Nevertheless, They Persisted…

I’m learning how to say no, it is coming quite easily at this point in my life, but people don’t want to hear it… Just saying… They can be persistent, these people…

I’ll start with the biggest thing first. My retrospective at County College of Morris, probably one of the best experiences of my lifetime, came down yesterday. It was an amazing 6 month run, I’m so very very grateful for the college that sponsored this event, for the gallery director who was the most amazing professional I’ve ever worked with, and for all supporters that came from near and far, some flying in from California, St. Louis, Florida, and some driving in from upstate New York, Virginia, and all points in between. Even friends from High School made the couple hour trek from southern NJ. I got a lot of free lunches out of it! The overwhelming positive response made me feel like my life and my work (because they are intertwined) made a difference. If you missed the show, and want to watch the documentary we put together, click here.

But all good things come to an end, and yesterday, helped by a fellow guild member, we had the show completely disassembled, and loaded for the first run home. I held onto about 35 of the 41 dressforms I purchased for the show, various venues requested some for their own exhibit spaces. My guild, the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, Peters Valley, and actually, the Handweaving Museum in Clayton, NY.

So one of the persistent themes throughout this exhibit, was the amount of people who encouraged me, or sometimes demanded of me that I take this show on the road. I couldn’t make them understand that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a beautiful swan song to an amazing career, but I am done. No more… No more exhibiting, no more teaching on the road, no more. Nevertheless they persisted…

As it turns out, one of the people who attended the exhibit, who drove a long way, had a connection to the Handweaving Museum, part of the Thousand Island Arts Center, up on the St. Lawrence River in NY. I know of the museum, haven’t visited myself, but they put on an amazing conference on weaving history, which has been remotely accessed the last couple of years. I’ve already signed up for this October.

One thing led to another, and emails started flying back and forth, and there is a very positive possibility, that the museum will take part or all of my collection of work. It is still in the early stages, and they are building a new facility to house their ever growing collection, but knowing that my work can live on after me, in a way that people can handle the pieces, research the pieces, and learn from them, makes me really really happy. So fingers crossed, I’m hoping within a couple of years, this large collection of handwoven garments and wall pieces will find a permanent home. Plus they want 10 dressforms…

Meanwhile, three carloads of stuff is now in my living room. Or was until late last night.

I managed to haul all of the dressforms, and all of the assorted containers and bags up to the middle guest room, and even one of the very very large suitcases, which I used for years teaching, dragging 170 pounds of luggage around the country. I never thought I’d need these suitcases again, but I dug them out of the attic Thursday night. I emptied one of them this morning. There are still five in the living room. One a day?

Meanwhile, the largest one, finally said enough. As I wheeled it from the car up the steps, the wheels broke apart, and left a trail. It has been an old faithful friend, and now it can truly retire…

I’ve talked ad nauseum about my gardens, which I had planted this spring. I’m completely unfamiliar with all the native perennials, since my property largely consisted of Japanese Barberry and Burning Bush. So it is with joy and discovery that I watch things fill in each day, create a grouping and bloom. The diversity of bugs and pollinators has been remarkable. I even think I caught sight of a monarch butterfly at one point. (There is a lot of milkweed on the property). I got a decent closeup of a swallowtail on the Joe Pye Weed. I have a lot of Joe Pye…

The gardens are ever changing, and the restructuring of the footprint, to accommodate intense rainfall that comes pouring off the mountain, worked so amazingly well, that the last two storms which dumped a lot of water, were uneventful as far as the plantings go. The brown spots in the lawn are the dogs’ potty area. They run down the steps and just squat… Because they are dogs… But the lawn is mostly clover and Creeping Charlie, which is fine with me…

And my ponds are full of fish, the one by the deck has a bunch of small koi in it, and they are quite hilarious to watch, full of personality.

The pond by the fence, which we affectionately call “Kevin’s Pond” has some gorgeous bright orange gold fish. They look forward to the handful of food I toss in every morning.

And I have a water feature which I put in after my husband died, it sits on what use to be his favorite spot in the yard. There is always some bird or insect taking advantage of the bubbling flow.

