back centuries, hidden in a part of the Valley off the road to the Thunder Mountain studios. It is called Bevans Rock Shelter, and there are even traces of early ochre paintings.

We took a class photo with our baskets.

When I got home last night, Brianna had already begun to harvest stuff from the yard. We rigged up a storage system in the garage studio, for some of the wisteria and English Ivy vine I brought home from class. I long ago committed chemical warfare on the wisteria that had invaded our property in the 80’s. This morning she went out and harvested more bittersweet and some really out of control rose runners that I swear grow 6 feet overnight. She can’t wait to tackle the gazebo.

The first morning of class, when I stopped to check in at the office, Jen the person who keeps the Valley humming along, excitedly pulled a handful of magazines out of a box that had just come in, a free publication for the tri-state area (NJ, NY, PA) called the Journal. It had just been delivered the day before, and there I was, or rather my daughter, wearing one of my handwoven coats from a number of years ago. My daughter modeled for me when she was something like 11 or 12. She is now 28. The publisher of the journal had reached out to me a month or so ago, and asked for a piece on creativity, tied into Peters Valley, and what it was like to be a fiber artist, and for lots of pictures of my work. I was hesitant at first, I live in a different county, and I’m no longer teaching on the road or selling my work, but she insisted that I had a story to tell, and they wanted to publish it. The issue is full of images of my most colorful work over the years, and my daughter is beside herself that she made a cover, even though she was only 12 at the time. You can read the early Fall issue of The Journal here.

And so, I actually get to take a mini vacation, I’m heading down the shore Saturday morning with my sisters for a three-day getaway, which I sorely need, and Brianna will hold down the fort and be with the animals. All seems to be quiet in the Atlantic, let’s hope it stays that way.

Stay tuned…

Inspiration and some help…

I’ve been giving a lot of remote lectures the last couple of months. And I’ve done another podcast, which hasn’t aired yet. And there are the questions that come in connected to my YouTube Videos, The Weaver Sews. Lots of opportunities for Q&A. I would say that the one question that I get asked over and over, (other than, how do you cut into your handwoven fabric, now I can happily say there is a video for that…) is, where do I get my inspiration. I think people really care about this issue, they want so badly to produce great work, and original work, and really want to know how others interpret what’s around them into something awesome.

Some of it, actually a large amount of it is confidence. And confidence comes from doing. Confidence means that even though you are in uncharted territory, and you have no idea how this is going to work, or if it will be great, or awesome or really stupid, confidence means no fear. So what if it doesn’t work, it is cloth. So what if it isn’t great or even stupid, you never know if you didn’t try. And whether it is great or stupid, something is always learned, something tangible, that will serve you on the next grand adventure.

So I just started a new project and went through all the steps to come up with something I think is going to be great, but maybe won’t be, but I don’t care because it will serve my purposes. I thought I’d go through my thought processes the last couple of days so you see how I think, and that it isn’t so special or brilliant or inspired, it just is a series of steps that lead me on an adventure. I sometimes can’t decide, so I’ll send a photo to my weaver friends, we message daily, or I’ll ask my daughter, and sometimes she actually gets me to make a decision by allowing me to talk through what I’m thinking and why. And a good portion of the time I don’t take anyone’s kind advice. I just go with my gut.

First, and I’ve said this over and over in my talks and podcasts and videos, I weave when I’m in the mood to weave, when I have an idea and something sparks my curiosity. I never have a plan as to what I’m going to do with it. This just happened with the last warp I did, which I pulled off a couple days ago, tossed in the washer and off it went onto the shelf. There was no plan for what it will be. I weave to weave, and I make fun cloth. What I do with it down the road (probably clothing) remains a mystery. I was determined to finish this off this past weekend. I had lots of help.

I had done a similar cloth for Silk City Fibers, the draft is available here for free. I called the fabric Confetti, and I liked the idea that you could take a fatter yarn and float it over and under two weft picks having a stable ground underneath. I rooted through my hand dyed yarns and found a whole bunch of skeins of some natural colored silk I probably bought from a friend a number of years ago. A fat silk.

