Avalanche Looms

Testing

2012-01-31T17:10:00.001-06:00

So far, so good. Plainweave, log cabin, and Rosepath samples. I really thought I was going to thread up Goose-eye, but the Rosepath was too strong.

Winding on

2012-01-27T22:07:00.001-06:00

18 yards of Swedish mattvarp on the back beam tonight. Threading tomorrow.

Down the Rosepath Again

2012-01-21T17:45:00.002-06:00

Rows of X and O motifs in gaily colored Rosepath (sigh!) against a background of black and gray prison stripes, suggest some of the complexities of romance, and seems Valentines-appropriate. (Or, that I'll never escape Rosepath). Wearable cuff, sentimental, handwoven, closed with vintage Mississippi pearl buttons, and hand crocheted button loops, lined with dupioni silk, I call them Hard Times for Valentines.

How I Celebrated MLK Day

2012-01-18T16:45:00.001-06:00

I look out at the woods and an idea comes to my mind's eye. Once I have a visual thought like that, even lazy as I am, I can't resist it. What would it look like if I put some weaving out there in the snowy woods today? I have to see it. I take some rag fragments I found in a drawer out to the woods, and put them in some branches. It looks all right, but here's another version, a longer story.

Monday. Martin Luther King Day. We had our first wintry snow fall. I decided to go on a rag bombing walk up to the quarry, with some rag scraps, needles, threads, my new camera. I picked some trees to bomb, sort of back from the road, and started in. As I edged my way into the thorns and bushes, I found the trees I'd picked from the road, to sew my rag weaves to, were actually across a ditch, on a ridge in front of another much deeper ditch. I decided to take a few pictures of my weaves suspended on branchlets, to test the idea. I did notice then that I'd worn rather smooth bottom boots for this outing, and the upshot was a sudden downslide into the deeper ditch, protecting my camera with my elbow as I plunged down. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

I came to rest feeling hurt. My knee hurt, my elbow hurt. But my camera was ok. I crawled back out on my hands and knees, back up to the road before I noticed my face felt strangely empty where my glasses should have been.

" Funny, I thought I was wearing my glasses when I came out here."

So, I crawled back out again, to where I fell, and searched around in the snow, but couldn't find them. I headed back down to the shop, with my rag bombing kit, to see if I'd left them safely behind. No glasses. This time I put on my good kicks, black suede boots with deep waffles, left behind by my daughter a few years ago, and heavy gloves. I hiked back up the hill, and back to the ditch-ravine, back to the spot where I came to rest, and searched again, and this time I found them, buried.

No photos were taken of my accident. I thought I'd go back out again today, to sew my rags around my chosen trees, but now it's snowing horizontally. Miraculously, my knee and elbow are feeling fine.

Another thought came to me while floundering around out in the woods: I realized how much I love Martin Luther King, Jr. He ignited the imagination of oppressed people, he shared a vision that compelled them to unite and take action. Together they had power they'd never before imagined. I get it. He was an artist and a great socialist, and my hero.

salt and pepper

2012-01-14T15:15:00.000-06:00

Salt and pepper, black and white. I always go back to them for my rug warps, because they keep the color and design lively. They aren't neutral. They are black and white, simply, or complexly. The long rug is one I wove a few years ago, called Geranium, after my old lady geranium that bit the dust, after living with me in my shop for ten years. I haven't seen this rug in a long time, and it looks like an old friend to me. It has a black and white 12/6 Swedish mattvarp, log cabin warp. I'm about to embark on a new rug project, and though I'm a rag rug weaver at heart, it's been a little while since I've actually woven one.

Black and white, log cabin or pincheck? I haven't used pincheck in years, but I always like the rugs where I used it.

To make room for the new rugs, I just cut off a 20 ft length of ragweave from my sturdy Kessinich loom. This is also black and white warp, 2 inch solid stripes, threaded in Rosepath. I'm going to wash and dry it, and then have my own bolt of ragweave to cut and sew into pillows, work aprons, and woodland animals. I'm just pumped to have a long bolt of fabric I wove to do with as I please.

Kiri Kari

2012-01-11T14:50:00.000-06:00

A few years ago I heard of Anu Raud, the Grand Old Lady of Estonian handicraft, a cultural anthropologist, who undertook to preserve traditional Estonian knitting patterns, in the form of stuffed animals. This book, Kiri Kari, is a collection of them. I can't read Estonian, and I'm not much of a knitter, but these patterns and creatures make me excited. The pigs, cats and foxes are charmers, but also the handpuppets, which mimic traditional painted designs.