And with all of that, I continue to sign up for classes in all the things I want to learn how to do better. My sister invited me to a class her friend was giving on Flower Pounding. That is pounding flowers onto a treated cloth. I took a workshop in this last fall I believe it was, and though it was fun and the results were beautiful, everything washed out, and left me with a dull dirty looking dishtowel. The second class I took, yielded nothing. No one in the class got a single transfer of image.

This teacher did her homework, and she not only pretreated both the cellulose pounding cloth and the base with aluminum acetate, and I understand a calcium carbonate dip, which I have to investigate further, all of her students created amazing images with her array of flowers from her garden.

I will say I’m afraid to wash my beautiful linen/rayon table runner. But I did wash the pounding cloth, figuring I’d use it again for the same purpose, and the colors are still bright and strong, and I’m using it for a dishtowel in my studio.

And I’ve already talked about my struggles with eco printing. I want to learn how to do this, and why things work, and the chemistry behind it, and yes, I’ve taken multiple classes in this technique but have never been happy with the results. Much of eco printing now involves natural dyes, which is a whole ‘nother field of study, and the use of iron and color blankets. (I’ve signed up for a 10 week natural dye class at Maiwa in Canada, which starts in September, obviously remote) The last class I took specifically in eco printing, again, left me with more questions than answers, and a lot of mediocre to poor results.

I signed up to take another eco printing class with Kathy Hays, a Florida artist, whom I’ve studied with before years ago, and was happy enough with the results to keep trying. She has developed a number of different classes now, available through Gumroad, and I signed up for the one called Art Scarves. It covers a lot of the natural dyeing aspect and goes into using color blankets.

She starts you with just using iron blankets and learning how to pre or post mordant. I tried some of the leaves on my property, ones that aren’t on anybody’s list of known printers, because what the heck. She also encourages you to just make samples… Like in weaving. Making samples… Great way to learn. And it doesn’t have to be anything… Even though my friends are quite persistent that they would make lovely scarves and I could sell them… No, just no. I want to learn to do this, not make more stuff to sell. Sigh…

My favorite thing to dye with at the moment is my precious ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius), a lovely native bush, that was actually growing on my property, who knew, the only native plant I had, covered by all sorts of undesirable things.

I’m learning how to make color blankets, in essence an unmordanted length of cotton which soaks up a concentrated dye, and then releases it onto the base fabric during steaming. I won’t say more than that, take the class if you want to learn… I’m really happy with the results I’m starting to get. The dye blankets used are from the left, osage orange with and without an iron sulfate pre dip, logwood, and lac (an insect), all on various types of silk from my stash.

Again, the ninebark makes really beautiful prints.

And of course, I’m moving right along on the appliquéd cat quilt. This is block 9, the center block. Once I finish the rest of this block, I can start putting all nine blocks together and then finish the blocks I couldn’t finish because paws and tails overlapped the neighboring blocks. Then a 380 piece crossvine (another native) is added and meanders through the entire quilt. This has been an immensely satisfying diversion this year, as I struggle to keep enormously busy so I don’t dwell on my son’s deployment to the middle east.

When people I haven’t seen in a while ask me how I’m doing, I can honestly say, with a huge smile, that I’m great. I feel good (largely due to the diet I’m on, Dr. Weil’s anti inflammatory diet, (as assigned by my cardiologist) and I am super busy and enjoying the adventure. Plus, what’s not to love just sitting and watching the birds and insects flit around all over my yard. I head out to Peters Valley on Friday (with a load of dressforms in the car) to take another class, this one a three-day weaving class called Textural Abstraction & Woven Imagery, which changed a bit from what I signed up for, as the teacher cancelled at the last minute, but someone else is stepping in and I’m sure I’ll take away something from it…

I play bass recorder with Montclair Early Music at a medieval festival on Sunday, at the Montclair Art Museum, so that should be a fun diversion for the day. Most of the music is pretty straightforward, easily sight-readable, Henry the VIII sort of fare, (he was a great composer of recorder music) but the finale piece is quite challenging. It is called Dragonborn, and is from a video game and it is quite an amazing composition.

