Healing Handcrafting

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Summoning Creativity #3 ~ Engage Every Day

I’m writing to you from my porch. It’s just a few days before August 1st. I’ve been thinking about the next Summoning Creativity post for a while now. As I listen to the myriad birds engaged in their morning meetings and wonder at the frogs knocking to one another from here to there*, I can’t help but come back to the bewilderment I feel at being on Earth, doing this thing called life. Being alive. Being here as part of, and witness to, all of it. All of what is happening, all of what has been, all of what will come… here we are. Part of the story.

August in Vermont has a certain texture and moodiness to it. The sun’s height in the sky has gone through some noticeable shifts and, even with the hot days of late, there have already been moments that feel and smell like early fall. The rhythms we live in are obvious.  Yet, they can pass by with little notice if attention is not paid to the shifts.

Lest this seem like a naval-examining treatise on the passing of time, let me get to it and make the link between being human in nature and creativity.

The Link

When We Notice, We Are Engaged

When We Are Engaged, We Can Create

The Prompt for August

Engage Every Day

Yes. Every day.

Don’t go yet! This isn’t bootcamp or a fad diet. It’s an invitation to harness the energy of August and give yourself the gift of engagement with your life, your surroundings, and your beautiful creativity that is boundless and waiting for attention. Here’s what I have in mind.

~ Every single day, take a moment to be fully present in your body and mind. Let your senses guide you. Do you hear something that has you wondering? Do you see something that catches your attention? Feel a sensation on your skin? Taste something that has your tongue tingling? Smell something that makes you tilt your head?

~ Let your attention rest on something that is: neutral, pleasant, interesting, or beautiful. Yes, I’m being directive about that. ** Like students in school, we learn best when we feel and are safe. Let us give our nervous systems the gift of a moment of, at minimum, calm neutrality.

~ Observe what you have chosen to rest your attention on. At least for five minutes, study what has gotten your attention.

~ Then, following this engagement, document it. You can do this in several ways. On days that are busy and there’s just no time that feels available for more, simply write what you saw.

It can be as short and sweet as: “By my front step, I saw a web that formed a circle on the grass. It looked like a tissue from a distance. But up close, it was webby and dewy.”

Or, you can take a picture of it and print it out, if possible.

Or, you draw it, paint it, sketch it.

Or, you can research it. Using this example, I might wonder, “what makes those webs?” and then study that creature.

Or, you can make something inspired by what you’ve seen.

~ And… repeat. Every day for one month.

Why every day?!

Because when we do something every day, over time, we change our habits. And yes, it is a habit to plow through a day without noticing anything. And, it’s a habit to live every day and notice many things.

It’s a practice to let those things you observe work on you and interact with the part of you that is curious, has wonder, and wants to play.

Things that might be useful to have around:

  • An unlined notebook where you can keep sketches/drawings/writings/clippings….
  • A camera. Many folks have smartphones that have one million photos on them that they forget about. I recommend for this endeavor to print out pictures and put them in your book. If you have a printer that can do this, great. I don’t have reliable printer and ink costs a forture, so I often will order prints through the Walgreens app because I can order the prints I want and pick them up quickly. If you are only ordering one print here and there, it’s remains inexpensive. Many pharmacies and grocers have photo printing these days, and there’s no minimum number of prints necessary. My daughter also has this little polaroid camera that is pretty fun. I haven’t used it for things like this, but I think it would work great!
  • Colored pencils or pens
  • Charcoal drawing pencils
  • Portable paints
  • If you have a specific medium you like to work with, have that around and easily accessible in case you have more dedicated time to play and create.

Things to consider that might help support this practice:

  • Setting an alarm each day (with a pleasant sound, please! – no startle responses necessary for this effort!) to remind you to take a moment to engage.
  • Keeping your art book around so you are visually reminded to engage.
  • Inviting people you live with or talk to regularly to do this, too! Sometimes it’s fun to have a partner in daily efforts.

