It’s a rainy Friday – rain in January? In Vermont?
It’s been too long since I’ve recorded here my progress and process in weaving, and there’s so many reasons for that of late. Let’s just say 2023 went out with an epic attitude problem and 2024 picked up the baton and leveled some more painful life experiences.
I’d like to acknowledge here that the person who taught me to knit, my step-grandmother who has been in my life since I was 9, passed away on January 7. Her name is Marion Bogdanski (née Trio). I remember vividly when Nanny started teaching me to knit. She was so patient and encouraging, always urging me to relax my hands and loosen my stitches so I wouldn’t have to force the knitting needle into the fabric for every new stitch. Nanny’s mother, Nana, lived with her for time. Nana was from Sicily, and I remember thinking she was amazing- little and delicate and lovely. She would sit and knit, too, me at her feet. I’d hear behind me the click, click, click of the knitting needles going so fast. I remember thinking that one day I’ll be able to knit like that. Still hasn’t happened, but those memories of learning from Nanny and Nana are precious to me and I suspect have a lot to do with how I ended up loving fiber art and craft so much. Also, I must mention that Nanny made the best pancakes ever and I will make homemade pizza and fried dough every New Year’s Eve in her memory. Doing that with Nanny on NYE are some of my favorite memories with her, as well as watching old movies, listening to her stories, playing cards, and getting cooking tips. So many times when I’d need to make something good, I’d call Nanny and ask, how do you do this or that, and she’d take the time and explain every step to me and tell me exactly what to get at the store. That’s so generous. I hope she is dancing and singing with her wonderful Henry and all of her family and friends who left before her. Isn’t she so beautiful?
Another event that has happened in this new year that is especially relevant to the point of this blog is to do with arthritis, believe it or not. This is a topic that I hope to pick up in some depth in the coming months or years. Arthritis doesn’t go away, after all, but more is something to tend to, know about, live in accordance with, and adapt to. In short, I have osteoarthritis which often invites statements like, “well, you’re getting older, and aches and pains are part of it” or “that’s just normal aging”, even from doctors. I have to say I’ve found this entirely unsatisfying. I’ve noticed over the last few years a significant shift in how osteoarthritis in my fingers and hands is affecting my ability to do things that are important to me, namely weaving and teaching weaving.
The way arthritis has been affecting me for the last couple of years is in pain, bending of fingers, and the development of cysts that are doing their best to respond to the impacts of bone spurs that are doing their best to deal with the fact that there’s nothing in between certain of my finger joints. These cysts can often be ignored but one of mine went rogue and became an ongoing issue in September, resulting in the need to have them surgically removed. I had this minor surgery just over two weeks ago and am continuing to heal. Today I was able to tie my shoes using my healing fingers, which felt like a big deal.
What’s the point of sharing all this? Well, I know there are a lot of artists and crafters out there who have arthritis. And I am learning very deeply what it is like to have a physical condition that affects what you can do, how you feel about yourself and your future, and that simply hurts sometimes. As I climb out of feeling really bogged down by the discomfort of post-surgical healing, I realize that I want to move into this space of learning more deeply. I want to know how to better care for myself so that I can keep doing things that I love. I also want to learn more about how to help others do the same, no matter what condition they are dealing with.
I didn’t realize how much I loved weaving until I couldn’t weave. I didn’t realize how much I loved teaching until I thought I might not be able to. I didn’t realize how many people were out there, wanting to make, create, express, and share their light with the world who for one reason or another can’t or don’t know how to modify things in a way that allows them to keep at it. To put it simply, going through all this has cracked my heart open even more. Just like grief has.
Soon I’ll write about some projects I was able to finish before the surgery and talk about some other things I’m working on and thinking about. Until then, I’d love to hear from you if you are managing a condition that has affected or affects how you create and express yourself. Who knows- maybe a larger conversation can start where others can find support and new ideas when they are struggling.
p.s. I found this website about arthritis really helpful.
I heard a wonderful program on NPR this morning and just had to share it with you. I found myself nodding and smiling and feeling this wonderful sense of “Yes, Exactly”! as I listened. The segment is called: Feeling alone? 5 tips to create connection and combat loneliness and was on Morning Edition. It features Dr. Jeremy Nobel, who founded the Foundation for Art and Healing decades ago and wrote the book entitled Project UnLonely. I’d never heard of it and am so grateful to know about it now. Here’s the link to the episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
I spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about grief. It’s part of my job as a therapist. I co-wrote a book about it. And I incorporate working through grief into certain of my weaving classes, both with groups and individuals. It’s a subject that is always relevant because all of us, at some point in our lives, barring few exceptions, lose loved ones or experience losses of other kinds, like endings of relationships, job loss, or significant life changes due to chronic illness, bankruptcy, natural disaster, war. The list is long. The news of late has been devastating and heart crushing when viewing what is happening in the Palestinian Territories and Israel. So many of us are grieving locally as well as globally. So many of us have been doing this for a long time.