Fall is approaching. Cooler weather (I hope) and new happenings in the garden, and more classes to take. I’m quite happy not teaching, not making stuff for sale, and just playing. I can be just as persistent. I earned it…

Just Do It…

I’ve taught most of my adult life, in one form or another. Inspiring others to do for themselves is incredibly rewarding, watching that process of cause and effect, and seeing a student run with creativity, putting their own stamp on the information I have given, it all makes my heart sing.

It would be really great if I could take a workshop with myself once in awhile…

I’ve already mentioned in previous blogs, my quest to reinvent myself, explore new areas and adventures, and keep myself as busy as possible in this challenging year. Challenging for many reasons, not the least of them is my son’s deployment to the middle east. I’ve needed to stay distracted and creative.

And of course, one of the biggest distractions of the year has been replanting my property with thousands of native perennials, bushes and trees. I spend hours out there watering, weeding, and watching bugs, bees, birds (I even saw a small praying mantis) and the activity in general that makes an ecosystem, which I’ve largely ignored up to this point, actually felt irritation, in that it is one more thing calling to me.

Things are starting to bloom, to mature, and I’m beginning to think about fall, and harvest, and when and where to do all those things that I thought about last spring. I’m largely in uncharted territory here. I know enough to know I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, but yet, I know I have to start somewhere. I’ve been taking workshops all year, in natural dyeing, eco printing, indigo dyeing, and even making a willow chair, which I talked about in my last blog.

I’m armed with a stack of books in basketry, in eco printing, in natural dyeing, in native plants, in pollinator gardens, and there is a thing as my dear friend Robyn Spady says, called Analysis Paralysis…

I would tell my students, if you want to get good at something, like making garments from your handwoven fabric, don’t expect the first thing you make to be incredible, prize winning, worthy of a Convergence fashion show. You have to start somewhere. You have to learn to fit your body, you have to learn to use your equipment, you have to learn the perks of your cloth, you have to learn what your body can and can’t do (yet) and personal ergonomics, studio set up, or lack of one, all of those things require a journey. But you have to start somewhere, and you have to keep at it, and discover for yourself. Going to YouTube and searching for a topic, and hoping that person will show you exactly how, might get you pointed in the right direction, but you still have to get on the horse and start the journey.

I will be taking a class starting next Friday, at Peters Valley in basketry. It is with a basket maker I adore, and I’ve taken a class with him before. This class is in free form basketry. I thought, though it isn’t required (materials list is, bring your creativity and a water bottle) that it would be great if I could bring some cordage I made, and in fact, I need to do something with all of last year’s shed full of flag iris leaves that have been dried and stored. There will be a new harvest coming…

So I started making cordage, soaking a few leaves at a time, making 2-3 yards in a sitting, and I’m getting a lovely little stack. I’ve since added a few more yards since I took this photo.

I took an indigo dye workshop with my guild a couple weeks ago (sodium hydroxide vat) and at the end of the day, tossed in a silk scarf blank, thinking I could use it for eco printing. As I’m out watering, I’m thinking, I really need to start harvesting some of these leaves, the peonies are on the way out, and I really need to harvest and dry, or just use them. And every time I eat an avocado, I save the skins and pits, and store them in the freezer. The bag fell out the other day. It was full.

So, I decided to put the books down, and just do it. I grabbed a bunch of wool skeins I had bought, and mordanted them with Aluminum Sulfate. Except, I was using a burner I picked up used, and didn’t really know the settings, and ended up boiling the wool, and to my embarrassment, partially felted six skeins. I felt like a complete beginner. I’m not into watching pots, but a watched pot never boils?

After I removed the skeins from the mordant, I tossed in some silk lengths for scarves, tone on tone silk jacquard, with a pretty watery design in it. And I tossed in a yard of a silk/cotton lining fabric, just because, I’m curious.

Annoyed with myself, I took the avocados out of the freezer and someone told me to grind up the pits. I pulled out my food processor, with the grater disk, and realized that I needed to thaw the pits first. Duh… Even a Cuisinart won’t grate rocks…

I put them in the sun, and they thawed within the hour, and I was able to grind the pits up, and tossed it all into a soup pot and didn’t care if they all boiled away, except that I read later that boiling them takes away the pink color. Sigh…

I got a pretty peach color, with two skeins of wool, one mordanted and one not (I read that avocados don’t need a mordant), and I added one of the silk lengths.

