Tag: The Weaver Sews

One repeat at a time…

Or one row at a time, or one module at a time, or one inch at a time…

There is a great saying, used well by 12-step groups, “One Day at a Time…” The theory is that you can accomplish anything if you just take it one day, or even one minute at a time. I’ve lived by those words for my entire adult life, and it is how I accomplish much of what I set out to do…

This is a new year. And though I almost never set resolutions for myself, this year I have a number of goals. Continuing to clear looms is high on the list, but the most important one, is to finish the online class I started in Natural Dyeing with Maiwa. I signed up back in 2024, it was an expensive class, and I bought the kit, with all the fabrics, dyes, chemicals, tagging sheets, everything needed to take the class. It was shipped from Canada. I have three years to complete the course. I’m already half way into that time restriction. So this dark cold January, when I thought the music rehearsals and performances would ease up (Hahahahahah… what was I thinking…) that I could really take the time to work through all the modules, one a day.

I am actually doing well, I’m more than half finished the class, and have a lovely array of wool yarn, wool fabrics, and silk jacquard all dyed with natural dyes. Each of those skeins/fabrics, will then be cut into more pieces to experiment with modifiers, indigo overdyes, etc. The class is fantastic. Worth every penny I spent. Directions and videos are exceptional, and I look forward to cranking up the dye pot every morning.

My only complaint, and it is a humorous one, and I was warned, all the dye baths need to be saved for exhaust dye studies. So my basement refrigerator looks like this, and I haven’t even gotten to the cotton/linen/hemp module. It is hard to find large ball jars in the middle of winter…

I’ve already written in a previous post how I’m not great at babysitting pots on the stove, so I went to the loom with the Shadow Weave Sampler, in 8/2 Tencel, and I’d weave one section of one repeat, get up and check the temp on the dyepot, and stir, and then go back and weave another section of one repeat. After a couple of weeks of this, I finished two 2-yard scarves, and have enough warp left for a few more repeats, which I’ll use for zippered bags next fall for the guild sale. The pattern is from Webs.

Meanwhile, this morning it snowed. We got about 4″ of heavy wet snow, which I had to clear pretty quickly, because in NJ, temps drop at night, causing everything to freeze and turn to ice. But I made myself a deluxe grain bowl and sat by my garden window in the music room and watched the falling snow. It was beautiful.

Meanwhile, I had transferred the warp from one of my little Structos, which was set up for Doup Leno. I put it on one of my small 4-shaft floor looms. With a single shuttle, I blew through that warp in a couple sittings. Though it was painfully slow to twist all that fringe.

I had actually cleared that loom back in November or December and put on a run of Monk’s belt towels, which I talked about in my last blog post, from the latest issue of Handwoven Magazine, and blew through them in record time, which gave me a nice stack for holiday gifts.

The loom I was weaving on, sits tucked into a corner next to a shelving unit, and hanging from that shelving unit were two very large skeins of hand painted cotton, which kept getting in the way when I’d reach back to adjust the back brake. In disgust, I pulled the skeins from the side of the shelving unit, and then got distracted, thinking, how much fun would it be to weave up some yardage, using a draft I developed for Silk City Fibers, using a similar fat cotton floating over a finer ground. The draft is on my website, and is free.

It was great fun to go shopping in my stash. I refuse to ever buy yarn again, I have so much, and I pulled things that made the hand painted warp sing.

I went right to the warping board, once I finished all the towels, cut them off, washed and hemmed them, and gave them all away.

There is a fine thread of purple glitter yarn, which must have been something my daughter acquired because I can’t imagine ever buying purple metallic.

I am in the process of threading the heddles, again, a couple inches at a time, in between weaving off the shadow weave, and watching the next module for the Maiwa class. I’m more than half way, and can’t wait to beam this and start weaving to see what it looks like. Patience…

When I showed my weaving buddies the photo of the warp, my friend Ginnie, who lives on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where they are up to 137″ of snow, that is not a typo, sent me a gorgeous photo of a winter sunset, that looks exactly like the palette of my yarn choices.