There’s nothing to say about it that can take away the reality of the pain, anguish, trauma, and truth of the matter, which is that human beings can be so utterly monstrous to each other. It’s shocking, and then we must think on the reality that we have choices to make every day about how we are going to be in the world. And sometimes even the most peaceful of us disappoint ourselves. I guess that’s where the truth is, too. It’s always a choice, and always it is true that how we are to others impacts our experience of our lives and our relationships.
I’ve noticed a few things lately that might seem obvious, but that have been moving me and making me look above and beyond the chatter. These observations help me connect with my choices in a way that mitigates feelings of helplessness and despair. I’ll share them with you here.
~ There’s a lot of dialogue about how much our culture gets grief wrong and how there is this pressure on people to “get over” grief quickly. I don’t disagree with that, but I have been noticing how many individuals and organizations are out there, all over the world, talking about how grief really is, and how much it changes a person and a life. As I’ve looked more deeply into remembrance and awareness days to do with grief, I’ve seen a lot of realistic information about what grief is really like as well as how we can support others when they are struggling. I’ll write soon about an upcoming awareness day to do with grieving children. I wonder what is getting in the way of the honest messages to do with grief from landing and changing the experiences people have when they are suffering. How can we release the pressure we put on ourselves to stay the same, no matter what?
~ Giving people the space and respect they deserve and are entitled to when processing life events and grief is a wonderful thing to do. When we can get out of the mindset of having to make someone “feel better” and instead hold space for them to simply be where they are, a sort of alchemy takes place. A bridge of trust grows, and often it looks like recognition. Almost like a version of namaste, it is as though the spirit says, the grief in me sees the grief in you.
~ As I talk with and listen to people, something is becoming crystal clear: long-term grief is not always solely about the loved one lost, but sometimes is a result of the anguish of trying to get back to normal too fast, whether this is a self-imposed pressure or felt as pressure from others. As a result of that anguish, there are multiple layers of complexity piled on and on and on. As people try to find their balance and figure out a new normal after any kind of grief, part of that often entails facing the pain of how their grief was received and responded to. This is tough stuff, but it seems important to me.
~ There is something incredible that happens when people let themselves process life events through the practice of making. We do so much thinking about so many things. And I’m a fan of thinking! Thinking helps us make choices that are less reactive, more informed, and ideally lead to better outcomes than when we fly by the seat of our emotions. But… sometimes we get lost in the weeds of words and self-analyzing. Creating spaces where people can translate lived experience into artistic form works, and what we get from that is insight and healing from angles that might not have been approached if the senses weren’t involved.
~ Listening… the most wonderful kind of listening… is medicine. The kind where you’re not waiting to say the next thing, or thinking about your words as the other person is still talking. Slowing down and absorbing what someone is saying and letting it affect you or work on you in some way- this is true relating. And it doesn’t require hours, or even many minutes. It just requires deciding that the person you are engaged with is worth your time and attention. Can you imagine if we all treated everyone like that? And were treated like that all the time?
What helps us meet the people around us where they are, not where we want them to be? How do we maintain compassion, patience, love, and curiosity? The first thing that comes to mind and is the only one I want to focus on at the moment is self-compassion. Sometimes it’s just the truth that our cups will not be full before we give to others, and we can sustain that for a while. Sometimes we are tired and grieving ourselves, when we are at the same time showing up for others. And sometimes, we can’t give in the ways others want us to give or we wish we could, and we need to pull back and refocus that energy. That’s okay. It helps to remember and keep remembering that it’s not anyone’s job to take grief away from others or somehow fix the pain of it. And sometimes energy needs to go back into the self for a while before it can go out again. It’s just the way it is, and there’s nothing selfish about it. It’s okay to think about how you can show up for people at any given time, and be honest about.
How do you tend to yourself and nourish yourself as you go about life and relationships? Do you have ways you tune in and respond to your heart and body? Do you take the importance of this as seriously as you do your love for and support of others? And, when you can’t be there in the way you always have and feel worried about that, or stressed or resentful, do you have ideas about alternatives? Can you imagine communicating them?
There is something alchemical about handweaving. It connects us with ourselves, with others, and with our ancestors, recent and distant. Weaving is part of our ancestral DNA and when we allow our fingers to interlace thread with thread, we create connection and foundation. Weaving does not have to be expensive, and weaving should be accessible to all people. If we can apply resistance to threads and create a taut warp, we can weave.