Beware of the following:

  • If you forget a day or days, don’t throw in the towel! Just get back to it. My relationship with my journal changed drastically when I decided not to make it a shame and self-hate punisher if I miss a few days or months. Shit happens, man. It’s no big thing.
  • Judgement of what you are focusing on or on what you do with it. Reminder: this is not a project to get anything specific done. It’s an invitation to engage with what resonates with you while taking it a step further and interacting with what you noticed.

What do you think? Are you game? I am! I vibe deeply with getting practical and organized in my efforts. I also don’t want to miss any of August, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. If any part of this feels too rigid for you and your nature, adjust as needed and make it work for you. Most important is to commit.

As always, I love to hear from you whether through the comments or directly, so please let me know if you take this on! I plan on sharing my thoughts about the whole thing as we make our way through the month. We’ll see what engaging every day inspires!

Until next time,

Bradie

ps- this post came a little early so you can start on August 1 if you’re so inspired!

* I think I’m hearing mink frogs but it seems like where I am is not considered part of their Vermont territory. Not sure, but a deeper dive into frog lore is in my future.

** To be clear, I am not saying the requirement is to ignore all that is happening in the world and to just “be positive, man”. What I am saying is that we need to give our nervous systems a chance to balance out, reboot, and access a sense of safety if we are actually living in a safe circumstance. With the issues we are facing, we need to do what we can to nurture ourselves so we can stay strong and grounded. 

Frogs Landscape (1575u20131580) painting high by National Gallery of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0


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You Still There? I’m Still Here.

Has it really been since March since I’ve written? I’ve been meaning to, but honestly, it’s really hard to extrovert (which in my mind includes putting parts of myself out into the world) when grieving. I’ve needed a lot of quiet, a lot of time alone, and not at all any “shoulds” where possible; just simply to have time to be in my own headspace, at least more than I typically am able. That all being said, I’ve missed writing here. I’ve come to look at this website/blog as the place that holds evidence of my thinking and ideas.

I’m grateful to you for tuning in.

Some updates: I was asked to participate in a group art show entitled Interwoven at the South Burlington Public Art Gallery , and I wholeheartedly said yes. I’d been working on some projects and it was just the impetus I needed to really focus and bring them into being. Most everything I make has to do with something I’m working out in my psyche and the pieces I made for this are no exception. Three are hand knit and three are handwoven. I’ll love to share them with you. The show’s opening is on September 11. I’ll post more about that soon.

Evidence of Significant Repair

Wearing Away

Hema Thríno

Rhythms

Winter of Our Discontent
Soil

My wooly, woven pieces are actually curtains but could also be wall hangings. I love playing with the idea of warm and bold wool being woven in an airy, light-filled way. I was in my studio yesterday and the window was open, allowing Winter of Our Discontent to flow and move and I smiled, seeing it dance just the way I’d hoped. I’ll write separately about each piece to introduce them simply and properly in the next week or two.

Also happening lately is the spinning of wool while listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ The Power of the Crone. I highly recommend listening to her wonderful stories. Pairing that with spinning is like eating dark chocolate while sipping a hot coffee. Perfection.

I got to dress up for a dear friend’s beautiful event thrown to raise money to develop a space that supports deep creativity and the arts…

And I got glasses- suddenly everything looks crisp and clear again… dang, that was a slow motion slippery slope…

I played with paint and yarn…

And had a lot of my work hung at the Pierson Library in Shelburne…

And did all kinds of fibery things with the Shelburne Craft School, my home away from home…

So, now that we’re all caught up (is that ever really possible?), I’ll love to know what you’ve been working on, thinking about, gearing up to do.

Until next time…

~ bradie


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A Weekend of Inspiration

The air was so warm and soft today. The sounds of late summer drifted through windows and around me as I meandered my way through a day filled with puttering, putting away and listening to children play, laugh and negotiate. Not much got done in the way of handwork other than knitting a few more rows onto my sweater. Slow and steady wins the race, I hope? 

I looked outside as I folded laundry and saw this meeting of mushrooms. How had I not seen them before? Or did they just appear suddenly, a faerie ring?


Later, my daughter and her friends showed me this epic spider! 


