Healing Handcrafting

exploring process and healing through fiber arts and handcrafting

Category Archives: Fiber Art History and Current News


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All of it is Always Happening

I’m having a moment of just sitting for a bit and wanted to document here in this special place to me all of what is happening in my own little sliver of life that is housed in the much bigger picture. But first, I have to send out a deepest call of love to all of those in Turkey and Syria whose world literally just opened up beneath them, creating chasms of pain, fissures of searing heartache, and images of the most incredible grief, courage, love, determination, and exhaustion one can see. Nothing seems all that relevant in the face of that except love. It’s really the only thing that matters at the end of the day.

Actually, I think I’ll just leave it at that.

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It’s A Good Time to Say Hello Again

It’s been so long since I have written here. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the umbrella reason that covers all of the smaller ones is that, simply put, the world became a bit too intense and it was hard to write about my fibery art passion without feeling like somehow I was lying… you know? Like how so many social media platforms give people the opportunity to only show one little image that captures one little staged moment that suggests something that isn’t fully real, entirely honest, wholly transparent. I’ve been guilty of that, too, for sure, but when grief and stress get big, it’s hard to keep that going. And eventually I had to ask myself why I ever did, and why I ever would?

I have missed it here, though. And I have missed talking to so many people who love yarn, wool, fiber art, knitting, weaving, creativity, dyeing with flowers, weaving with sticks, learning new stuff, and just sharing all the wonderful things that go along with handcrafting. I am acutely aware of how much I have missed it now that so many of us are sequestered in our homes as a result of COVID-19. I am feeling the weight of not being with community, and I’m realizing that in this incredibly intense moment that the world is sharing together, that some things are so big and so global, that just being is where it’s at. Personal grief is transformed into shared communal grief, as well as shared communal hope and strength.

We really are all in this together. And staying connected through what we love is where the energy is at. At least some of it.

I hope you are doing alright, and that you are taking good care. What are you working on during these days of COVID-19?

I’m working on a sweater that is taking a wee bit longer than expected due to pesky arthritis.

With the greater amount of time home, I’ve finally picked up an art project that I put down almost a year ago… I just fulled this wooly, 6-foot shawl that is part of my Weaving A Life final project… more to come on that.

And, I’m about to get back to weaving towels with this poor neglected warp that has been on my four-harness loom since before Christmas!

Maybe now really will be the time to finish up all those neglected projects?


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A World Through the Hands, featuring Renate Hiller

All I can say is, please watch this gorgeous video with Renate Hiller, from The Fiber Craft Studio, as part of NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett. Ms. Hiller captures in gorgeous simplicity the importance and meaning of handwork, useful work, productive and grounding work. I’ve watched this several times and she is always inspiring. She speaks directly to the part of me that has been utterly awakened since I’ve become involved in the fiber arts and crafts. She also speaks to my longing to bring fiber art and fiber itself to children’s hands, so they can themselves feel the natural and beautiful renewable resource that is all around us in the hills and valleys of Vermont.

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/world-through-hands/3931


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Women, Circles and Crochet for Asylum Seekers~ A Must-Read Article I Wanted to Share With You

I wanted to share this incredible article about the healing power of joining, in a circle, with other women and crocheting, for asylum seekers who have been traumatized on their road to safety. I will truly never, ever understand the horrible unfairness in the world. I gaze upon my children, my husband and myself and marvel at the difference between a bad day for us versus a bad day for people who are literally fleeing their homes to save their families and themselves. It borders on absurd and is, inherently, excruciatingly upsetting.

Nothing can capture the title of my blog better than this article can.

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/03/09/469535216/they-were-silent-about-their-suffering-then-they-began-making-baskets