I love the long arc of weaving and the incredible potential it affords. One can sit with a simple frame loom and weave wild art pieces as well as work on a multi-harness floor loom and create wondrous and complex fabric. There are so many types of weaving and looms. Multi-shaft, tapestry, backstrap, pin, circular, inkle, Rinny Tin-Tin. Over the last decade, I’ve been teaching fiber art and craft in schools and more recently at the Shelburne Craft School, and there are some thought jewels that I’ve gathered along the way that fuel me, inspire me and make me want to keep learning and expanding. I’ve shared some of them here as a way of inviting anyone who has an inkling, to try out weaving, or any art or craft you’ve longed to try but keep putting off.
People Meet Themselves When They Weave
On many occasions, I’ve had the good pleasure of hearing people say things like, “I’m usually __________ (fill in the blank), but I’m playing with being __________ (fill in the blank) as I weave this” … or “I’ve never played with so much color before and I LOVE it!” …, or “I never realized how much tension I hold in my hands” …, or “the process of weaving while I reflect on my loved one is bringing up thoughts and feelings I’ve not held space for in so long, if ever.”
When we let ourselves just be with our hands, our eyes, and our breath as we make, our spirit has a chance to catch up and settle into the space between our lungs and in all the chambers of our heart. We can hear our own breathing again. We can let our eyes linger where they want to, and then notice where that is. We can meet our inner judge and talk it down from fear. We can usher ourselves into new territory and have woven fabric to show for the journey.
People Benefit from Having Access to Colors and Textures and the Opportunity to Experiment
This may sound so obvious it’s laughable, but hear me out. Have you ever had the experience of being invited to make something, and are given a certain set of materials that everyone else has, and a series of instructions that everyone else has, and you make something at the end that looks like a weird, kind of close but disturbingly not-close version of the thing you were supposed to make? Or is that just my life? In my experience, nothing botches up creativity more than when we are in a circumstance that doesn’t let us feel and see our way through materials we want to touch and witness. I’ve been blessed with a bunch of students who “go rogue” on the regular. It’s hilarious, and it’s shown me that people have their own ideas and their own version of learning that needs to be honored and allowed for as much as possible. Yes, sometimes technical truths need to be thrown in the mix to ensure that people can weave the thing they want to weave, but I’ve learned that creative drive is strong and shouldn’t be stamped out by rigidity.
People of All Ages Need to Play
I think we all know this intuitively, but what I’ve found is that people of all ages need access to opportunities where they can experiment, follow their noses, see what happens, try this and that, on low-stake projects. As we age, many of us become concerned with how much things cost, how much “time is worth”, how useful something is, and whether there is value to whatever it is we are doing. It puts so much pressure on the creative part of ourselves that just needs a freakin’ minute to look at things, try things out, observe what happens when certain materials interact with others, and take notice of how we feel about what we are seeing and experiencing. We need the chance to just be and drop in to our flow. When teaching elementary aged people as well as folks in their senior years, I’ve heard many exclaim, “Oh wow, I get to use this?” and, “I can’t believe I can weave with all of this! It’s so much fun!”
That makes my day.
My friend and weaving teacher, Lausanne Allen, playing the fiddle while guests learned to braid using the Kumihimo method during an event at the Shelburne Craft School.
Weaving Can Be Very Simple and Very Complex
I’m hitting home runs here with obvious statements, but it’s worth saying that weaving is, at its most basic, the process of moving one material over and under and over and under another material. That’s it. Simple as that. From that foundation, we can weave the most complex and wondrous images and textiles imaginable. But it all starts with interlacing whatever it is we are weaving with. Isn’t that marvelous? Weaving is for everyone. It can be taught to people as young as nursery school age, and there is no age limit. In fact, weaving can help those dealing with the effects of stroke, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease, as it has been shown to strengthen and encourage neuroplasticity in the brain.
When We Get to Do Things We Love, We Are Living the Universal Dream
Disclaimer: This is my view based on a whole lot of things. Feel free to take it or leave it.
If we are doing what we love at least sometimes, we can experience ourselves and share with the world our inherent gifts. There are no losers in this set-up. (Of course, I’m assuming that doing what we love doesn’t include hurting other people or living in a way that disregards others’ autonomy and integrity.) When we share what we love with others who are interested, we are giving from the place of our truest selves, because what we love is connected to who we are; the spark connected to our creativity is born from energy itself, and it interlaces with others’ creativity, like a cosmic dance. It’s amazing!