So I sat with a draft, and figured out how to make all these skeins work in yardage, and I have no idea what I’m going to make with it. It will sit there and age like fine wine until the mood strikes. Here it is washed and finished. I definitely want to play with the stripes and have them intersect on the diagonal. That would be fun…

Meanwhile, I wove this fabric last year, another one using Silk City Fiber Yarns, the draft is available here for free… It is called Shadow Tapestry and uses their old standby variegated chenille, with their newer yarn, a Cotton/Bamboo combination with a lot of loft, soft and spongy. I combined the two in a Shadow Weave Structure. Apparently my beat was less than perfect and the end result was that each repeat was just slightly off from the previous repeat, which is why I encourage people not to do weft repeats when weaving yardage.

But there is always a way…

So we have finished up the video series making a couple of my 200 jackets, showing step by step how to do some pretty complicated things. The last installment of that series should drop Friday. We have one more in the can, the one for the “Ask Me Anything” segment that should air the following week and then I need a new theme. I figured that the 500 vest and 600 walking vest, were pretty close to the construction of the jacket, with a couple of differences in how the armhole and lining are treated, and I could probably knock them out in a video. And I’m scheduled to teach a three day remote class using this vest as a background for my piecing technique, so it would be helpful to have a video to direct students to areas of construction they might not understand in the printed directions. I should make a vest next.

So what should I use to make this vest…

I looked through the handwoven fabrics I had on the shelf, and a couple of commercial fabrics I could justify using (sort of like a handwoven), and the Shadow Tapestry fabric jumped out at me. So I rolled it out. I’m not even sure at this point if there is enough, but that never stopped me.

I tried on the samples for my 500 vest and yeah, quarantine has been tough, food plentiful, and exercise non existent. Yes, I’m now walking 4 miles every morning and starting to work in the yard, but that doesn’t help me with the 10 pounds I gained last year. So definitely cut a larger size in the lower half…

Once I have a pattern I can play around with the fabric. There is definitely not enough to do the bands. So I’ll have to come up with a plan B for that… And the layout is tough, I’ll have to have a center back seam, and that means that matching these mismatched shadow weave blocks will be a challenge. I actually measured each repeat to see if I could find like areas. Cutting a yoke would help, the lower part could be cut from one area, and a full yoke across the back would fit across the fabric, EXACTLY. Complete luck.

Which means piping between the lower body and upper yokes.

Last month in a disgusted clean out of all of my skirts and pants that no longer fit, there were some treasures that I hated to toss, so I thought of them as new raw material. Surely that skirt had enough fabric for the trim on something. And my beloved leather pants. I didn’t wear them last year, because I never got out of my pajamas, but I couldn’t get them on. So I lovingly carried them to the studio and put them on the shelf. They would find their purpose one day.

I thought I found their purpose, because they went beautifully with this handwoven Shadow Tapestry. I would cut them into bands and piping and it would be gorgeous. I started to remove the lining in the pants, and realized that years ago, leather of course gives and they had gotten too large for me and I had taken them in substantially in the center back. So I let them out. And they fit. And I’m over-joyed. I loved these pants. I could do a whole blog about the history behind them. But largely this meant that I couldn’t use them for my vest.

Plan B…

Back in 2007 I made a vest out of a very small warp someone gifted me, I wove off the warp and turned it into this lovely vest, which I adored, but sold in a guild sale to one of my guild mates. It was called Native Woods.

I lined it with a woven alpaca pile fabric, the kind from a vintage zip out lining in a men’s trench coat. The pile fabric was gifted to me by someone, the card exists in my design journal from 13 years ago, but I always loved that bit of pile fabric trimming the exterior edges of the vest. I sort of missed that vest after I sold it.

I have the scraps. And I think it is enough for a neck band and pair of armhole bands. And the color is good. But that means I have to come up with something else for the piping. In the middle of the night, I woke up with a voice telling me to check if there was any leather left from the Harris Tweed jacket I just made.

In the morning I checked, and I had enough in the scrap bag for piping for the two front yokes and the back yoke.

Which left the lining…

I rooted around in my stash, and pulled out a couple of contenders, one of which is here. A lovely silk print, maybe from the old Waechter’s Silk Shop in Asheville. I mourned when it went out of business. I use to raid their remnant bin whenever I would visit.

And then I spied this silk blouse I had just added to my stash. Back in January, armed with a dozen masks, I drove to Maryland to help my 89 year old mom move to a smaller apartment in the senior complex where she lives, after her husband, my step dad passed in December. It was a busy week, and as we moved her clothing, she culled some of the pieces she didn’t think she would ever wear again. My mother and I are not even close to the same size and shape. But she had in the “to be given away” bag this lovely silk shirt, not anything I would fit into or wear, not my style, but it was silk. And silk is silk. So I took it and added it to my fabric stash.