And it seems with all foodstuffs, that the color isn’t really stable, or so I’ve read. So once washed, they were kind of dull and uninspiring, and one of the skeins is partially felted… There is that. But I can always overdye…

I took the peach colored silk jacquard length, and went out and harvested a bowl full of cool stuff. Cotinus (smoke bush), Japanese maple, ferns, Oak, Peonies, Rose leaves, Redbud, and I tossed in for good measure some onion skins.

I used an iron blanket, a length of cotton I had, dipped in Ferrous Sulfate, and laid on top. Rolled the whole thing up and steamed the bundle, for maybe an hour, forgetting that I had to go out to an appointment, and didn’t want to just walk away from a steaming roaster. So I turned it off and a few hours later came back to it.

The results were hugely disappointing. Other than the orange pops of the onion skins, there was almost no imprint on the silk.

Though the iron blanket was pretty. But not what I was going for.

I grabbed the indigo dyed scarf, and tried again. This time, I just went back to basics, and sprayed it with 50/50 vinegar and water, and tried again.

Super disappointed, there was no imprint at all except for the few coreopsis flowers I tossed on at the last minute.

Still, there are many avenues to take here, so I started over, mordanted the indigo scarf with aluminum sulfate, and dipped all the botanicals in Ferrous Sulfate before laying them onto the scarf.

I covered it with an iron blanket, another length of cotton from the stash, and finally, I got something I can work with.

The iron blanket actually had some color in it, but I am starting to think about different post options, and thought, what if I tossed it into a dyebath, and so I did, with a handful of onion skins. I always have those available. The onion skins and the ferrous sulfate combined to make a lovely green. I haven’t washed either scarf, I read I should wait for a few days…

Meanwhile, I’ve ordered a bunch of dye extracts and chemicals from Botanical Colors in Seattle. They will take a while to get across the country. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate a source for aluminum acetate, everyone seems to be on back order. I’m patient. I have enough to keep me busy.

But I’m starting to get excited, see what I can try next. None of this is what I actually want as a result, but it is a start. I won’t make that award winning piece for awhile, if ever, but that isn’t the point here. I’m learning, exploring, wondering what will happen if… And that is the point. And all of this is coming from my gardens. Except the chemicals…

Of course, having learned my lesson, I now baby-sit pots all day long. I thought I was off the hook watering my gardens the last couple of days, since we were supposed to have torrential rains tonight into tomorrow. It looks like most of it will go south of us. So that means back to watering tomorrow, but I had a couple days just sitting and watching pots, and working on quilt appliqué block number seven.

There are nine blocks in this quilt, a project my mom bought in the 90’s, and never got to do; asking me last year if I would make it for her. Her arthritis is too bad now, she is 93. I agreed and it has been an amazing project. The coolest puzzle I’ve ever assembled. Once the 9 cat blocks are finished and assembled, there is a huge vine that meanders through the entire quilt, the trunk of which starts with the cat I’m working on, his claws are scratching the trunk, or will be. I can’t completely stitch them down until the rest of the quilt is together. It is the perfect project to work on, that and cordage from my invasive flag iris leaves, while I sit and watch pots so they don’t boil.

And I did order an induction burner from Amazon. I can actually set the temperature…

Stay tuned…

Mom of 3000…

Mother’s Day is tomorrow. I honestly don’t pay too much attention to Hallmark holidays. This time last year we were in Japan. My daughter bought me flowers last night, and a small piece of my favorite cake, Tiramisu. That’s a holdover from my late husband, something we both loved… And she made these tiny arrangements out of a Lego knock-off that are lovely and will sit in my window in the kitchen. My son is half way across the world doing military duty. I wish he were home.

This has been a crazy few weeks. I wanted it that way. With my son away, and drama all around me, I wanted big projects to stay as busy as I can to focus on that which I cannot change.