Meanwhile, last Saturday I had a performance with one of my Early Music Groups, this one for a Viking coronation ceremony. It was so much fun, I played cello mostly, and we all got dressed up in our medieval garb, and played our hearts out, all through the ceremony. There was a wonderful Viking feast afterward, with all foods that would have been cooked back in the Viking period.

Meanwhile… first the back story… My daughter, many of you know, is a terrific weaver. Before Covid, she was even thinking of going into life as a craftsman, between the knitting machines, and the looms, five of the ones in the studio are hers, and we started teaching together, and planning to move in the direction of a mother/daughter team. Then Covid hit, and everything got cancelled, I don’t have to tell you dear readers, that so many people, including me, changed the direction of their lives as a result. I had hired my out-of-work daughter, to figure out how to do a YouTube channel, we bought the equipment and filmed more than 75 videos, one a week for more than a year and a half. It is called, The Weaver Sews, and if you haven’t checked it out at this point there is a tremendous amount of information on Sewing Handwoven Fabrics. It is everything I know.

Anyway, my daughter went on to finish her vet tech degree, and after a couple of different positions at vet practices, she now works the night shift as a critical care vet tech and sleeps all day. She loves the job, and the career, and spends her days, when she is not asleep doing things she loves, watching TikTok, playing video games, building small kits she finds online, and creating a life very different than mine. I have no judgement here, I miss her in the studio, but in our discussions, she has mostly just lost the passion she once had. It may come back, but it isn’t my life or my place to push her to do that which no longer defines her. She has a really tough career, some of the stories she tells are devastating. She does what she needs to do for her sanity. As I do mine…

One of my long term goals is to completely downsize my entire studio, move out things that no longer interest me, and though I’m down to under 30 looms, from my previous high of 64, I still have a long way to go to clear and find teaching homes for my equipment. I cannot keep a studio with 30 looms in the hopes that someday my daughter will want to return to my passion.

In 2021, my daughter loaded a trailer onto the SUV, and drove to Rochester NY to pick up a loom that had become available, a 12-shaft 54″ wide Tools of the Trade Loom. I wrote about the adventure here. It is a monster loom, originally from the Rochester Institute of Technology, which closed its weaving program some time ago. It takes up a huge amount of space in the studio. It is really too much loom for me, lifting 54″ rock maple shafts at 70 years old is a challenge. Originally my daughter commandeered the loom after I wove a small piece of yardage, and there still sits, a very long warp, for rainbow dish towels, taken from a 1959 10-shaft draft from Robin and Russ. (I would have been four years old…) Since we had 12 shafts, she rewrote the draft to use all 12. She wove a couple of towels for gifts, but the warp still sits on what is essentially my loom. I bought it and paid for it.

I have found someone who wants it, The Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. It will be used in their new renovated weaving studio. It seems fitting that it is going from RIT to FIT… The problem is, I’ve repeatedly asked my daughter to clear the warp, and after a number of months, I realize she isn’t going to. So…

First I had to figure out what she did. She doesn’t keep records, it is all in her head… I sat for a long time staring at weaving software and came up with the draft, based on the original, the current threading and tie-up.

I will tell you, by the time I finish this warp, I will have the leg strength of an ox, and a bunch of powerful back muscles. This is pretty tough on the body. But I am weaving the warp off. I do about 4 repeats at a time, and it adds up. She probably won’t be happy with me, it is her warp, but it is my loom, and I’ve given her plenty of opportunity to weave it off.