And so I pulled it out and put it next to the Shadow Tapestry fabric and my eyes lit up. It was unexpected and fun and though my daughter didn’t like it, she liked the first choice, I just thought it was perfectly timed and meant to be…

So now everything is cut out, and I spent the day assembling the parts. Tomorrow I will write the script and Friday we will shoot the complex parts of the construction. I don’t know if the fur bands will be successful or not, but I won’t ever know unless I try. I can always take them off and replace them if I change my mind. Then I can shoot a video on how to rip out handwoven fabric…

And of course I had help, this morning when I came down to start constructing this is what was waiting for me, letting me know that he kept the pile warm and it was all ready to sew. This cat makes me laugh… He is sitting in my lap as I type…

Anyway, this is pretty typical of how I go through the process of deciding what to make. The fabric came about because Silk City developed a new yarn and asked me to test it and see what I could do with it. I asked for a cone of it along with a variegated chenille. I don’t know why when I looked at them I thought Shadow weave. I hate weaving anything with two shuttles. But I did, and so far it is working out. I’ve got so many threads of ideas, like seeds that germinate, and it is a process getting that little seed planted and see what sprouts from it.

Stay tuned…

Hope…

Today is a bittersweet day, my late husband would have turned 70. My daughter and I were talking about all of the things that have happened in this world since he died almost 5 years ago, and how much we would love just to sit with him one more time and hear his thoughts on the bigger picture. He was always good at that.

So we started the day with my late husband’s most favorite thing, a NJ classic, Taylor Ham, egg and cheese on an Everything Bagel. The shop on Main Street makes the best. Actually I started the day with a 4 mile walk through town, to a ball field, around the track and back, but my daughter would never get up that early!

And spring arrived this weekend. Along with glorious sunshine and temps in the 60’s. So to celebrate that, and my late husband’s garden legacy that my daughter painstakingly rebuilt last fall, we went to the local garden center and bought cold weather crops, lettuces, salad mixes, kale and collards. They will get planted next weekend. And pansies. We planted pansies. They are the most colorful wonderful sign of hope, rebirth, spring. My late husband is smiling.

This past weekend was the Florida Tropical Weavers Conference, and I was a presenter, actually I was the first to present last Friday. I’ve done this conference before in person, and it is always a treat to head to Florida in March when NJ cold just won’t seem to end. This year it was virtual, and though I know this is not a replacement for an in person conference, this team did an outstanding job of bringing the entire conference to the membership remotely. As a presenter, I got to tune in whenever I wanted, and they even had a fashion show slide presentation! I skipped the Saturday evening Pajama Party, there is such a thing as too much screen time. I loved the lectures, and was particularly inspired, which means I needed to finish off some things so I can get new stuff on the looms.

And so I did. First up was my taxes. This is probably the job I hate the most in my life. Yes, I turn everything over to an accountant, but with a business and payroll, there are just so many things to pull together and I’m terrible at using Quickbooks. Really. We are not friends. So I resort to doing things mostly by hand. My accountant promised after tax season last year to teach me some basics, but of course with Covid, that never happened. So taxes are now done and delivered to the accountant.

I finished a sweater I started a couple months ago. It still needs blocking, but I think I’m just going to put it on and let my body heat do the job, before it gets too warm to wear it. Pattern is C2Knits Jemma, and the yarn is Rowan Alpaca Colour in Topaz. I had help of course.

I finished weaving a run of six scarves, because one of my favorite arts venues, The Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, struggling to hold on valiantly through Covid, is having another online auction fundraiser. I wanted to donate one of my scarves and they were still on the loom. So I wove off the last one, washed and dried, tagged and delivered the scarf today. I’ll let you know when the online auction starts which will be in a couple weeks, but if you just periodically go to the site, you’ll see when the auction preview is up. Bid early and often! This one is called Autumn Harvest, which I know isn’t really spring like, but I started it going into last Autumn. Weaving is a slow thing… (Actually, I think this is one of my all time favorite color combos I’ve ever done…) Mostly hand dyed yarns, rayon, cotton, Tencel, silk. 8 Shaft combination plain weave, twill, with supplemental ribbons. You can purchase and download the draft here

And my Harris Tweed Jacket… I’ve been working on this step by step in my YouTube video series The Weaver Sews. I sat outside today in the glorious sunshine and finished up sewing on the buttons and removing all the tailor’s tacks. I adore this jacket. I can’t wait to make this my new go to jacket to grab and go. The trim is caviar leather and the pattern is my 200 jacket with the welt pocket variation. And of course I had help with this as well…

And so I started another sweater, this one from Harrisville Silk and Wool I bought when I was teaching up there a couple years ago, they had a mis-dye, and the skeins were pretty cheap, but I loved the color, I don’t have anything like it in my wardrobe so this should be fun. The pattern is from Harrisville Designs, Mattock by Amy Herzog. I should have this done in time for fall.