Knitters tell me they're based on traditional glove and sock forms. The animals she and others knitted were placed in museums and schools for children to play with, to keep the traditional patterns alive in their imaginations, and alive in the culture.

Anu Raud is elderly now, and a tapestry weaver. Her tapestry is brilliant, contemporary, and large scale. The book Kiri Kari has endpapers (above) with drawings (I assume) by Anu Raud, and there is one page of photos of knitting as it progresses in the making of a pig, but otherwise, it is not meant as an instruction book. I use it for inspiration. I have yards of woven rag and linen rosepath fabric now, which could become a set of animals. The anticipation of this potential is a luxurious state of mind for me, when my imagination has been stirred, and I'm relishing it. I purchased my book online from an Estonian bookstore. What a world we live in! It was in my mailbox in Avalanche two weeks later. Look Anu Raud up in Google images and treat yourself.

Heat Wave

2012-01-08T16:39:00.001-06:00

It's warm enough today to feel good wearing just a sweater on a walk. I went to look for some snow or ice, and the best I could find was a little along the banks of the West Fork. A pleasant swan lit up in a front yard. I like swans, and especially like swan representations in plastic. It must be the curve of the neck. All around the hills are curves against the sky. The West Fork stream banks are scalloped. I've always looked for roads that wind, and meandering streams. This might explain why I've always preferred a curvy selvedge!

I picked a new stack of rags to weave with, and considered working in some vintage rags from
an old rag ball. Oh, the plaids!

Happy New (Color) Year

2011-12-29T16:49:00.000-06:00

We might not have snow today, but there's a world of color. The low slant of sunlight in the afternoon is something wonderful that I miss in the summer. The last cardinals peck black sunflower seeds, everything gold-washed.

Still enamored of my Kokka fabric by Melody Miller, the pin bag on the laundry door, and the linen I dyed green-gold. New black and blue wristwarmers, woven yesterday, washed, brushed and ready to wear. Everyone have a good New Year, all the way through.

My red plastic comb warping assistant

2011-12-25T16:12:00.000-06:00

It's Christmas day and I'm finishing a new little rosepath warp in black and gray striped perle cotton.
My red plastic comb, taped to the top of my frames, with the teeth out in front of the closest frame to the beater, holds the threads I've unwound from a 2 inch section on the warp beam. Each thread is in the place where it came through the tension box, as I wound it on the back beam yesterday.

It is so easy to keep the ends in order, and to look for my next heddle. The threads do not slip out of the comb, until I pick one. As I move across the warp, I untape and reattach the comb where it will be most convenient to access the threads.

It's so simple, I'm embarrassed to admit how much time this saves me. I was so excited when I posted about my "trick" that I'm sure I raised expectations. I hope this isn't too disappointing. But I've never been able to master any other method that made warping faster and still accurate for me. I do hope someone out there will find it useful, too.

Winter solstice

2011-12-21T11:28:00.001-06:00

This year we cut a spare Christmas tree with large branch gaps. Unplugged, it's decorated with paper garlands left from Cara's wedding, my favored Russian blue dog, Darcie's hand crocheted snowflakes, and Swedish folded birch ribbon paper stars. The glass balls are a treasured collection that my husband and Ursula found discarded in our town dump years and years ago. They're barely silvered, with the softest colors.

There's just a little snow on my path to the workshop and store. I haven't even had a chance to wear my new boots.

Mucky, our polydactyl cat (28 toes counted, so far), briefly away from the excitement of tree in the house, lounges where the fire is warmest, on the wool rug my mother wove. I'm warping and weaving, on this peaceful day. I wish you all a season of pure content and happiness.

Nighttime Storekeeping

2011-12-11T00:08:00.000-06:00

I'm working late. I like how it looks in here, and how it smells. My favorite pair of plastic light-up polar bears glowing in the windows, and the tiniest Christmas tree I've ever had. It's beginning to feel a little bit like Christmas. Now I'm hoping for a soft, fat, flaky snowfall.

Gold

2011-12-02T15:19:00.002-06:00

The light this afternoon is golden. It's just 3:15, and the low sun is about to set behind Asbury Ridge. For a few minutes it shines in, right on the Rosepath I'm just weaving, the gold button row, and mine eyes have seen the glory. I'm not kidding, weaving thrills me.