And, of course there are bins and bins of spinning fibers, which haven’t been touched in a ridiculous number of years. I joined my guild’s spinning study group, and we meet once a month and just sit around as friends and chat, and spin, or knit, or whatever someone is currently working on that’s portable. My goal is that at least once a month, I have devoted time to just sit and spin. And today, I plied the last of this mystery fiber I bought too many conferences ago, I’m thinking it is Merino and maybe Tencel, or all Merino, it is beautiful. You can tell I started spinning it years ago, and with a dozen year’s gap, the spin isn’t the same as what I spin now. But I’ll make something from it eventually. One bobbin at a time, one month at a time, and eventually the job gets done.

All of my Early Music ensembles are gearing up for spring concerts and recitals, and events. I have more playlists than I had last December if you can imagine that. So when I’m not rehearsing or practicing, I’m in the studio, tackling a task an inch at a time, a repeat at a time, a dye class module at a time, one day at a time…

Stay tuned…

Into the light…

Tomorrow (or today, depending on when I finish this post) is the Winter Solstice, December 21st at 10:30am for the northern hemisphere. No matter what holiday you celebrate, or don’t, this time of year, the seasons remain strong reminders of the power of light and darkness. The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year, the light will return. And plants will grow, and nature will thrive in spite of us.

I looked out my window earlier this week and saw this. It is/was beautiful, I say “was” because it was all gone quickly when we had 3/4″ of rain the other day, and the temps got up to 60 degrees.

Meanwhile, in prep for all the cold weather approaching, I did one final sweep of the vegetable garden, and harvested the remaining chard, and late planted arugula. They were washed and refrigerated, and I’m enjoying the last of my garden harvest, well into December. And there is all that tomato sauce and pesto in the freezer…

Performance season is drawing to a close, it has been crazy and wild and a true honor to perform at so many places for worthy causes. I’m not a professional musician, I don’t want to be, so performing with a group for a worthy cause, like a nursing home, is the ultimate way of giving joy to those who don’t get much joy during the holiday season.

There was the Randolph, NJ Historical Society open house with the Mendham Consort. We were the background music and I played bass recorder.

There was the Holiday Tapestry concert for Montclair Early Music, I played recorder for the main group, and cello with the beginner group called the Musettes. That’s me way in the far end of the semi-circle with my cello.

My new cello has been just an amazing piece of equipment. It is lightweight, super responsive, and I can be much more relaxed about extreme weather conditions. It is a 3-D printed carbon fiber cello from Forte3-D.

I’m thinking that somebody needs to start producing looms and other weaving equipment on a large scale using more contemporary materials and processes, because if they can make a performance cello from plastic, surely they can make a loom. Like the little Structo I used for teaching…

Anyway, I played with the Mendham Consort again, at an event sponsored by Project Self Sufficiency, which is an incredible non-profit charity spanning two counties that that helps low-income families achieve economic stability through comprehensive support services like case management, job training, childcare, and emergency assistance. They sponsor a toy drive each holiday season, so no child goes without. Area musicians provide background holiday music for the “shopping” experience.

And the one that I worked the hardest on, the annual Suzuki concert with the cellos and violins (maybe 30 of us?) at a local nursing home. This is just a small section of the full group, musicians as young as 4, playing some pretty challenging stuff. I’m way in the back with one of the other adults. On my carbon fiber cello.

Good thing I’m a textile artist… two days before a concert where I would be playing my bass recorder, a Kung, Swiss made, magnificent piece, really powerful, so happy with it except… the cork broke. Two days before the concert. I do not own a repair kit, however, before there were corks sealing the joints on recorders, there was string. I had a cone of 16/2 cotton, and a cake of beeswax, and with a lot of patience, I carefully strung the joint, and it works perfectly. ( I should mention that this recorder, a 70th birthday present to myself, was more expensive than what I paid for my used 54″ 12-Shaft Tools of the Trade Loom, why do I insist on jumping down rabbit holes of very expensive hobbies…)

One of the other members of the consort I play with, is also a handweaver. She approached me after one of our performances and said she heard I’d given up weaving… Hahahahahaha! Why would I do that?