And in the paper the other day, I came across my horoscope, I’m always entertained by them, I don’t really know why, but once in awhile, one makes me sit up and think.

And yes, the things I do are familiar, and that is so very comforting. And I forget that others don’t have the kind of experience I’ve been gifted over the years, and sharing is important. I’ve now turned down pretty much all of my future travel opportunities, and I sort of think of myself as retired, but yet I’m busier than I’ve ever been, but with stuff that makes me really happy, converting my vast knowledge base into a digital legacy, through the YouTube channel, and some of my writings and instructions. And the patterns. I get up every morning, take care of the animals and then walk. I just walk. I get to breathe, think, get inspired, and I’m not a completely crazy person trying to do it all. I actually have time to go to the garden center and by pansies and put them in a pot. Or three.

My daughter qualified for her first dose of the Covid vaccine. I’m still waiting for a call, but I’m hopeful that I’ll have it soon. Meanwhile, I’m patient, I’m a weaver. We can be very patient. And I’m exploding with ideas of fabric I want to weave (my daughter and I are arguing over who gets to play with a stash of Harrisville yarns we have… ).

Stay tuned, enjoy the sun, it brings hope and flowers and birds and signs of spring.

System Reset…

Today is a huge anniversary for me. It is one of the three times in my life that my entire world changed in a heartbeat and oddly enough, in a hugely positive way.

Back in the 1980’s, I was a production craftsman, weaving 30 yard runs of fabric almost every day, sewing the garments cut from that fabric, (with my sister’s help) and spending something like 18 weeks on the road per year setting up for craft fairs all over the northeast, and selling my little heart out. It was a way to make a living, and one I loved for about 8 of the 10 years I did craft fairs. The last couple of years were painful.

I no longer wanted to weave, I no longer wanted to talk to the public, I no longer wanted to explain how long it took to weave/make/etc. I no longer wanted my income tied to the whims of the economy (though that part has never changed and will never change!) I was really really tired.

And I didn’t know how to stop. It was what I did. And craft fairs are booked sometimes more than a year in advance. When do I stop applying? When do I say enough…

Though my husband and I were told we were not able to have kids, way back when we got married, and that was OK with us, I found myself in my mid 30’s completely burnt out, one of the lowest points in my life, and pregnant. Go figure…

So it became obvious that continuing to apply to shows was not in the cards anymore, I did not want to raise a kid schlepping them to fairs, trying to talk to customers and keep them from tearing through the glassmaker’s booth next door. The secret relief of an answer to my exhaustion and burnout, was huge.

And so I was given a way out, the universe was kind, and two kids later, I was able to reinvent myself as a teacher, and a writer, and I found a way.

Except over that next decade, things had a way of creeping back and creating chaos out of my life. I had two school age kids, and multiple teaching jobs locally, plus traveling to teach, plus leading a 4-H group, demonstrating at numerous events, and life had once again spiraled out of control. I did not know how to extricate myself from all of my commitments.

Then came February 22, 2002. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 46, it was aggressive and my entire life came to a screeching halt. There is no better excuse to extricate oneself from life than the “C” word. The secret relief of an answer to my exhaustion and burnout, was huge. All I had to worry about was staying alive. It was all about me and I was allowed to say No. That year of treatment taught me a lot. It taught me what was important and it taught me that I could be creative, and not compromise my soul. I slowly reinvented myself yet again.

And so 19 years later, I’m in the middle of yet another life altering experience, along with the entire rest of the world. For the last decade or so, my life has been mostly on the road. The kids are grown, and teaching nationally required hauling 170 pounds of luggage through all of the nations airports, some huge and sprawling and some the size of a garage. The kind where the ticket agent is also the gate agent and also goes out to bring in the plane when it arrives. I stayed with some of the most interesting people from all over the country, and learned a ton. About life, about how the world is not like NJ, and that’s OK. I learned about different foods, and books and fashion and tastes, and brought back to my own little world a more global experience. I even discovered Scan Pans, Danish cookware that I can’t live without.