Whether it’s weaving, dancing, sculpting or singing, writing, building or baking (the list goes on and on), if we love what we are doing and sharing it with others in some way, we are putting some good energy into the world. And my friends, the world needs that big time.
Doing what we love = good medicine.
I hope whatever you are doing today includes you sharing the spark you have with the world in whatever way feels great to you. Until next time.
I’ll share with you, right out of the gate, some positions I hold that are unshakeable:
It is my deepest belief that every person has creative energy within them.
Something wants to be expressed and realized in every human.
One does not need to go to art school to find and express their artistry.
We have a choice about how this creative energy is harnessed- generatively or destructively?
Where I live in the northeastern United States, summer brings a surge of energy that, whether felt by people or not, is always part of the environmental experience. We emerge out of cold winter. We make it through spring, which in Vermont is a weird conglomeration of less cold air, more moisture, thawing ground, a lot of mud, then a freeze, then another thaw, more mud, some warm days, then some cold days again. Finally, we make it to the time when it stays warm. The greens explode, flowers bloom, birds sing, farmer’s markets bustle, frogs fill the night sky with their croaky songs.
For me, this is typically when there is a powerful surge in my own creative energy, and in the last fifteen years or so, I’ve learned to harness it in an effort to create. What I didn’t really know before fifteen years ago, was that this is a distinct energy that needs tending to, not just when there is a surge of it, but throughout one’s life and throughout any given year, no matter the season. One doesn’t need to be an Artist with a capital A to do this. Many people know this already and live in accordance with their flow of expression. You might see it when you walk into someone’s home and they’ve decorated in a way that delights the senses. Or maybe you’ve known people who can prepare food that would make Julia Childs exclaim. Have you ever walked through a home garden where someone has lovingly tended to each of their plants and has bits of ornamentation here and there that makes you smile? In all of these ways, individuals express themselves and share what they love with the rest of us.
Of course there’s also painting, drawing, writing, weaving, knitting and crochet, sculpture, carving, repurposing, hand-stitching and sewing, dancing, metal work, singing, making music, playing… the list goes on and on.
Life for the majority of adults involves a whole lot of work, and these days, an astronomical amount of distraction from what’s right in front of us. Most heart crushingly, the thing that is severely neglected in this overstimulating culture is our relationship with ourselves.
We are someone we can get to know and have a relationship with.
This is incredibly important to understand. We can hang out with ourselves and get to know ourselves in ways that are very similar to how we hang out with other people and get to know them. How? We give ourselves time to follow our noses and let our creative energy lead the way for a bit. Julia Cameron talks about this at length in The Artist’s Way, and she specifically urges her readers to take themselves on dates. These can be outings that really don’t take a lot of time but that are just for you and you are just with yourself. This is crucial. Your date with yourself should not be time to catch up with phone calls or coffee dates. This is your time you give yourself in order to be with … you! The more you go on these dates with yourself, the more they become second nature and an important part of your life.
So, why is this important enough that I write a blog post about it? Here’s some reasons:
~ Creative energy is energy. When it is stuck, suppressed or unrecognized, it can shape-shift in ways that are not generative. Think abusive use of substances, depression, agitation, disconnection via distraction, sadness or grief for reasons that are hard to identify, living through other people and their creativity, and simply living life by going through the motions.
~ When we notice the creative energy in ourselves and tend to it, we allow for others to do the same, in whatever ways bring them joy and meaning. We learn about ourselves and others.
~ We slow down enough to engage in the moment that is right in front of us. For example, when I’m weaving, I’m only weaving. I’m not texting, doom scrolling, making dinner, talking on the phone… I’m doing this one thing that requires my full attention and I focus. Sometimes I can only do this for 20-minutes, but 20-minutes is better than 0 minutes, so I’ll take it.
~ We develop relationship with our selves. Sorry, as a therapist I’ll never not think this is important!
~ We allow the energy within us to flow up and out. I think about what one of my mentors said all the time when he was teaching. He talked about seeds and how a sunflower seed can only become a sunflower. It will never be something else, and when it is fully realized, it is wholly itself. It will never be a marigold, or a daisy or a tomato. This is how it is for people. Yet for us, many things get in the way of our original seed growing into what it is in its truest nature. Allowing for time to connect with our creativity is one way to clear the path for our true nature to grow up and into the light.
How Do I Tap Into My Creative Energy?
As promised in the title of this piece, I want to give you my go-to ideas for how to cultivate, reignite or tend to your creative life. This is not an exhaustive list and many books have been written on this. My favorite so far is The Artist’s Way, and if this topic is of interest to you, I highly recommend it.