In reality, I stopped using handweaving as something that produced income. I don’t want to do it anymore as a profession. I left an 80 video YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews, available free (though the ads are annoying); it is everything I know about sewing handwovens, and I make nothing from it. I did not monetize the channel, it is my gift to a community that supported me for 40 years. And I spent about a year and a half indexing the videos, so you (and I) could find the content we want to access specifically. That index can be found here.

But I am and will always be a handweaver, as long as I can still crawl under the loom. (’cause remember, I’m a floor loom fan, not a table loom fan…) I was sitting in my bathroom, where I keep all my unread magazines, and picked up the latest Handwoven Magazine (Winter 2025), and started leafing through it. I spied a photo of some lovely towels, in a Monk’s Belt pattern, on a 4-shaft loom, by Malynda Allen, and thought… “Oh crap, I need to get my December Towel Run on the loom, because it is yikes! December…”

And so, I grabbed some natural 8/2 cotton, I have a huge stash of natural yarns for dyeing, and put 10 yards on the loom. Took me about a day and a half. I work quick.

These towels are really easy, great stash busters (I used 5/2 perle cotton instead of the suggested 6/2 cotton which I have in a bazillion colors, for the Monk’s Belt borders), the entire middle is just plain weave.

I pulled the 10 yards off the loom the other day, threw the entire thing in the wash, and voila! There are 9 new towels to add to the stack.

So yes, I still weave. And I play music. And I am surrounded by so many wonderful new friends, from garden people, to early music people, to textile people, to handweavers, and sometimes, they are part of more than one community. In this return to the light, may your days be brighter with each sunrise, may the holiday season bring hope of a better New Year, where we all can respect each other, especially our differences. There is room for everyone at the table.

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…

Ducks in a Row…

This has been a wild week in the studio. First, a little back story…

If you have been following this blog over the past year or so, you know that I set out on a quest to warp all of the 64 looms in the studio, many of them table looms, Structos, or inkle looms. I blogged about them all over a few blog posts.

I’ve set out on a different quest to clear those looms, and rethink my life as to what I want to really hold on to moving forward… The floor looms, at least those that are mine and not my daughter’s, are all cleared. I am a yardage weaver and like nothing better than to sit and weave like a galloping horse. 10 yards, not really a problem. Though I can’t clear off the amount of yardage in one sitting like I could in my 20’s.

So now, I have a bunch of table looms to clear. And if I were really truthful, I hate weaving on a table loom. It is slow and tedious. Especially if there is a complex structure. Like a Bateman Blend, which I set up for a sample for an article I wrote for Heddlecraft Magazine. (Issue #38)

There is nothing like a table loom to explain structure, because you have to hand manipulate each shaft (and in this one there are 8), and though you can achieve a rhythm, it isn’t the same as when your hands and feet are all working together. I found myself bored and distracted. Constantly jumping up to do anything but… At one point I even redid the shaft tie-up system, as this was a used loom, and though I have six others like it, the previous owner did something odd that I thought prevented me from getting the shed I needed. So a trip to the hardware store, and some fine tuning, I was happy with the shed and struggled to get back to weaving.

Meanwhile, at the end of my last post, I talked about this cat appliqué quilt block I inherited from my mom, and I found that I was getting quite obsessed, almost addicted. It was all I wanted to do…

I’d set timers, ok, I’ll work on this section and then weave a few repeats, and then work on the appliqué some more as a treat. It worked for a while since I now have the knots over the back beam, there is only about 6 inches more to weave.

Mostly I would just sit and let my mind wander while I was stitching, and my mind wandered to the calendar. I looked ahead at the next couple months, and there is a lot coming up, private students, some teaching remotely, garden tours and lectures, interesting things, but what made me sit up and stop stitching, was realizing that my guild show and sale is only 2 months away.