But I was tired. I didn’t realize how burned out and exhausted I was. Because venues book sometimes two years in advance, how do I stop? When do I start saying no? In March of last year, I actually spent some time talking to my very patient hostess about this. I was just turning 65. Many of my peers were retiring. I had bookings clear into 2022. How do I say No? How do I stop?

And then the universe provided a way. And this time it was huge. Everything I had booked after that March date in Portland was cancelled. Life as I knew it changed overnight. The secret relief of an answer to my exhaustion and burnout, was huge.

And so this last year has once again, been about reinventing myself. I’m teaching more than ever, yet I don’t have to leave the warmth and comfort of my house. I’m pouring myself into giving back to a community that has supported me for my entire adult life, through the YouTube Channel, The Weaver Sews. I have time to create, to invent, to explore and that is a huge gift for a creative soul. Yesterday I responded to a request to book a retreat, one I’ve done many times and loved, and basically said, I’m done. No more traveling. It was tough to write, but the right thing to do.

And as hard as I’m working, there is time to just create. I’ve been working on a jacket, my 200 jacket pattern, and documenting the construction steps in my YouTube videos. Those include piping, interrupting the piping to make button loops, and stacking buttons when you don’t have anything interesting. And shopping for buttons is out of the question in this time of quarantine. I think that video drops on Friday.

The fabric for this jacket is left over from this coat, it is handdyed and handwoven, in a simple twill pattern. I’ve had fun creating this for the camera. We shot the lining sequence in two parts, and now all I have left is the handwork.

I’ve been teaching a lot this past month, almost daily somewhere in the country, in a couple hours I’ll be teaching in Oregon, and some of the classes I’m teaching have really made me remember back to when/how/why I did many of these techniques. One of the classes especially has made me just want to run to the studio and make stuff every time I give that lecture. That one is called, Leftovers Again? What to do with Leftovers. I sell the lecture as a digital download. There are all sorts of fun techniques I haven’t done in awhile. So this past week, I headed to the sewing studio and just made some stuff.

This basket is from coiled scraps of fabric leftover from my handwoven swing coat.

This tote is a pinwheel piecing technique made from scraps from my 1980’s craft fair days.

It is snowing again, probably another few inches, but spring is coming. It will be a long time before we see green grass, but I’m OK with that. I spent some time chatting with a friend this morning, about this anniversary day, and what it means when the universe has other ideas about where your life should be heading. She also shares this date, two years ago she was diagnosed with cancer as well. She is still going through treatment. We have a lot to talk about and think about. And celebrate. We survived, so far, and had an opportunity to reinvent ourselves yet again.

Stay tuned dear readers, buckle your seatbelts, put on your masks and hold tight, it is and has been a wild ride, and probably will continue to be…

Nothing stays the same…

This is the season of light, but it has been some of the darkest times this generation has experienced. The promise of a new year, a new administration, a new vaccine, and in 13 days, daylight will begin to build again, all give a sense of hope and possibilities.

After more than 800 blog posts, I’ve had a bit of a glitch, that started humorously and then turned wicked serious as I blew up the hosting company server with one of my posts. The post was called, That’s not why I did it… I wrote it after lots of sturm und drang, summarizing the post with the peace and serenity of making order out of chaos. I thought it was a rather clever post, and then moved on.

Within a week, I got an email from my hosting company, shutting down my blog site, for nefarious activity, and hogging more than 55% of the shared server my site is on, slowing everyone else down. I panicked, called them, had a lovely person talk me through a few things, what I could do on my end, transferred me to their security team, and in the background they updated my site to the newest and latest version of WordPress.

Turns out, a relative, who is a software designer/developer liked the post so much, he posted it on a forum specifically for software designer/developers, and the post went viral. If it wasn’t so devastating, it would be hilarious. This relative forwarded me the string of comments posted by the developers, and truth be told, I almost fell out of my office chair laughing.