Soon, she had a bee in her web. Gruesome and awe inspiring. Deep respect to Shelob’s kin. 

At the start of the weekend a friend had sharp eyes on a mid-afternoon walk. Purple fungus and slithering corn snake offered their colors as inspiration. 

All of these moments and more make for a sweet entry into busy work and school week. 

Hope you had a good weekend. 


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Monday Musings~ Idle Hands Don’t Make Things

My kids started back at school after a summer filled with friends, family, swimming, creating, sunbathing… yes, I know, sun-bathing is so not good for the skin and I’m sure I’ll pay for it later in life, but this year, after the spring I had, I wanted to lay in the sun and not garden and just feel energy get put back in my body. It was lovely. 

Now I’m back, along with my littles, to routine and discipline and work. This year, work includes for me my private practice as well as writing, crafting and at some point teaching handcrafting type things to kids. I’m in the getting my ducks in a row phase now. 

In the crafting department, the waning days of August and the moody days of early-September have been productive. So far I’ve:

Spun some more yarn,

With my buddy. 

I’ve started a new weaving project in an attempt to learn more stuff…

And I got more comfortable setting up my loom. 

I crafted a hat out of a woven piece from the above loom and crocheted the top. It’s weird and unique and fits beautifully. 

And I made some fingerless gloves to match. 


I’ve captured a picture of two bucks who visit our yard from time to time. One is missing an antler. The Jungian in me can’t help but ruminate on this image. 


And I’ve internalized summer, the heat and energy that keeps things going and the mythic waves that crash and flow, regardless of one’s presence or reverence. 


Hopes for this week:

Play every day outside with my kids, finish my shawl, start a new hat, write a second chapter…


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Make A Book From Scratch Summer Camp, Recap…

This summer was a time of taking a few risks, including putting my fiber art teaching love out into the universe in a different way. I’ve shared already the camp I offered to do with weaving. You can read about that here. The second camp I offered was all about making a book from scratch. It’s important to me for kids to know and be frequently reminded that they can make stuff, really cool stuff, with found items, recycling and a little ingenuity. Art supplies are expensive, as are art classes, but if you know how to get your hands on materials that are free or inexpensive, you have at your fingertips myriad ways to make art, to be an artists, to add your own beauty to the world. So… I was messing around one day after daydreaming about making a book for collage. My first book was the one pictured below. It’s made with handmade paper, wool that I wet-felted for the cover, a piece of driftwood and cotton thread for stitching together. I’ll show you the camp process, mostly in pictures with a little text, because I think the images speak for themselves. This is the project that inspired the camp.

 

I spent a good deal of time before camp began prepping some materials. Carding Shetland wool…

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Making frames… a word on that: I found wooden frames at Michael’s craft store for $1 each. These saved the day. I had a number of frames on hand that I found at garage sales but I figured that kids are sometimes interested in making sure everything is even and balanced and fair, so, I decided to ensure that each child had the same size frame.

Also, I’ve been trying to find on line the tip I came across for outlining the frames with duct tape. I want to give credit to the blogger that shared that brilliant idea! Doing this makes for much easier removal of the paper once you flip it onto the drying surface. I will always do this now, and if I come across the blogger’s site, I will for sure share it here.

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Here’s me stapling the screen onto the frame. I used my mom’s staple gun, which made me think of her. I feel close to her when I’m crafting or creating. You can read about why this is relevant here.

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While things go better with kids when things are fair, they go even better than better when kids know which thing is theirs. It’s lucky I had this flashy duct tape on hand. No guess work needed!

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Here’s the thing about paper pulp (made in a cuisinart with recycled paper and water; the paper I put through the shredder first)~ not all kids love touching gooey, smushy, splootchy wet stuff. It’s handy knowing this ahead of time so you can have at your finger tips ideas of what steps kids might enjoy doing in the process, like soaking up the water from the underside of the frame/screen with a sponge, stirring the pulpy concoction, adding flower bits, etc., in the even that full-on hand immersion in paper pulp is out of the question.

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Here’s the kids looking for flowery colorful bits to throw in to our pulp.