Part of my musings are around the amount of equipment and stash that exists in my life. No one is complaining, but there comes a point when is it fair to me to keep holding stuff that is 40 years old? I’m not talking about usable yarn or fabric, I’m talking about scraps in my attic from my 1980 production years. I’ve worked over the last couple of decades to reduce the 18 bankers boxes filled to capacity. But there is still a lot up there. And a lot of it is mohair. Which isn’t so easy to use up in small pieces.

I took a stroll in my attic and started opening drawers, and pulled out one that had some mohair scraps, rather large ones, in a couple color ways, and brought them down to the studio. I got the idea of creating a sweater jacket using the same pattern as my beloved Noro jacket I wove a couple years ago.

I found the pattern and started playing around with what I had on the table. At first, I thought I’d just do a vest, but it was clear I could add a couple of sleeves with some careful piecing.

A couple of small balls of mohair blend in my knitting stash would work well for the crocheted trim around the perimeter of the jacket and the pockets. I’m about half way around.

Which left me with this pile of small scraps.

I reached out to some of my weaving buddies, and asked for ideas for what to do with small scraps of mohair. One of them suggested stuffed animals. I really haven’t made any stuffed animals, I always joke that I don’t do crafts, but the idea was intriguing. I have a data base of all my patterns, including the 20 years of Burda Style Magazine. I quickly found patterns for a squirrel and a rabbit.

There weren’t large enough pieces left in this pile of mohair to do either one, but I had also pulled out some other mohair scraps, thinking I could get a vest or jacket out of those, and they ended up perfect to cut this adorable squirrel. The issue of Burda Style was May 2014.

Meanwhile, I started to think about ornaments I used to make as teacher gifts when my kids were little. I dug out the box I had in my closet, along with an article in Handwoven magazine November/December 2003 (which I wrote, duh…) and thought, wow, some of these like the little bear would be great in mohair.

So I cut out a few bears, and a couple of birds, using a pattern I found along with the box of ornaments.

And I started playing around with a stocking. I didn’t like the first iteration, the one on the right, and my daughter helped me refine the pattern to the one on the left. I thought the body of the stocking was just a little to high, so I’ve cut out probably a half dozen just a little bit shorter.

Meanwhile, I grabbed some non mohair scraps, including a bag labeled, scraps for coiled mats. Most of the work was already done. I made a coiled mat out of one of the piles.

And then made a second one, using up a ball of filler cord. I have a huge spool in the attic, so there is plenty more mats in my future.

Meanwhile, I pulled this bag of non mohair scraps, it is a color way I always loved, and there wasn’t a lot left. One of my private students told me about a base fabric she uses for bags and totes, she is from the quilting world, called In-R-Form foam from Bosal. She actually sent me a few yards to play with. It is a foam with great stability, yet more flexibility than the Peltex I have been using. So, much easier to work on. I laid out a tote.

And finished it off yesterday morning.

Meanwhile, I took the scraps left from the tote, and cut more ornaments. I can’t tell you what a mess I made of my studio, pulling ribbons and floss and Ultrasuede scraps and most important, buttons. The cat parked himself right in the middle of it all to supervise.

So here are a bunch of ducks… All in a row!

And I have little project bags for each of the couple dozen ornaments I’ve cut out. I can grab one and start assembling.

And yesterday afternoon, I made a rabbit from another colorway of mohair I had up in the attic. This one is from a Burda Style Magazine April 2014. I’m completely in love with this rabbit, and would love to keep him, but I’d have to keep him in the closet because my dog likes things with stuffing. It would be destroyed in 10 minutes. And I would be heartbroken. So it will find someone else to live with at my guild sale in November. It needs a ribbon around its neck, perhaps an inkle band, and I might redo the mouth with a full six strands of floss.

I haven’t been this intense in the studio in years. I just want to be down there, working until midnight, forgetting to eat, pissed when I have an appointment to interrupt me. It feels like falling in love all over again. That Bateman Structure on the loom, I still have about 6″ to go, and I still have to finish the last 3 letters of the name of the cat in the quilt block. (And there are 8 more cat quilt blocks in the set). They will get done, but I’m just having way too much fun thinking of things to make with this bonanza of leftovers from the 1980’s.