X Over Avalanche

2011-11-25T10:07:00.004-06:00

Since I've been weaving the X's and O's of Rosepath so diligently, it seems like I'm seeing X and O everyplace. This one just seemed a little too obvious.

Hand weaving

2011-11-16T12:01:00.005-06:00

We meet in each other's homes and studios, all around the area, once a month. We don't call our group anything particular, unless it's 2nd Mondays. We go to Dell, Asbury Ridge, Norwegian Hollow, Viola, Viroqua, Avalanche, Jug Creek. We each show up, bringing what we have to offer, sometimes an apple salad, sometimes what we've been weaving, knitting or spinning. Or, we bring our sad or funny stories about where we've traveled, what we've seen since the last time we were together. Sometimes it seems hard to take the time out from work to get there. But, not one moment of our precious time is wasted with idle conversation, and the conversation (and laughter) starts right away, and covers a lot of ground.

We are friends, we are mostly weavers, and we are women. When I brought my freshly woven wrist warmers, I'd hoped to find a hand model. These women took the stack from my hands and spontaneously put them on. One pair was strung together, so two women had to stay very close to each other while they moved to the window to take a picture of their interwoven hands. Angie took the beautiful picture with her new camera. These laughing friends of mine, putting their hands together in a circle, with my weaving on their wrists, was warmhand modeling I never imagined.

It was kind of wonderful.

Where I've been

2011-11-10T13:42:00.002-06:00

With my daughter, artist Sofia Arnold, who was in Milwaukee this week, and Faythe Levine at her SKY HIGH GALLERY in the Sky High Skate Board Shop. We were there to see the current show, "Jailbait" new tapestries by Erin M Riley, on exhibit now through November 27.
(partially shown, Pink Nail Polish, tapestry, by Erin M Riley).

Gallery curator Faythe Levine and skate shop owner Aaron Polansky share a common vision for making their city a better place by building community through art, creativity and events centered around their neighborhood in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee. Faythe is also the director and co-author of Handmade Nation, The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design, documentary film, and book.

I was excited to see Sky High Gallery, at last. Faythe is a dynamic force seeking, finding and promoting contemporary art and creative young artists. She was one of the first to notice Erin's work, and wrote about it in Fiberarts Magazine, Spring 2011 (well worth finding and reading).

Seeing these tapestries up close, they are even more mysterious to me now. They are densely woven, with hand dyed yarns. Much of the subject of her work is self portraits that young women post to Facebook, and Erin's interest in showing these ephemeral images in the form of woven tapestry. She says she admires Swedish artist, Helena Hernmarck's tapestries. Erin M Riley's weaving, to me, is like plates shifting under the landscape of what weaving can be. Erin is a self declared and devoted tapestry weaver, whose weaving is clearly art.

Fool's Economy

2011-10-24T11:40:00.002-05:00

I don't expect to be a speedy warper, but I want to dislike warping less. This week I discovered a new warping trick involving my well used plastic, wide space comb, from the Dollar Store, and some masking tape. I've significantly improved my warping efficiency. I may even look forward to it, a little. Eureka!

I also gained an insight this week, for the last time, I hope. It takes a long time for insights to penetrate this head, I've noticed. Here it is: When a warp goes wrong, for any reason, DO NOT PROCEED. I should have this tattooed on my arm. By some habit of mind, in the part of the brain where the most primitive ideas hold sway, I cling to the idea that frugality is the first principle. This is my default option. I'm usually not aware that I am choosing it.

But to be frugal with materials, and not with my time is the wrong way to better, more profitable weaving. Deciding to remove warp that is wound unevenly, or has knots, or any number of other possible problems, or defects, before weaving begins, does waste that warp, and the time already invested in the warping. Making the decision to cut it off, throw it out, and start over is difficult, but saves so much time later on in ease of weaving. It also assures better quality in the finished woven fabric. Weaving better quality in my weaves is my goal, as well as making better designs, with better colors. I know this is not news to most of you, but I want to state publicly that I now know it, understand it, and will live by it henceforth. I've seen the light.

Being frugal with materials, trying to save every mistake, is false economy. I'm only fooling myself. The highest value added is my time, not the yarns.

Looks

2011-10-17T18:22:00.001-05:00

Just purchased, new Japanese cotton/linen fabric, designed by Melody Miller for Kokka. Just woven, a little red, Rosepath inlay on the loom. Just wound, 30 paper spools of cotton and cotolin for Rosepath wristwarmers.