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If those colors aren’t inspiring, I don’t know what is.

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I spent a good amount of time experimenting before camp started…

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And dyeing wool…

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Here’s some kids using a drum carder to prepare wool for felting. This camp included chances to do as many jobs as possible in the time we had. I had the kids pick a lot of the grassy bits out of the wool, fluff it open to prepare for carding, and then card it. There were varying opinions on this. I could sit and pick at wool all day and be fine. I love looking at those tasks as a chance to just chill the heck out and be with my thoughts. Not all kids love that, of course, so some felting was a wee bit chunkier than others, and that’s okay!

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For the wet-felting part, I had the kids arrange the layers of wool they were using to make their book over on a plastic table on top of a sheet of freezer paper. Then, we covered the wool in warm, soapy water, and covered it all again with freezer paper. The paper stayed strong while the kids pressed and rubbed their hands over their wool. Once it was showing signs of felting, they could take off the top layer and use their hands to felt directly. Again, some kids love that textural messy feeling and others don’t. Leaving the freezer paper on for a while longer helped those who preferred keeping their hands free from that specific wet-wool feeling.

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Then, once dried, the kids arranged their books as they wanted them, and had a chance to needle felt a design on to their covers. The night before the last day of camp, I sewed the books together. Originally, I’d hoped the campers would do that part, but we ran out of time.

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I think these books are all so beautiful. Interspersed between their handmade paper, I included sheets of handmade paper from India that is more amenable to writing. I will keep working on my own paper making skills to see if I can get closer to that quality.

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And listen, it’s not right to ignore the behind-the-scenes stars of the show… the sheep! Something I love about being a part of the fiber handcrafting and fiber art community is that I get to meet so many wonderful people. This is the second year that I’ve gotten wool from a wonderful man named Peter Moore, who lovingly cares for his four Shetland sheep. I met Peter because he posted online that he had wool available, and I jumped at the chance. I can say that I would call Peter a friend, now, and I truly don’t know how we would have ever met if not for our mutual love of sheep! Let me introduce his lovely wooly friends:

Meet Dolly…

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And Violet,

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Phoebe,

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And Daisy!

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They are all half-sisters and are four years old. Their wool was the centerpiece of this camp (in my opinion), and the kids were champs, learning new skills every day and hopefully leaving with something they were proud of.

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I’m sitting at my desk now, listening to the wind blow around the house. The temperatures are cooling and the birds are busy at the feeder. I am looking forward to the cooling down, the bundling up, the quieting of winter. Summer can be a full-on explosion of activity, work and play. It’s the extroverted season. These camps were a beautiful expression of all of that. I wonder what new things I’ll imagine up as I sit in the dark introverted winter. I guess we’ll see next year!


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What Happens When Fibery Handcrafting Takes Over My Life…

I finished my circular weaving project and what started out as one idea evolved into a moving symbol for me. Wild bird flying into golden fire 🔥. 

Tour de Fleece spinning mania!!!

Lots of spindle practicing… it’s slow going. 

Curly locks bring lots of smiles…

Yummy, yummy yarn…

More practice…

Fireworks magic for balance…

Lots of Shetland wool washing…

Lots of Shetland wool dyeing…

With some gorgeous alpaca…

And some Shetland carding while the dye pots do their thing…

Adding color to the fantasy basket…

And more spinning…

And dyeing…

And loom making for a weaving summer camp I’m hosting in a week… (yay!)

And, repeat…

Summer is my favorite time. ❤️


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School and Yarn are a Perfect Pairing

My life is organized by school years. I’ve not really had much time in my life when that was not the case. I completed my own schooling when I was twenty-five. Then I worked in schools for six or seven years (I already can’t remember that detail), and then I worked for years with kids in my practice who were in school. Now my own children’s school schedules shape our family’s life. The calendar year means very little to me except for a quiet chance for me to reboot and rethink where I place my energies. The school year, on the other hand, shapes most aspects of our lives.

