Healing Handcrafting

Tag Archives: aging


by Leave a comment

What’s Been Up

A whole hell of a lot.

A groundswell of change has been occurring in slow motion but with enough energy that it’s required steady and devoted attention.

Not the kind of change that is noticeable in a dramatic way; but the kind that is developmental and familial, deep and personal.

It’s the kind of change that would be easy to miss with too much busyness and distraction. And I haven’t wanted to miss a thing.

The most normal kind of changes- aging, children driving/exploring/graduating and heading to college, personal and professional shifts and expansions, body and health related adjustments- they are all so deeply a part of everything, maybe even mundane, but they are also amazing. Passing through these thresholds while awake has taken a lot of energy and it drew from a well connected to my creative life.

I feel the well filling again.

In the air this morning is a distinct shift towards autumn. Where I live, it is always this way: each season has three months allotted to it but those months that connect to the next season have an in-between feeling. It’s hot today, but the light is different. It’s moody. The insect sounds are distinctly different than just a week ago.



I’ll share in other posts what creative explosions happened at the end of spring and early summer- incredibly fun and meaningful things that have impacted the ways I want to create in the future.

Today, I just wanted to say hi.  

~ bradie

song on repeat lately: More Than This, Roxy Music


by 3 Comments

Summoning Creativity #7~ Slow Growth, Slow Healing

My post is late this month because I’ve hurt my back something wicked and it’s really had me down for the count. Life has been very full and I’ve not been terribly good at following the advice that is the title of this post. This month’s Summoning Creativity effort is offered to me as much as it is to you.

I came across a quote recently that is in this marvelous book called Mystical Stitches: Embroidery for Personal Empowerment and Magical Embellishment by Christi Johnson.

Christi wrote,

Until recent history, the slow growth reflected in the natural world and in the required crafts of daily living was all there was. Our bodies and minds evolved thanks to, and in support of, slow growth. Today, we live in a culture that not only makes it possible to force growth but often expects it. While we don’t have to eschew technological or human progress, we must weave the appreciation for slow growth back into the tapestry of our lives if we hope to move toward a more harmonious relationship with the natural environment that surrounds us.

This writing made me nod and exclaim out loud, “yes, thank you for this reminder”. I read it a few days before I hurt my back, and I find myself going back to it now when just sitting to weave or stitch or even read is somewhat challenging because there is no comfortable position I can be in for very long.

Applying these words to my own healing is a learning edge to me. Over the last several years, I’ve had several injuries and physical realities that have forced me to reckon with the impatience I have with my own body. While I relish slow growth, slow healing is a whole other matter. I’ve got a lot of work to do there.

And once again, I have the opportunity to reckon with this issue of mine.

How will I do it?

My current thinking is to relate to the pain I’m feeling in a visual way. I want to look at images of the muscles, nerves and vertebrae that are communicating with me. Maybe I’ll draw them, or stitch them, or at some point, weave them. I will add color and texture to impatience, to my tendency to force healing on myself (which never works), and I will try to relate to the parts of me that have some slow growing to do, namely patience with and compassion for… me.

So, here we go.

Do you have health issues that impact your making? How do you reckon with these themes?

Until next time,
~ bradie


by Leave a comment

Hema Thríno 2~ blood mysteries in yarn & wood

Hema in ancient Greek means blood. Thríno means lament or grief.

This piece is reimagined and adapted from the original Hema Thríno pictured below.

It might be clear that I was working some things out in the making of this knitted sculpture. Namely, a grief to do with the natural departure from one stage of life into the next, evidenced in part by the changing soul landscape bringing me towards menopause. Over time, I’ve learned that I do best when I wrestle with matters of the heart/mind/body through my hands. Maybe writing, maybe drawing or weaving… in this case, knitting with gorgeous deep red cotton thread, strong and soft at the same time, and engaging with a plant called Witches’ Broom, parasitic in nature, that you find on trees and bushes. Witches’ Broom is an abnormal growth of branches in the tree, usually signaling some kind of distress.

Evidence of distress mixed with beauty, resilience, and strength…

I’d been looking at the first iteration of Hema Thríno for some time in my studio and I began to see her in a different form~ less vulnerable, more in an assumption of power and clarity. So off the wall she came and we got to work together and brought her into fuller form. She has a countenance now. She is here more fully… calm… and powerful.


by Leave a comment

Some beautiful press about Weaving Your Story

One of the classes I teach at the Shelburne Craft School is called Weaving Your Story. The chance to meld my love of weaving with my passions for healing, growth and creativity has been a true boon in my life. The program is fully grant funded by grantors and an anonymous donor making it cost free for participants. The Vermont Arts Council, being a grantor and a great supporter of the program, recently interviewed me to talk about Weaving Your Story and I wanted to share the article with you here. It captures so much of what the class is about and how I feel about it!

In case you are wondering how weaving and creative expression can be healing, I think the conversation gets at it well. Enjoy!

woven piece by a Weaving Your Story participant