Checks

2011-10-08T12:49:00.002-05:00

I'm putting a sign in the door of the store this afternoon. We're going to town to see the homegrown Harvest Festival Parade, with all handmade floats and big puppets. It will be small, and sweet, ephemeral. Get there if you can!

Wild

2011-09-29T12:50:00.006-05:00

The kitten is feral tonight. Bright eyed, his fur smells like dirt, moss, tree bark, fog, and most likely, small rodent blood. When we open the screen door where he is hanging by his claws, he charges in under the rug, crazed and purring loud. Right away he wants us to let him out again. Yesterday in the morning, a deer and fawn were drinking from the creek, and right between them was the half-grown kitten, lapping.

Last night, my husband saw a skunk out in the yard, and said he was going to have to set the trap. Then, a little while later, he walked down the driveway, in the dark, with a can of poison spray to squirt in the dirt bees' nest, which they've dug in the ditch next to our mail box. There was the skunk again, its white striped tail flailing around in the dark, in the enlarged bee hole. It was burrrowing deep in to eat dirt bee larvae (yuck) never mind the stings. Dirt bees are mean. Maybe they were asleep. In the morning we could find no bees. Now my husband thinks the skunk is all right.

My excellent husband is also a mushroom hunter, and found a large clump of wild Hen-of-the-Woods (maitake) mushrooms. Roasting them in the oven fills our kitchen with an intense aroma, which I imagine is like the smell of burning peat underground in the Great Dismal swamp fire, yet strangely appetizing.

As it grows, this huge mushroom incorporates leafs, twigs, bits of sand, and wood loam, that have to be removed. Our appetite for these mushrooms seems to have become a craving. We both stand near the oven, waiting impatiently for them to be done.

Wild and bitter grapes are all seed, a little pulp, in sour dusky blue skins, but I can't resist eating them, at least a few. I feel like a child again, wild in the woods.

new colors for wristwarmers, less the smoky pink silk

Chimney Smoke

2011-09-13T13:32:00.002-05:00

There's a whiff of it in the air, and it's not a forest fire! The sugar maples are about to turn that crazy orange they do. Our first load of picture-book firewood arrived today. Call it scarf weaving weather, and I've started adding a little alpaca-silk blend yarn to the mix, for coziness. I'm still in the lost-in-the-woods mode, in soft smoky colors and Rosepath, and I like it like that.

Down the Rosepath

2011-09-08T08:58:00.004-05:00

A rug is a path. It is a record of many choices (color, texture, mood, balance) made by the weaver as she follows her hunches of which is the best way to go, what next, and next, and next. Off of the loom, and on the floor, the rug is an actual path. Wide enough for a person to walk its length, for a moment or two, along the path the weaver made.

Choosing to weave rags is also a path.

(Look at this! Artist, Rikkianne Van Kirk invited me to carry on about my Big Love for rag weaving in her new Redefine article series on Apartment Therapy Re - Nest www. re-nest.com)

gone to the lake

2011-08-27T17:43:00.000-05:00

One more time. Sauna, swimming, hardtack and butter. Back next week!

Old Summer

2011-08-23T11:38:00.003-05:00

Fresh camera, new cotton towels from Sofia Arnold, Flying Duck Chinese Kite, paper flower weaving, and a new We're Not Out of the Woods Yet rosepath scarf. Mr. Pike, puffing smoke from his bee-smoker to sedate the swarming bees, has harvested honey from all the bee boxes. A cricket chirps in my work room--good luck! Summer's almost done.

Cat Pause

2011-08-01T12:08:00.011-05:00

On the verge of despair over the presently unfolding political catastrophe of the Debt Ceiling games, I'm focusing on my new kitten. I brought him home because of his poly-dactylism (paws with more than the usual number of toes) but have also discovered his charming personality. I knew I'd like him. To play with a kitten doesn't mean I'm no longer a Feminist, Marxist, Cultural Socialist, it just means I'm going to give it a rest.

The little cat was here in the store on Saturday, until I remembered the folly of allowing a kitten in a weaving workshop.

My new rosepath scarf warp in 16/2 softest Swedish cotton, charcoal gray and the color of a luna moth, was clawed and tangled even more as I tried to extract him, and the 36 claws he might possess.
(I haven't been able to get a good count of the toes yet, but there may be as many as 9 on each paw).