I spent a lot of time in my kids’ school this year. I volunteered in their classrooms teaching the kids all different kinds of things to do with wool, yarn and other fibery crafts. I also taught the same things in a more official capacity in two other classes. I loved it and I plan to share more here about some of the lessons that I taught. One thing I did in both my kids’ classes was leave a loom set up, the simple kind, for kids to work on as they pleased, with the idea that at the end of the year (or whenever it was finished), I’d turn it into something to decorate their teachers’ rooms with. Yesterday, I finished both of these woven pieces. My son’s 3rd grade classroom filled their loom. Almost every time I went in, someone was working on it.

Here’s their finished piece:

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My daughter’s 1st grade class didn’t do many rows on theirs, but I assured their teacher I could make wall-art with it, not to worry. That class also did epically cool stuff with wool they dyed with Kool Aid, wool they felted and wool they experimented with.

Here’s their wool decor:

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And, here’s their finished woven wall hanging:

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I used antique wooden needles and a sanded dowel to serve as the structure from which the weaving hung. I also had a needle felted little nest hanging around that I opted to attach to the piece. I made that in their class as a demonstration one day and wanted to include it to represent that part of the work they did.

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As I worked on turning the woven pieces into wall-art yesterday, I thought about all that has transpired since September, for my children, for me and my husband, for our family as a whole. It’s so much life squeezed into all of these academic months. I reflected on how much my kids learned with their fabulous teachers and with their peers this year, how much more they are doing on their own compared to September, and how much some of our growing pains have been, well, painful. I thought about how lucky I am to have been able to hang out in their classes so many times this year and be given the chance to learn how to teach better, listen better and be more flexible. And, I thought about how much I want to keep doing this. Handcrafting and fiber art are extremely effective mediums for teaching kids about art, history, creativity and themselves. I hope I do this for a long time.

Fueled by that hope, I cleaned off my work desk, and daydreamed about summer break.

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Getting Back on a Totally New Track

Yesterday I started going through a box of things of my mother’s that I had packed after she died. There are many boxes my siblings and I will tend to in the coming months, but this one I packed just for me, with clearance from them of course. These things… fabric, pictures, her sewing basket and sewing boxes; some of these are my grandmother’s, too. It’s amazing, the little tiny sounds of rustling around safety pins and spools of thread, like the lilting music of a lifetrack. All of those taken for granted quiet moments when my mom or grandmother sewed something up and passed it along, or wore it again, or hoped for something more perfect but sighed and put down the needle anyway. Nothing is perfect.


This picture is of my mom sewing my wedding veil. We found the headpiece on a ridiculously fun shopping trip and she made it even more lovely, adding the flowing fabric and little beads. 


This is a needlepoint my mom made years ago~ I remember it from when I was very young. 


These are little bits of many things that will end up somewhere, somehow. 


And some hearts I made for my mom and grandmother, and a bowl, and a picture of Swami Muktananda, with (I think) my grandmother’s sewing basket. 


I’m getting back to some making. The sounds of summertime are helping. I actually make more in the summer, when the windows are open and the air is warm, muggy, froggy and quiet. Summer vacation is around the corner and I am more than ready to fall into love with less pressure and clock watching. I can hear the tinkling of chimes outside, underneath the constant conversations between birds. In a little bit the frogs will start their nighttime melody and if I’m lucky, the coyotes will pass through in the darkest hours. 

Lifetrack: Song 44. 


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The Drone and The Chant

I am dyeing wool right now, after a bit of a break. Flowers that I placed in jars with water about a month ago to collect sunlight have been waiting to be turned into dye paths. As I sit outside next to my pots, I can appreciate the fact that they waited too long. They are generously sharing their riotous scent. Maybe odor is the better word. Wow. My cats seem to love it, but I think I might be smelling this in my memory for years to come. It will be an experiment. I dyed with marigolds earlier in the summer after a 24-hour sun soak. Will this dye bath produce different colors?

This is a heavy time. While sitting and tending to my smelly pots, I tune into the drone, drone, endless drone of the crickets and grasshoppers. I’ve really appreciated them this year, but today for some reason, I’m moved by a different feeling. Sadness and maybe a touch of apprehension. How long will this song go on, or as I think about it, I realize that I’m imagining the wrong song to be the constant.