There is a monograph showing all of the techniques I used, available on my website as a download. And I have 3 or 4 videos on my YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews, on the piecing technique I used for the tote bag. They were some of the last ones we shot.

My favorite month since I was a little kid was September. The change in weather, fresh pencils and notebooks, the chance to learn new things; September is always a shot in the arm for me. I’d say I dove in to this month head first…

Stay tuned…

Above all, be flexible…

These last couple of weeks nearly killed me. So much so that today, I went back to bed after taking care of all the animals, and I curled up with a very trashy novel and had a real day off… I haven’t done that in years. The trashy novel was book four of the Bridgerton series, got it cheap on my Kindle, and it was the perfect thing to curl up with, and actually catch my breath..

This all started the weekend before Thanksgiving. I promised my 91 year old mom a long overdue visit. She lives about 3 1/2 hours from me in Maryland. I arrived on a Friday for lunch, she had chicken soup waiting for me. It was the best. From a completely weary and overworked daughter, coming home to mom and having chicken soup put in front of me, well I’ve never been so grateful for anything in my life.

We had lots of fun over the next couple days, picking up puzzles at the barn sale at her complex, she gave me half, and she kept half and we will eventually swap. I took her around for her errands, and Sunday afternoon, we had a lovely lunch of Crab Imperial. I carried the lunch dishes to the sink, and I heard an oof and then a thud, and I turned, and just like that, mom tripped over her rug, and landed flat on her face, taking out a dining chair in the process.

I can’t begin to tell you the myriad of things that went through my mind. And of course, the first thing was, damn, this happened on my watch, and my sisters are going to kill me. The ambulance came, she was transported to the hospital, x-rays, CT scans, lots of blood work, and because no one is available for rehab on a Sunday night, I sat with my mom in the ER, who broke her right shoulder in two places, same as me almost a year ago, in the hospital, for 30 hours. I’d like to say it was the longest day of my life, but I’ve had worse. I adore her, and she was really trying to keep her spirits up.

Above all, be flexible…

I stayed an extra day in Maryland, making sure mom was safe in the rehab in her complex. My Maryland sister will take over. And my heart bled for my mom. My broken shoulder was my non dominant side, and I’m only 67. She broke her dominant side. Though when she said to the medical staff, actually anyone who would listen, that this is the 14th broken bone she has had since she was 14, I did break a smile. I come from a strong stock of women who always find a way. But this will be a painful year to come. Ask me how I know this.

Above all, be flexible…

So I made my way home on Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, not what I planned. But I did my best to prep the house, buy the food, and though my guest list was small, just my kids and my NY sister and her husband, I was hosting Thanksgiving.

I set the table, with my favorite dishes, a wedding present back in the 70’s, with my new handwoven napkins, and my lovely daughter did all the cooking. My son made his infamous charcuterie boards. We had a 2 pound slab of fresh organic salmon with crab meat stuffing. The house was presentable, though I didn’t invite anyone upstairs.

Above all, be flexible…

Friday after Thanksgiving I promised I’d work a day at the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ, where I volunteer as a stitcher in the costume shop. They are in the final prep for costumes for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which opens next week. They save all the really hard stuff nobody wants to do, for me! Which challenges me and makes me think!

My private student Kyrie, whom I’ve rescheduled three times, once because I broke my shoulder, then a conflict with her schedule, and the last time, two days before she was to come, I got Covid, was due in Sunday night. I had two days to grocery shop, and clean the house again, including upstairs. I have multiple animals, I’m always cleaning the house…

Above all, be flexible…

Sunday morning, I was about to head to the grocery store, and I got an email, Kyrie was sick. Covid negative. But she wasn’t well enough to travel until Tuesday.