Everything came together in the last week. Last Sunday my music group, Montclair Early Music had their spring concert. Called Myth and Magic, it celebrated the Renaissance, and fantasy, video games, and Harry Potter. I borrowed a dress that was more fantasy than Renaissance. So I can now cross that off my list of things to focus on.

I finished the cat appliqué quilt block number 4, and this one was really really hard. All that feathery cat fur was very challenging to appliqué.

I’m working on block 5, my goal is one a month and finish by the end of the year when I can give it to my mom. It was her project, quilt block of the month from Maggie Walker, purchased in the late 90’s. She asked me to make it for her since she is in her 90’s and her eyesight and arthritic fingers make it too difficult for her to work on. I found the endless stitching to be centering, soothing, and really really good for my mental health.

This past Thursday night, my retrospective at County College of Morris, in Morris County, NJ reopened. Though the magic of the first opening will never be matched, a number of my guild members came and we had the most lovely time, chatting, talking about weaving, and we met a new fellow weaver wearing an awesome handwoven scarf, which we were all over, and convinced him to join the guild. Which he did. Our numbers are growing…

Monday I give the keynote address to the Morris County Teen Arts Festival, and then that will be behind me. The exhibit will be open through the summer, now through August 22. Hours are M-F 9-6. There is hope that there will be Saturday hours, but a lot of people have to agree, including security, and they aren’t always on the same page.

Meanwhile, this week, my landscape designer, who has been here for more than a month, finished planting more than 3000 perennials, with a couple dozen bushes and trees, almost all native, and designed to attract pollinators, and bloom from early spring into late fall. I have so much to learn. But I’m starting with something.

My job is to keep everything alive for the next few weeks until root systems are established. A couple hours of watering a day will be required. I knew what I was getting into, but what I didn’t know, was how magical early mornings are, with robins, and butterflies, and bugs, and nature all doing its thing. I’ve never spent so much time outside. There is a robin that comes and finds me every morning. And a pair of cardinals that lurks nearby. And there is a painted lady butterfly that is checking out all the new plants. I’m learning each type of plant the designer put in. We went around today and labeled things so I’d be able to learn to recognize plants from their earliest spring sprouts through blooming, and dying back in the fall. The ponds continue to be a challenge, but they are full of happy fish.

The designer laid two palettes of gorgeous bluestone. Some of it is surrounded by grass, but the rest will eventually be buried in beds of phlox and violets. All those little plugs will fill in and there won’t be visible dirt to weed.

I’ve had well meaning friends wonder why I don’t just invest in sprinklers. Not only is that an indiscriminate waste of water, but what I water and how much depends on each plant and its location. And if it rained recently and how much. This is sort of like having a new baby, scant directions, developing new instincts, flying by the seat of your pants, because you have little idea of what you are doing. But I’m trying, and hoping to keep my 3000+ charges alive. And make sure the southern Magnolias and American Holly don’t get root rot.

And I’ve been clearing a decent size bed, between my property and the edge of the backyard next door, of bags full of Creeping Charlie. And other invasive nasties. I’m thinking this is where I want to put my dye garden. I just have to look up what to plant. I’m going shopping next week! In search of dye plants… And maybe start a watercolor gardening journal, there are some really beautiful things in my yard…

I’m doing what I love, learning something new. Discovering a new magical world. And I am willing to work hard to keep it all alive. We didn’t kill all the invasives, there are still a lot on my property. Mostly what’s left serves a purpose, privacy, screening, shade, beautiful fall color. Bit by bit, as the newly planted trees and bushes grow, I’ll be taking a lot more out. And I’m finding things I didn’t know I had, violets, fleabane, and some other cool things the landscape designer identified, but I’ve already forgotten. And yes, that is an Alaskan Weeping Cedar, and no it is not native to NJ, but as my landscape designer said, it is a really cool tree…

So Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, and everyone out there who cares for something, whether it be a child, a dog, a cat, goldfish in a pond, or a tree. There is something healing about caring for something outside yourself. It takes a village, it takes a planet.