I love bagpipes. When I hear them, I start to cry almost instantaneously. One of my favorite memories is of a time I was taking a walk with my son on the beach. It was a beautiful dusk, he was a baby, in my arms, warm and cozy. I heard bagpipes and turned and there was a man, facing the ocean, playing this ancient instrument. I made my way closer and sat down, holding my boy, rocking him to the sound of the waves and the magic music. I cried because I felt grateful and like somehow, in this moment, I was holding on to a rope, connecting us to our ancestors.

Most bagpipes have at least one drone and one chanter. The drone is what makes that one, long constant sound around which the chanter is played to make the melody.  It occurred to me today that really, what I’ve been considering the drone of grasshoppers and crickets is really the chant around the drone. That specific, hypnotic sound is part of the melody of summer and early fall. It changes in volume and pattern throughout the season, as does the chant of frogs, birds, water flow, energy and even life and death. These things I get so attached to and imagine as constant are really just the chant around the drone of something so much more constant. I suppose that’s where religion, philosophy or other things come in to play. I remember reading in college about an astronomer, Tycho Brahe I think, who believed that the planets all made their own unique sound as they rotated around their axes. That may very well be the one iota I recall from that class, but I loved it then, and it resonates now.

Anyway, who ever said that dyeing wool and working with flowers and raising children and thinking about life was straightforward?

Here’s some recent pics:

What is this funny bug nest on a willow leaf?

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Tiny willow branches in a warp/weft attempt.

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Then what happened…

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Collection of willow leaves and branches for my next dye pot.

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I’m starting to gather lichen from bits found on walks (not on live trees!) and from wood delivered for this coming winter.

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It takes a while to collect lichen. As it should.

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I had come to call this “our deer”. An orphan, we watched this deer grow up all summer, losing its white spots, enjoying the wild flowers in our field. I think I just saw it dead on the side of the road coming home from dropping my kids off at school, having been hit by a car. We always told each other when we saw it, keeping an eye out for it, wondering where it would go this winter. Just the other day, we talked about rehabbing our wearing out play fort to make a comfy spot for deer to sleep if it got really cold. I wish people would slow down when they drive, put their phones down, remember that there are animals around. I guess it was seeing our deer, dead and alone on the road that made me think of what chants are swirling around the constant drone. I know this is just part of it, but damn…

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Everything But the Kitchen Sink and End of Summer Turbulence

I’ll admit to being one very distractible and lack-of-focus afflicted person at present. It is hard to figure out why. Here are some possible reasons: the intense heat has made working with wool mildly unpleasant; the coming to an end of summer vacation fills me with a nagging dread and combating impulses – do as much as I can with my kids and make the remaining days epic-style awesome vs. relax and take each day as it comes and just make sure to swim; anticipation of having time to organize my projects, my work and my goals and a drive to get started, get to finishing, and get organized. I teach at a local college, have a small clinical private practice, I hope to bring fiber art and craft to more kids this year, and I have some writing projects I long to pursue. All of these responsibilities and goals, plus being a mommy to two young ones has me, well, a little all-over-place, and I think that is reflected in my project heap and book pile. I thought I’d share some of what I’ve recently finished, what I’m working on and what I’m reading with those of you who read this here blog of mine. Maybe you, too, find the end of summer to be a little, well, turbulent?

Azel Pullover

~ I finished the Azel Pullover for my daughter. I love it. I truly do. It is not completed just as the pattern was written. It’s a bit shorter, and I modified the cowl neck because the numbering of stitches was off and it was making it wonky, so I ended up just knitting in the round which made a great looking band around the neck. By the way, the creator of this pattern is wonderful, and responded to a question I had about it in a very short amount of time.

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~ As part of completing the above pattern, I acquired a whole bunch of new skills in the knitting department: the cable knit cast-on, picking up stitches, making button holes (not elegantly executed this first go-round, but I can get the buttons through them), and fixing big mistakes (I practiced understanding what stitches look like when you have to take out a few rows and get them back on the needles).