There was a bit of weaving language in that post, assuming that it would be read by the weaving community, but the gist of the post could be understood by everyone. The developers’ comments included things like “I googled Differential Sett and came up with nothing. (That’s because my daughter made up the term for her lecture for the Pioneer Valley Guild remote lecture she was working on). There were comments like, “Gee, is this what we sound like to non computer people?” And then following the comments as they tried to take apart the technical jargon I used, so they could more clearly understand the nuances of the post. As of today, there are more than 42,000 views. And you can read some of the comments here. It is enlightening…

The downside of all this once my hosting company updated everything and gave me a list of what my own tech support needs to do to add plugins, etc. is that I opened WordPress to type in this blog, and everything, I mean everything has changed. I am not even sure how to add a picture. (Though I eventually figured that out, I don’t see where to add keywords.) There are all kinds of updates I need to do to plugins that completely confound me, and nothing looks like it did for the last 12 years. This is not my strength, and I don’t want to spend the time to make it my strength.

My strengths lie in my creativity, my hands, and my mad sewing/weaving skills. They have taken a lifetime to perfect, I’m still learning, making mistakes, and I will continue to learn and make mistakes until I can’t do this anymore, my body quits or I die. The future is never guaranteed. Though it looks like 2021 is promising, we are still in a pandemic, we are still in a divided country politically, and winter is just starting. A beloved relative is in the final days of life. I cannot be there beside him. We cannot gather as a family, and that just sucks. Once he passes, we can’t hold a funeral, we can’t hold each other, and all I can do is make the best use of each day I’m given.

The new Youtube channel The Weaver Sews is consuming a lot of welcomed focus. I start thinking about what I want to film the next Friday as we finish filming the previous installment. I keep thinking that future videos should be getting shorter, less theory, more “this is how you do it”, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. I think of more and more things to say. I feel as though I’m taking my half century of knowledge and documenting it so that it can live on even if I don’t or can’t. My daughter, who is my editor, director, producer, videographer, and caption writer, is getting better and better at this, and we have even come up with a way to make my Surface Go act as a teleprompter. I think the dialogue is cleaner if I actually use a script.

Since some of the next content I want to cover, is actually construction techniques, I decided to cut out two jackets, from my 200 Jacket Pattern, one from handwoven (the leftover from my wool/mohair swing coat) and one from a Harris Tweed, given to me by the husband of one of my guild members, deciding he wasn’t going to ever have a jacket made from it. I think he would appreciate that it is being used for educational purposes as well as making a stunning jacket. And it will read better in a video.

And yes, that’s a caviar leather skin in the photo above, I’ll use it for the upper collar, the welt pockets, bound buttonholes and maybe even elbow patches.

The lining for the handwoven jacket is a kimono, which I purchased in pieces from a lovely shop on Whidbey Island, the Jan McGregor Studio. Jan carries all kinds of Japanese items, vintage Japanese textiles and furniture, and it is the most delightful shop I’ve ever been in. I hope it survives the pandemic. The kimono was taken apart carefully, and placed in a bag, which I purchased, and so I was able to use the cloth as a lining. I’ve since ditched the rust which I wanted to use for piping.

In the meantime, looking for hand dyed skeins in my studio for a particular project, I came across a number of skeins of the same very fat silk, all of which I had dyed in different colors at different times, that I thought might be fun in the Confetti draft I developed for using some Silk City Fibers yarns. The draft is free in my eShop.

I did a lot of planning and calculations, and used weaving software to figure out a layout, that would be stripey, but minimally. I’m hoping to eventually play with miters in upcoming garments, so this can help mess around with that option. I spent the weekend winding all the warps…

…sleying, threading and ultimately beaming the warp, and testing out a couple of different wefts.

Meanwhile (Everytime I write that word, I can’t escape Steven Colbert’s segment called “Quarantinewhile” he features on A Late Show.) I’m progressing nicely on the 15 yard warp of towels, which will be my holiday gifts. And then of course, I hit a snag. Something that almost never happens

I had a couple of new cones of Webs 8/2 cotton in black, which I used for the weft, and probably didn’t have enough, but didn’t take the time to actually do the calculations, because there was another unmarked mill end cone of 8/2 in black behind it. And after pulling that cone from the shelf, and doing a quick test, I decided it was probably dry rotted and not a good idea to use, black yarns can be problematic anyway, black dye is so harsh, so I have an order out to WEBS for more 8/2, but it may take a week or two to get it. So the towels will just have to wait. I’m guessing I have about 4 yards to go…

I’m carrying on, texts are flying regularly updating me on family situations, and all I can do is keep busy. Just a couple more weeks and we will pass the shortest day of the year, and we will start moving towards the light.

Stay tuned, stay safe, and stay busy…