Meanwhile, customers arrived, children, parents, grandparents, campers from the campground across the street, two of my cat-craziest customer-neighbors (you know who you are). The air was conditioned (very cool) and the kitten was frisky. No one was in a hurry to leave.

Since he isn't named yet, I soon had a list of kitten name suggestions, and people advocating for their favorite. Jasper, Chester, Felix, Smoky, Hector, Goober, Tootsie, Thumper, Killer, and Stanley. Several people strongly favored Tootsie. I like Iko, not sure why. But so far it seems to come down to Big Foot, the obvious name. Kitten enjoyed all the attention, and I felt my ominous black-cloud thoughts lifting, refreshed in the company of good-hearted people.

White and Black

2011-07-13T10:31:00.001-05:00

Today it is clear blue skies, a cool north wind, and dry weather. I'm looking at rosepath rag and yarn samples, again, and planning a new black and white warp. Also, I came home from my favorite fabric shop, Gayfeather, in Madison, with a yard of a vintage print Liberty Cotton, and several yards of black-and-white check cotton/linen fabric. Black coffee in my Moomin mug. Happily, I'm feeling like my old self again.

Heat

2011-07-03T12:15:00.010-05:00

Late afternoon in our house, the shade pulled to keep sun out of the dining room. A cigar box smells dusty, and is the perfect metaphor for my brain. Got any-thing? No. No-thing.

The old farm apron is my favorite cotton print, even if I don't feel like cooking. I like its pocket, with the round ric rac trim. Coleslaw for supper, with a Bloody Mary. Lost kittens found napping near their big project, Hole to China. Both are alarmed when Carl sets up a ladder to scrape and paint the peeling siding from past winters' ice dams.

Still feeling bored at the grocery, I see my friend and neighbor, Elizabeth. She said it's a distressing holiday so far.

She's been taking care of her neighbor's animals while they're gone.We are living through an epic magnitude of raccoons this summer. I read Sterling North's Rascal when I was 11, and for many years wanted nothing more than a tame raccoon for a pet, and a tame crow to live in a belfry of a church next door. I've always loved wildlife, and still do. But, I've discovered, there is a them and us, when it comes to numbers. A few lady bugs are charming, a wall full or a window full is a terrible situation for all of us.

Raccoons entered the chicken house of Elizabeth's neighbors, two nights in a row. The first night 3 chickens were killed and maimed, the next night the rooster disappeared. It was a bloody mess, she said, and there was a one-legged chicken that had to be killed. She had already trapped and killed 7 raccoons in her own yard. To tell you the truth, she said, it's kind of depressing. Boring seemed a better kind of hot summer day, actually. I didn't mention to her that someone had recently seen a mother skunk and a litter of babies crossing the road to her barn.

good weaving days

2011-06-26T18:27:00.001-05:00

I walked up to the quarry this Sunday afternoon, in a perfect breeze, a perfect light. I wanted to take a picture of the ferns that grow across from the quarry, and there they were, in softly filtered sunlight. Some butterflies were dead along side the road. I've woven two new plain scarves, in linen and combinations of silk, alpaca, and cotton, but mostly unbleached linen. One is ferny, greens and browns. The other is dark teal blue, browns and charcoal gray, lakey.

What was I thinking?

2011-06-21T16:34:00.003-05:00

No, seriously. What was I thinking about before we left to visit our family out west just 5 days ago? This book and these yarns were on the table. I was thinking about something new. But what? The show catalog Tradition Transformed, Brown/Grotta, No. 22, is a favorite of mine. Japanese ideas and 9 contemporary weavers, are represented in a collection originally curated by Sheila Hicks, in 1995, at Brown/Grotta gallery, and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, in NewYork, and to coincide, Brown/Grotta gallery, 1998.

Chiaki Maki and her sister, Kaori Maki, weavers, are part of this group. Their work and words are so clear to my mind's eye, and help me to think better about what I try to do, every time I come back to weave in my own studio. Their elegance alone would be hard to match, but their textiles incite memory, or something less tangible, something not quite remembered. Can a textile do that? What a painting or a poem can? Obviously, it can. Here are the proofs.

When I was weaving as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, I experienced a moment in which I disappeared, and only the weaving remained. The piece that was born of that moment was fascinating, beyond any description. Such a moment is the very heart of my creation. Chiaki Maki

Cowbird

2011-06-04T12:41:00.003-05:00

An especially handsome male cowbird was sitting in the tree near the footbridge. He had with him two light gray, slim female cowbirds. I don't know if cowbirds are polygamists. If there are birds that mate for life, mourning doves, geese, for example, then other marital arrangements could be possible in the bird world. Or, this little fellow is just exceptional.