I thought I’d have a couple days to breathe. Hahahahah!

Above all, be flexible…

Monday night I got the first draft of my long awaited Heddlecraft article, all 36 pages, to start my editing. I suppose the timing was perfect, since Kyrie was delayed, but dear Lord, is there no rest for the weary?

Anyway, I furiously edited, checked links, checked .wif files, compared my original manuscript. We got through five versions as Kyrie was walking in the door Tuesday afternoon. The issue was released shortly after, and I’ve never been so proud of anything in my life. Here is the link if you don’t have a subscription (if you are a weaver you should) or you can get a single issue.

My student was an absolute delight. She was still getting over the remnants of some respiratory crud, but I’m beyond caring anymore. We wore masks and carried on. we worked hard and she proved to be a wonderfully adept student.

She brought a gorgeous handwoven fabric, using hand dyed warps from Blazing Shuttles.

She finished the jacket, all but the handwork, late Friday night, and was out of here Saturday morning, making a five day class work in three.

Above all, be flexible…

And that gave me the opportunity to frantically do multiple final rehearsals for the Montclair Early Music holiday concert, last night, Christmas in King Arthur’s Court. Beautiful music from the English Renaissance. I played bass recorder. It was so very much fun, I remembered why I love playing recorders with a group, and we even got a standing ovation.

Meanwhile…. There is a difference between what I need to do, what I have to do, and what I want to do. And sometimes there is a very grey area between those things.

Mostly what I need to do, is to constantly create, and life is certainly interfering. Silk City Fibers, whom I’ve had a long relationship with, periodically sends me yarn they are thinking of bringing in, or have brought in, or are just curious about. I’m always happy to make a test run, because that’s something I adore doing, I need to do, and I excel at; throw something at me and I’ll see what I can invent.

This yarn is a lovely silky rayon, two four ply yarns loosely wrapped together, in an exquisite purple. I had about 9 ounces, and so I immediately thought of a Spot Bronson structure, and did some fast calculations, and wound a warp.

I started weaving and my sett was spot on, pun intended. I ultimately made three samples and washed them in different ways, and then wove a lovely scarf. Took about a day, which was just before the Heddlecraft proofs arrived…

Meanwhile… My guild meeting is Wednesday night. We usually have some make it-take it project for the December meeting, and since we are still meeting via zoom, it was decided that we would all make an Anni Albers Bauhaus necklace.

You can buy them as a kit from the Philadelphia Art Museum. The kit is simple enough, a 1/4″ ribbon, with a bunch of washers. I’ve always been curious how this necklace works, but I really didn’t have the time or thought to plan ahead and order the kit. I was sort of busy… And besides, I’m a handweaver… Duh…

I bought a sample pack of some 60 different Sulky 12 wt. thread colors many years ago at a sewing conference. It remained untouched. Until now.

This was something I really needed to do, to keep my hands busy, and I knew that once my student started sewing her jacket, I would just be hanging out at the ready for a number of days, to make sure questions got answered, and that any mistakes were rapidly fixed, and she could keep going.

So I designed a 1/4″ ribbon, full length on my Bekka inkle loom, which is longer than the 84″ necessary to make the necklace.

Easy weaving…

And ultimately, I have long ribbon for my necklace project for Wednesday night’s meeting.

I keep trying to figure out how my life has become so out of control, and I’m hoping that things will quiet down soon. I needed today, to curl up with a trashy novel, but this afternoon, I tackled the last of the major projects on my overdue to-do list. I finished the Index for my YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews. You can find it here. Alphabetical by video, and alphabetical by topic. There were many labors of love I completed this past week, the Heddlecraft article finally got published, the Shakespeare Show will open next week but my work there is done. The concert was last night, my student finished and made it home safe, and the Index is finished. And I have a 1/4″ inkle woven ribbon for the meeting Wednesday night.

I’m tired. But above all, I’m flexible…

Stay tuned…