~ I also got to use the knitting needles my grandmother gave me. You can read about them here. I am so happy about that.

Circular Weaving

I just completed the circular weaving piece that I started a while back. You can read about that here. It was supposed to, in my imagination, lie flat, but alas, it does not and is currently awaiting a super modification that I am actually very excited about. The hoped-for meditation mat will turn into a bowl to hold organic materials I plan to use to spin into yarn or work into weaving pieces.

The weaving looked nice and straight on the loom, but…
Once off, it would not lay flat. I think I pulled too tight on a few rounds of yarn. It seems to want to be a bowl, and I have an idea of what to wrap the outside in, so more to come on this!

Sewing With My Kids

Both of my littles have begun sewing their own little dolls, which is truly wonderful. You know, it is one thing to practice slowing down and exercising patience when it’s just me I’m reckoning with. When I’m working on projects with my children, I’ve realized that it’s best if I have some project in my hands, but one I’m not absorbed with. Nothing kills creativity and learning like impatience from the guide. I’ve been guilty of that and have made a dedicated effort not to let my own inclination towards impatience that I so readily apply to myself destroy these quiet moments with my children. I think I’ve made headway in this department.

I recently read a book to my children called Cloth Lullaby, by Amy Novesky. It is about the artist Louise Bourgeois and especially, her relationship with her mother, who was a weaver and tapestry artist. Louise apprenticed under her mother and later in her life became a renowned artist in her own right. Her giant sculptures of spiders, who were inspired by her mother, are one of her hallmark themes. Spiders create thread and repair and build and, in one part of the book, the author describes how when webs are damaged, spiders do not get angry; they simply repair them. In this beautiful book, I was reminded of an important ideal~ steadfast and calm repairing and steadfast and calm teaching. I was grateful to have read it with my littles.

Organized My Fibers and Garage Space

I spent a good amount of time going through all of my materials and getting them organized in a way that will make project planning and gathering much easier in the months to come. I do plan on doing a fair amount of dyeing wool and experimenting in the fall.

Wool I Dyed and Carded

I’m not done with carding all of the wool yet! But here are the results of the washed, dyed and carded Shetland I wrote about recently. It’s so beautiful. Coreopsis is quite the dye plant and is shown on the right. On the left is Shetland dyed with marigold.

Shetland dyed with marigolds. I’m hand carding this with my Ashford carders and plan on getting a nice fluffy woolen yarn after spinning it.
Shetland dyed with coreopsis, carded on my drum carder. The color is absolutely gorgeous.

Books I Am Reading

Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott~ I love the way she writes about every single thing. I need some writing advice and she’s my go-to for that.

Stitch By Stitch, by Carolyn Meyer~ I really want to know how to do rudimentary needlework. I’m struggling with this because it is a bit of a departure for me, and I’m not sure it’s wise to start yet another journey into another handcraft when I have so many I already love and could get much more proficient at, but have you seen this book –> Slow Stitch: Mindful and contemplative textile art, by Claire Wellesley-Smith. This book inspires me in a way that is almost painful. The colors, the textures and the soothing promise of slowing down is really speaking to me and I want to figure out a way to work this in to what I do both in my own handwork practice and with others.

Would anyone like to do a slow and consistent, chapter by chapter Stitch-Along with me, using Slow Stitch as the guide? Seriously. Write me if you do.

This summer has included many beautiful times with family and with friends, many bike rides and lake swims and creemees, lots of convalescing after some antibiotic side effect havoc, lots of chip eating and garden tending.

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Days have been long and night sounds have been welcome and wild. Temperatures have been hot and rain has been scarce. News has been painful and overwhelming. The Olympics have been awe-inspiring. And the days are going on and each one offers a new chance to get connected with the present moment, to breath and to not resist the passing of time. I think in the coming weeks before school starts, that is what I’ll be trying to keep in the forefront of my mind. To look and to truly see, to hear and to truly listen, to touch and to truly feel.

Yes. That.

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