But for now…
~ Accept the idea that you are a creative person with energy inside of you that is unique to you and is valuable to this world.
~ Accept that expressing your creativity is not selfish, meaningless or a waste of time. My teacher Susan Barrett Merrill said to me once that in fact, we do good for the world when we allow the gifts that we have to flow through us and out, and that when we take time to be with ourselves and create and make, we add that energy to our environment. She said that to me because I struggled with this one myself.
~ Make things easier for yourself. Here’s an example: If you like to paint or want to paint but think that the only way to paint is to buy all the expensive tools and materials you’ll need, and create a space in your home that is only for painting, and that you have to take a class before you start painting, and that you have to carve out a few hours every day to paint or it’s not worth it… guess what? You won’t paint. If you’re a busy person with a bustling life and lots of responsibilities that might be hard to stretch at first, start small. Twenty-five years ago, an artist friend of mine gave me these kinds of paints and this kind of paper so that I could delve into making things. He told me back then, “you are an artist”. I said, “no, I’m not at all an artist. You are an artist and I’ll leave that to you talented people out there.” Well, guess what? I still use those paints (a different set now because I used the set up!) and while I’ll not be exhibiting my watercolor paintings in any galleries, I love them and they inspire me to make other things.
~ Minimize distractions, but be realistic. One of the things that really gets in the way is the idea that “If I can’t dedicate hours to what what I want to do, then it’s not worth it.” This is a lie. There are ways to build in moments to connect with self via the creative path. Maybe there’s a day in a busy person’s life where settling in for some extended sewing isn’t possible, but a smaller handwork project is if you have a little basket with your bag of notions and some fabric. So is looking at books or magazines that inspire or teach. So is sitting on a front stoop or by a window and looking out at the world and gathering inspiration for a future project.
I wove this piece in 15 to 20 minute increments over the course of a month. It’s random and was an attempt to learn and play with color, as well as to make sure I wove “every *%$@ day”, to quote Tommye McClure Scanlin
~ Have at the ready small ways you can do the things you love. I’m taking this tapestry class right now with Rebecca Mezoff, and it’s wonderful. I now have a little bag with all the essentials to easily bust out a drawing, a note, or even a small weaving if I find myself in a place where I can create.
~ Make dates with yourself to do the larger things. And honor them. These are as important as anything else. (I think this is incredibly hard for many people.)
~ Don’t compare yourself to others. This is top-shelf creativity energy kryptonite. Don’t do this. If you do find yourself struggling with these crushing thoughts, let your inner judge know, “It’s okay. I won’t (you fill in the blank with whatever your judge is saying). We are just playing and we are safe.” Sometimes our inner judge thinks it’s helping to protect us from something, so it needs to know that you are going to try to enjoy your creativity more and nothing bad will happen.
~ Visit local antique stores, art galleries, museums, flea markets, book stores, parks, outdoor art installations, open studio days, farmer’s markets… most of these are free and give you the opportunity to look around see what you’re drawn to.
Hopefully, if you’re still reading, I’ve made my case that it’s worth it and important to engage with your creative energy, and it doesn’t have to be expensive or unrealistically time consuming. You are a unique expression of life and within you are ways to engage with this expression so you and others can know it better. Why not go for it? Time passes whether we engage with ourselves or not, so in my view, we may as well make the most of it and see what we can create.
How often have you heard this refrain, or uttered it yourself when you’ve just wanted to put a pause on having new information or issues to respond to? I’ve been thinking about our relationship with normal. It’s like a thick, strong, orienting rope that runs through a life and culture, and where we are in relation to it is always up for evaluation. We talk about physical health in terms of normal. Behavior, psychological functioning, intelligence, too. And then there’s the social norms that dictate so much of how our school years and work and social lives go. Oh, and then there’s what many pay attention to as parents when kids are going through developmental milestones. Music, weather, animal behavior, family functioning are all up for grabs in the context of normal comparisons. Really, is there any part of life that is not subject to an almost immediate assessment of how it does or does not relate to normal?
Such a bland word that elicits a broad range of reactions from people packs quite a punch and I think it’s worth looking into a little bit.
From Merriam-Webster, normal means: “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine; according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, procedure, or principle; approximating the statistical average or norm occurring naturally; generally free from physical or mental impairment or dysfunction : exhibiting or marked by healthy or sound functioning; not exhibiting defect or irregularity; within a range considered safe, healthy, or optimal.”
Like any concept, it’s the case that normal is not all one thing. It is not all good, and it’s not all bad. What’s good about normal? Why do we need it and rely on it so much? Seems to me like the opposite of normal is chaos, and chaos is, taken in extreme form, the primordial ooze from which all things began. It’s unpredictable, unstable, volatile and confused. It’s the seat of creation and true creativity. It erupts and changes things. It can be exciting. It can be terrifying. It’s necessary and feared.