His coloring is exceptional, a brown head, with a wreath of indigo around his chest and the top of his wings. The rest of him, to his tail feathers, is a dark, ash gray. He was all the colors I was looking for.
I suppose I fell for him, too.

The scarf is made of unbleached and washed linen, and cotton, and silk. The weave is my summer favorite, Swedish myggtjäll, or mosquito net. The scarf is a simple, rustic check, and Japanese inspired. Fresh from the loom, it has a lot of body, but, as with all linen, will soften with time and wear.

Doing what I love to do

2011-05-25T11:00:00.001-05:00

I put linen on the old barn loom again, and wove this piece with Finnish paper yarn. Linen and paper go together. Their fibers transpire, they breathe, they change. This is slow weaving. Paper yarn threaded on a tapestry needle makes rya knots for the flowers. The lattice squares, or windows, are bound with 9 separate pirns, each passed back and forth.

Off the loom, I brushed 320 petals with water and opened each by hand, petal by petal. I checked the clock, and this blooming process took 5 hours. But, while I'm working, I tend to forget the time.There is something about doing this that empties my brain of pesky thoughts. I forget myself a little, in an air garden of linen and crisp paper, the thunk of the beater, and the pure pleasure of making something.

Blue Bird and other signs

2011-05-18T21:44:00.012-05:00

Have you heard that, once again, the world is due to end? May 21, 2011 is Judgement Day. That's coming right up, but I feel that it's not likely to happen so soon, because, in a barn, in SW Wisconsin there is a small miracle. I've told just a few people about the new kitten I've been waiting for. Sometimes cats around here have noticeably big, fan-shaped feet, due to extra toes. I have acquired a strong desire to have one of these cats. I heard of a cat in the neighborhood that often has kittens with extra toes on their front paws.The cat-daddy is feral, and he's the one with the extra-toe genes. He comes around every spring, and this year he made his visit on schedule.

This must have been the longest gestation in cat history, but at last it's born. It was a 2-kitten litter, and just one kitten has extra toes--on each of its feet! Four big paws! It's mauve! I'm the first on the list, maybe the only one on the list, but the farmer's wife said I can have it. It's just 2 weeks old, and its mother has it and the other kitten, without extraordinary feet, high up in a spidery hay mow. It takes a ladder to get up to find them. Just a few more weeks to wait, unless an owl, or some other mishap (end of the world?) comes along.

My old Mama Kitty hasn't heard any of this news. I'm going to call it Smoky. (What color is mauve anyway?)

These Days

2011-05-11T12:25:00.002-05:00

Suddenly we had a cats-and-dogs rain, with no disastrous floods or tornadoes. I admit to feeling more anxious than usual, lately. The bee yard up on Salem Ridge was soaked. The random colors of Bill Pike's bee boxes were free for the taking, so, inspired, I rushed home to weave. The supple scarf is silk and cotton, mainly, with some tencel, and cotolin. It is one of the new ones with the great spring story moving through my imagination, and hopefully through my hands

(update: Bill was just here to look at the bees and told me he paints the colors on his boxes so the bees won't drift into the wrong hive when they come back from gathering. It's their address. He paints with paint returned to Walmart by people who had the wrong color mixed. Can people do that? I thought once it was mixed you're stuck with it)

Jo

2011-05-09T10:08:00.004-05:00

It was just spring when Jo came to visit, bringing gifts. A bottle of pear aperitif, soon empty, was sweet and delicious. The bottle top remained, and as she told me, was a newly intriguing color to her. That was also a gift, since I do agree, and now have a bright new color to think about, and act upon.

Then she gave me her old 3 Bears box house, and an original Miss Mouse box, handmade in the 60's by a crotchety artist, a woman called Aunt Sue. My own 3 Bears House had burnt in our fire. These are just as they were when we played with them as children. Baby bear's chair cunningly breaks, the beds in the loft are too hard, too soft, and just right, and painted acorn cap dishes set the table. Miss Mouse's cape hangs on its little nail by the door.

Jo, if you read this, as much as these things do mean to me, what is more precious is the fact of our years of friendship. Thank you.