Stay tuned…

While I was planning something else…

Most of you know at this point that my son has been deployed to a place in the middle east that is challenging. My goal this year was to stay so busy I wouldn’t have time to think about that challenge. And so far that has been my life saver. The exhibit was one of the greatest things to happen to me professionally. It is down now, or rather the 41 dress forms have been moved to a smaller gallery, the Titan Gallery, around the corner from the main gallery. That leaves the main gallery for their end of semester student show. I had wanted to get there to see it. At the beginning of May, the full exhibit will return, exactly the way it was, to the main gallery, with another reopening May 9th, coordinating with the Teen Arts Festival. The exhibit will remain up until the end of August. I expect to be there the final couple days before reopening to check that all the labels are correct and all the clothing hanging the way I like it. Lots of zhuzhing up…

Here are a couple images from the Titan Gallery.

The show will reopen with a formal opening from 6-8PM on May 9th, that’s a Thursday, and the hours of the show, from what I understand, are M-F 9-6, and probable Saturday hours, but that’s not confirmed.

The response has been overwhelming, carloads of friends, guild members from across three states, friends from my High School in South Jersey, I’m touched and honored at the support. What a beautiful way to end my professional career, allowing me to do fun things that retired people do. Like weave, knit, garden, volunteer, you know. Have fun…

I made the decision last fall, that I really needed to remove the invasives from my property, and so I hired a fantastic landscape designer, highly recommended, to basically redesign my property. I mentioned this before in my blog. She has been remarkable. Covered in mud at the end of the day, she is out there with her one helper, hauling dirt, hauling trees, moving boulders around my yard. This is just one area that she has cleaned out and reworked, and the hundreds of plugs of perennials will eventually be added. My entire property will basically look like this but full of perennials. My only job is to keep this watered and weeded until everything is established. No problem she says with complete confidence…

Meanwhile, I had this beautiful vine covered gazebo that became invaded by a horrifically invasive Akebia vine. Which I did not plant. It killed everything else, except one pocket of cross vine, struggling for any kind of survival. I gave my daughter permission to start ripping. 11 bags later to the brush recycling, and the structure had been so compromised that we decided to purchase a similar domed structure that would help support the crossvine and any new ones we planted, and anchored the two together. It will be a few years, but I’ll have my gazebo back.

So while all of that is happening, I signed up for a three day workshop through my guild, with Rosalie Neilson, on Rep. Rep is a warp face structure, with alternating thick and thin wefts. It is great for rugs, and bags, and I just wanted to hang with my weaving buddies. Day 2 was entertaining in that we were about 15 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake that struck western NJ. It was felt up into Boston. They are still talking about it. 4.8 magnitude. Not common on the east coast. At first I thought the building had been hit by a truck, but the rumbling and shaking kept happening. It took us a long time to figure out it was an earthquake, and so we ran outside. I have to honestly say, it was an incredible experience to feel the earth under my feet swaying back and forth, like waves, subtle but very intense. I’ve never felt anything like it. It was a powerful thing to witness. We stayed outside for about 15 minutes and decided we were cold and went back to the workshop. No discernable damage, we kept close watch on our phones for any updates. There have been something like 85 aftershocks, none of which I felt.

We ended the workshop on Saturday, and though I still have warp left, I cut off what I’d done, and we all got to take pictures. I’ve done rep before, so I understood it, but I had never tried Warp Floats, which is a sort of turned Honeycomb structure, except both sides are the inverse of each other unlike weft Honeycomb. I want to try more of that.

Sunday, one of my guild buddies and I headed into NY to the NY Botanical Gardens Orchid show. It was of course gorgeous, and I couldn’t take enough photos. Their infamous glass house of course had other types of plants, and I’m always up for cactus and succulents.

Lots of inspiration here, especially for dyeing…

Meanwhile, because I’d pulled a lot of old work and scraps from the attic looking for things for the retrospective, I had piles of scraps, still, from the production years in the 1980’s. I hate to just toss all of it. I keep thinking that there has to be some fun thing I can do, some patchworky thing, besides all the ornaments, bags, totes, greeting cards, etc., I do already for my guild sale. These are not my best fabrics, these are plain weave, mixed warps, all from the early and mid-1980’s. But they are still valid fabrics. So I thought I might try my favorite sweater jacket pattern, and maybe a larger size, so someone bigger than me can fit into it at my guild sale. I started to lay out the fabrics in a blocky random way.