Chaos knocks things into a new trajectory, but then guess what? An ordering principal takes over and helps the effects of chaos fall into a pattern. Patterns are stable and predictable. They can be known and understood, unlike their birth mother, Chaos. This must happen. I suppose that normal lives in patterns and normal dies in chaos. Chaos and Normal dance and work together to keep things moving. They are both necessary.
In life, people can deviate from the mean of normal in either direction. Further away from this mean is when we start to experience some things that are different from what everyone hanging out in the middle are experiencing. Bowing at the altar of normal can stifle the emergence of any new or unexpected material in an evolving system. This leads to the death or oppression of anything that is novel, creative, and life giving. Yet, diving full-bore into the waters of chaos and staying there for too long can mean that nothing is able to materialize into creative expression. It takes discipline to make creative energy bear fruit, and discipline does not live in chaos.
You can see the tension here. This is some dynamic stuff.
But here’s the rub as I see it: We do a miserable job as a culture allowing ourselves and others to be changed by what happens to us. Let’s take the pandemic. Rest assured, the amount of times I’ve longed for things to go back to normal cannot be counted. But even with less restrictions and people getting back to life as it was before, it’s not “back to normal”. We are changed and we will never be, as a whole, like we were before. The pandemic was a long-term, slow motion perturbation to our system which created chaos and confusion. We are still experiencing the natural inclination of a system finding its new orbit around this new reality, yet I see more and more a distancing from viewing it this way. I am longing for a greater dialogue about how we are changed and what that means not from the point of view that we have to get back to where we were, but more that we need to understand more fully where we are.
Where are we? I’m not the same. Are you?
I think the urge to get back to normal when the landscape that existed before doesn’t exist anymore causes tremendous pain and anxiety. We can’t go back to something that doesn’t exist anymore. But we can try to more fully understand where we are.
This is true after someone we love dies.
This is true after having a baby.
This is true after falling in love or breaking up.
This true when childrens’ parents separate.
This is true after losing a job or relocating to a new place for a job.
This is true after receiving a life changing diagnosis.
This is true after war, natural disasters, or exposure to and experience of violence.
This is true after experiencing a spiritual awakening.
Can we let ourselves be changed without judging it, hiding it, or stunting it? Can we let ourselves just be with what is true and talk about it all, and let others talk without pulling the “normal” card out of our back pocket? Life systems naturally organize themselves into new, mostly stable patterns. We can trust that this will happen, so we can relax and be more gentle on ourselves and each other and not force the issue. It’s okay if your best friend seems different now and doesn’t want to do the same things they did before. Be curious about it instead of judging it. It’s okay if you look different after grief. Look at yourself and be curious and loving and notice the hard earned scars of living a life that is filled with so many things. It’s okay if something big or little shifts in your psyche and you find a new and unexpected road to walk down. Check it out and see what’s there. It became visible because something changed.
Take the pressure of “getting back to normal” off yourself because, that normal? It’s gone. There’s a new normal to explore and it’s got a whole lot of new terrain for us to get to know.
It’s been a minute. And not for lack of lots and lots of activity and making. Sometimes it’s hard to link together in a whole picture little bits of weaving here, some experiments there, and some growth elsewhere. One of the things I love about small format tapestry weaving, as well as weaving on unconventional looms, is that you can move them around, carry them with you, and finish them as you are able. That is the reality of my life these days. If not for moveable weaving, there’d be no weaving at all for me.
braided crone
I wove this little tapestry on a Handywoman small tapestry loom that I love so much. I take it with me most places and love it when I pull out that little number instead of my phone. It helps, to weave. Seriously.
house halved with a ghost house and a split house
I’ve had this piece going for a while. It’s part of what I hope to be a series of tapestries flowing from drawings I’ve done when sitting with the idea of moments that distinctly create a before and after. More on that at some point.
buildingbuilding some morestill building… more to come
I was on a drive recently with my daughter, soaking up beautiful Vermont autumn colors. I loved how not at all straight these grain rows are- I mean, isn’t that so reassuring? So beautiful and true?
inspiration
We always have a moment, even if it’s brief, to decide.
Having several different projects going at a time is a habit I’ve gotten accustomed to over the years. I don’t have a schedule that allows me go to weave at my loom for entire days. Instead, I have bits of time here and there that I try to make good use of when I can. I used to judge this part of my nature, the part that flits from this to that. I wondered if I had a discipline problem, or some issue with commitment. Always the therapist, I’m often unpacking who I am and how I operate, and examining how my traits and tendencies impact my day-to-day life.
Well, in this case, I’ve learned that I really enjoy making things, at home, at work, on my loom, with kids, with adults, and by myself. I feel frustrated when the only thing I’m working on is not with me, leaving my hands idle and my mind clanking a bit. When I allow myself to indulge in the many-projects-at-once rhythm, I get to eventually enjoy what I refer to now as my creative crescendo; so often many things are finished around the same time and I have this wonderful experience of seeing multiple ideas and efforts come to fruition at once.
Right now, I’ve got this vibe going in full-force. There’s a curtain (hopefully) on my counterbalance loom, towels on my rigid heddle, a tapestry on my copper pipe loom, another tapestry on a small frame loom, and oh… that second mitten I’ve been wanting to finish knitting for months.
What I’m noticing about a few of my projects is that they are going after a feeling or sense experience that I can best describe as airy. I want my curtain to be as flowing and loose as I can manage weaving it, with bits of structure and form throughout. This is an experiment as I try my hand at weaving with 20/2 cotton as the warp and using inlay throughout. I’m not using a pattern or following any directions. I’ve already learned something. I have my 20/2 warp sett at 12 epi, and I originally hoped to use the same yarn for the plain weave weft; the inlay was going to be a thicker cotton slub yarn that has a yummy texture. Well, what I learned was that the fabric was just too loose. I was beating it lightly to maintain an openness and transparency. I basically wanted a curtain that blended in with air. But what I found was that if I even looked at the fabric funny, the weave drooped and flopped, making it look injured and offended. When I started considering finding a spray adhesive and shellacking the whole thing once it was done, I realized I’d maybe made a mistake, chalked it up to my steep learning curve, and switched gears. I am going to try to use the experiment to cover some beautiful handmade paper I have, so all is not lost.
Now, I’m weaving the curtain with the same warp, but with the thicker cotton slub yarn as weft, beat loosely (still finding the right beat and trying to keep it consistently). I can’t do the same inlay design I was doing because I’m using that yarn for the plain weave. I decided instead on this twine, jute-like string/rope/yarn I have and opted to just lay it in, leaving both ends exposed. This is a departure from the inlay techniques I was planning on practicing with this curtain, but that’s okay. I’ll get to them. I love the twine because you can unravel it and it becomes this wild grass-like stuff. It smells good, too. I’m hoping my curtain will still feel airy, but I suspect it will hang with a little more purpose and won’t be so vulnerable to the passing breeze or occasional handling as my original design would have been.
On my rigid heddle, I’ve got an actual pattern that I’m following. It’s another slub cotton project, this time towels. I love weaving with this yarn! It’s soft, gentle, light. Clasped weft is the main weaving technique utilized in this pattern, and it’s very satisfying to watch it build up. Getting the beat right on this project takes some doing. You can see on the bottom right that I’m beating too hard in the clasped weft section that is newly begun, but I’m working that out. I’m definitely turning into a person that uses a tape measure as a necklace! Ha! I’ll share pics of these towels when they’re done.
I’ll get to the tapestry work in another post, but for now, I hope that whatever you’re doing, there’s some room for creativity and texture, even if it’s just here and there. All those moments add up and make something, eventually.
I’m a member of the Vermont Weaver’s Guild and I participated in this year’s weaving challenge. It was to make a pillow using three of the four elements randomly assigned to each weaver who entered. I got overshot, cotton, stripes and black and white. I chose the first three elements because nowhere in my house is there a spot to receive a black and white anything, so that part was simple. One pillow is to be donated to the guild so it can be part of a sale that we have to raise money.
I’ve not been weaving for terribly long, and every time I learn a new thing, it feels like I have to relearn a bunch of old things, although I can say I’m noticing a growing ease with preparing a warp, getting it on the loom, setting the loom up and threading, so that is a good thing. I will share a story in another post about a fight I got into with my counterbalance loom with the absolute simplest warp/threading/tie up you can imagine just this week, but I’ll save that for later. For this pillow project, I opted to utilize the weaving class I was taking at Shelburne Craft School with Lausanne Allen to get help and support as I tackled the most complicated pattern and weaving structure I’ve done to date. The class was for weavers who have experience but are still actively learning and benefit from the guidance of a skilled and patient teacher.