I have lots of colors in scraps of silk noil, that I made into bias tubes to put between the butted handwoven scraps, which were fused onto a backing. I added a layer of punch needle fleece, so when I stitch down the bias tubes, I’d be essentially quilting the jacket.

I wasn’t sure at first, but now that I see the back finished, I’m really liking it and can’t wait to see it as a finished jacket. There is a four part series of this piecing technique on my YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews. They were some of the last ones I recorded.

Meanwhile, I’m continuing work on the cat appliqué quilt blocks my mom gave me last year, something she wanted to start in the 90’s, but never got around to it. She asked me to make it for her. I was horrified at first, but then started playing around with it, and truth be told this is so much fun. I love watching each cat build from the fabrics they give you. This one is particularly challenging with all the fringy fur. But I’m finishing up quilt block 4 of 9. Blocks 1-3 are in previous blog posts. This cat is a Persian, and all that is left is the face, which has something like 35 pieces.

And in between all of that, I’m rehearsing for a concert in May, with my early music group. I love the music, Renaissance music is fun and fun to play, and this particular concert will also include music from video games like the Legend of Zelda.

I should have been at rehearsal tonight. But life sort of got in the way. You know, things happen when you are planning something else?

So Tuesday, I was running around shopping and packing boxes to send to my son overseas. He asked for some things like K-cups and snacks, and I’m a good military mom, and got right on it. Trying to fit everything into one box proved challenging, so I went out to our recycling bin for a second box. I was running up and down between floors, my house is 125+ years old and there are practically steps between every room. I came down carrying the second box and missed the last step and next thing I knew, I’m screaming in pain, and the indignity of it all, and please don’t let it be broken.

I did manage to get to the post office, to ship two boxes of stuff to my son in parts of the world that are challenging. I left the post office and knew at that point that it was broken. Three hours in the ER confirmed. I’m pissed of course, because I’m having fun, and keeping busy doing the things I want to do. I want to be in the gardens. I want to be at music rehearsal. I want to be weaving, and planning, and volunteering. The diagnosis is a cortical avulsion fracture at the dorsum of the navicular, with a possible fracture at the lateral aspect of the cuboid. Or in simpler terms, I broke the top of my foot.

They gave me a temporary splint, and a pair of crutches, and may I say that giving an almost 70 year old woman a pair of crutches is pretty dangerous. I almost killed myself a half dozen times on the way home.

I saw the foot specialist today, and in the corner of the waiting room was this really pretty fake hydrangea. I got a picture of it. I loved the colors. I’m already thinking it will be my next warp. The foot specialist put me in a boot, but wants an MRI, scheduled for Monday to make sure I didn’t tear the tendon coming from my ankle. I doubt it, and I’m in absolutely no pain. There isn’t much swelling, and I’m learning to navigate with this giant thing on my foot. Please don’t tell me I’m doing too much. There is no way I can sit on the couch with my feet up for anything longer than an hour or two. I just can’t do it. There is too much going on, animals to attend to, and too many fun things I want to do. So I will find a way. My next goal is to figure out how to get out in the garden, sit my butt on a cart, and continue pulling out invasives. A broken shoulder two years ago didn’t stop me, and a broken foot won’t either.

So I’ll be at my opening in a boot, I’ll give the Teen Arts Festival keynote address in a boot. I’ll perform at my early music concert in medieval garb, with a boot. I’ll take a workshop in natural dyeing at Peters Valley in a boot. And I’ll drive to a farm in south Jersey for a lecture on growing dye plants, in a boot. And I’ll do what I always do. And if I have to weave on a floor loom, I still have one usable foot. Mostly I’m working on table looms, so that isn’t an issue at the moment.

I’ll post the updated promotional materials for the exhibit once I have them, and I’ll keep you posted on the gardens and all my other adventures. The pieced jacket will probably be on hold a bit, because when I build these pieces I stand at the cutting table. Standing is a bit challenging at the moment, but I’ll figure out a way.

Enjoy your spring my friends, heavy rains due in tonight. Everything will get a good drink of water.

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…