I felt rather overwhelmed immediately with the overshot part of things, and how to add stripes to it, because I don’t know how to create my own patterns yet. I referenced Madelyn van der Hoogt and of course, Bertha Gray Hayes, and saw so many drafts I’d love to weave, but somehow, translating those into a pattern made me feel like I was swimming in too deep water- maybe it was resistance? Or confusion? Or just the simple fact that I need to dig in and study what size yarns go with what epi goes with what draft, etc., etc., and then color choice- oh man! It’s a lot to sort out! So… I kept getting stuck. Enter Lausanne, who showed me a wonderful pattern called Bertha’s Towels from Handwoven. I was like, boom… Cotton, check. Overshot, check-check. Stripes, bingo. I knew I could modify the pattern for the pillows I needed, and get a few towels out of the bargain as well, if I lengthened the warp. And from there I went.
What I loved about the process once I got out from under the stress of making a bunch of decisions about a weave structure I didn’t really understand yet was the toggling between community and self, community and self. During class and open studios, I shared close space with fellow students who I now consider friends. One was weaving a beautiful Krokbragd pattern on a rug warp; the other was approaching our school’s antique barn loom that was having new life breathed into it with all of the attention paid to her; that weaver has her own incredible story to tell about her experience, and she wove an absolutely gorgeous table runner using an overshot pattern. In the back weaving room, there were other wonderful weavers and friends working out their warps and weaving. The sounds of a working weaving studio are amazing- clanking, knocking, the occasional sigh, swear, muttering to self, the walking around and looking at others’ work when you’re so tweaked by threading, sleying and realizing a mistake. I’d have a moment where I’d meet myself and my own growth edge, exclaim some thing, get support and dive back in to my own mind and project.
It took a long time for me to weave three towels and two pillow covers (one side- I used a lovely muslin-esque type fabric for the back). The flow of overshot and the pattern itself requires complete attention, pretty much the whole time. I think I finally internalized the pattern by the middle of the second to last towel I wove and it started to make sense to me, how it all worked. And wow, as the fabric became reality, I couldn’t believe what I was making. It was so much fun to problem solve selvedges and beats, fixing mistakes and troubleshooting loom peculiarities with Lausanne and my weaving partners. And it was heartening to meet, yet again in this weaving passion I’ve found myself in, my own growth edges and how I deal with them- it’s not pretty all the time, that’s for sure, but I know that I can move forward now towards pattern design- not with ease, but maybe with less trepidation? I mean, I’m in no rush… we’ll see.
The pillow for my houseThe gold towel actually follows the pattern; the salmon and blue, I wove the pattern without doing the plain weave stripes or changing colors. The pillow for the guild
It’s been a weird period of time. Surprisingly busy and full in the midst of a pandemic. I’ve been working a lot in my multiple roles as a therapist, a teacher, a weaver and now, a writer. And I’ve been living a lot in my life as a partner, mom, sibling, daughter and friend, with varying degrees of presence. There are not enough hours to do all the things, and it’s a choice, always, what and what not to do. And frankly, like so many, my choosing button got busted with all of the micro and macro decisions that needed making due to pandemic day-to-day details. In the midst of that, I’ve gotten to do a bit of weaving- not much because for how time consuming it can be, projects have taken me so much longer to complete than I’d like, but I wanted to catch you up on what has come off the loom since I last wrote.
I did finish the Slitrya blankets! This was a process and it took me forever! Tying all those rya knots was no joke. I also keep meaning to go back and read the pattern again; I went wrong somewhere in my following of directions because I followed the pattern through and was supposed to be able to repeat it twice (I lengthened the warp to allow for that) but one time through and I had woven most of the warp (that was doubled!). I do know the yarn I used was thicker than it should have been, but something else went awry. So, I cut the length of fabric into parts and got two blankets that measured correctly, plus a little extra where I experimented with different yarns. I gave one of the blankets to my weaving teacher and friend, Lausanne, who was tickled! You know, lap blankets are rad! I used mine in my office that got a bit chilly over the winter with the door closed. Just enough warmth to make me comfortable.
I learned how to make heddles due to some threading issues I had.playing with a little color. I’ll make pouches out of the bits that were experiments. Tying knots cannot be rushed.It’s hard to see here, but I was sampling with this puffy art yarn and it came out beautifully. I mean, really, what the hell? This was one take through the pattern, plus the sampling. Obviously I should have been able to weave two blankets with the proper borders, but… you know… me and math, we don’t hang out.
My selvedges need work, but I love these things!
So, there is the completion of that project! I have more to update you on other makings, but I figured I’d wrap up that loose end first. I did love making this blanket, and truly, it’s so satisfying to look at and be warmed by. Here’s a good Handwoven article about slitrya and its history. There’s always an ancestral history to a weaving structure, which is probably what I love the most about it.
I hope that whatever you are doing, making, or bringing into fruition, it brings you contentment.
Healing Handcrafting 