Rag mad

2011-04-25T12:53:00.002-05:00

More we're not out of the woods yet rag and yarn panels, in Rosepath. When I have woven enough of them I plan to sew them, cushion covers, and a deerskin bottomed sack, probably a back pack. My fascination with thready, raggedy weaves isn't wearing off. I hope I never find my way out of this woods. (On a walk up the road today, I practiced a little skipping, which felt pretty good).

At work

2011-04-22T11:45:00.001-05:00

Our sturdy little town plow truck does it again. I'm at work on a new scarf warp, calculating and winding on to my little Norwood studio loom. The threads this time are silk, 16/2 Bockens Swedish cotton, and tencel. The design, Finnish Birds Eye, a diamond twill. My spool rack is the side of our old baby crib.

Black Bird

2011-04-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

Snow is good weaving weather. Black Bird scarf is my last on this warp, and I'm still crushing on Swedish Rosepath.

Chinese Kites!

2011-04-03T14:31:00.000-05:00

New in the store this week are these beautiful, hand painted silk traditional Chinese kites. I'm infatuated! There are butterflies, owls, dragonflies and swans. Each one comes in a cloth covered box with ribbon ties, and cord handles. The kites assemble easily in a few minutes, and just as easily come undone, to go back in their boxes. They have bamboo frames, and each of many joints is tied with string wraps and glue. They are rather sturdy.

The plastic reel winder, with orange nylon flying line, screws, nuts, and satisfying tick-tick-tick sound while winding, is an old school toy all on its own. I can imagine my own boy once upon a time standing on the bridge with something tied to the string letting it go downstream, until he wound it back.

April Fools Scarf

2011-03-30T14:08:00.004-05:00

Early spring torments me. It's always been like this for me, like being invited to a birthday party that's supposed to be fun, but which inevitably will be chaotic. Nervous energy, too much coffee, too bright, too much old snow, too much coffee, wind, mud. I start one thing, and then another, and finally there are a string of started jobs behind me, a trail of open stepladders, half wound spools, tax paper work, peppered with forgotten coffee cups, misplaced threading hooks and calculators.

Settling down to weave is important. Bringing my nose to some work at hand calms my innervation. Color and Rosepath contain this flux of ideas I'm experiencing, and make some sense of it. Going outside is a big help, too.

I tried this scarf I just finished, on a walk up the road to the quarry yesterday. An experiment, Would I like it, or would I want to tear it off? I wound it on and checked the mirror. It looked fine. With my old brown and green wool plaid jacket, it looked surprisingly fresh.

Then I walked up past Falk's old house, where the new neighbors are cleaning and clearing out what's left of his stuff. It was late afternoon, and the crew of guys were calling it a day, standing around a smouldering brush fire of Falk's old overgrown lilac hedge, and his roses. They looked like they were well in to a 12-pack. Some little kids stood on a heap of debris nearby. They all stopped talking and stared as I walked by. I waved and said, Hi. Two of them raised their hands. Maybe it was just the fresh air, but something changed. Or, it might have been my bright and shining scarf, but suddenly I felt good, like myself again. I clearly knew what I wanted to do next, check if the watercress at the spring is ready to pick, and look for pussy willows.

Trouble and Dirt

2011-03-23T19:02:00.004-05:00

It's that unpredictable, irregular, disconcerting season again. Where the ground should be solid, it's spongey. The breeze is soft, the night warm, and then the sleet storm comes. Vees of geese fly east, then west, a dissonant, squawking recorder concert flying over in apparent confusion. Fresh, raw, energy comes in the gusting wind, but dissipates in every direction.

I'm suddenly filled with enthusiasm, but just as suddenly deflate, forgetting what had me so excited. I hear myself humming the old housewife's lament:

There's nothing that pays for
The time you waste on it,
There's nothing that lasts us
But trouble and dirt.

Pictures:
1. Building a hellokitty rag doll, draped and pinned, around an inflated playground ball
2. Postcard picture of erin m riley's beautiful tapestry "Three Strikes"-- erin m riley is a new kind of artist/weaver breaking through.
3. Corn stubble in a contour field with melting snow
4. March scarf, in linen and cotton, rosepath and plainweave

Spring Backward, Wisconsin!

2011-03-09T14:59:00.000-06:00

This is a dark spring, so far. Complacency is out the window. Newly elected hard line, Tea Party Governors, in midwestern states are vandalizing the institutions we crafted to protect our resources: our people, our land, our water. Just two months in office, and our new Governor, Scott Walker,has threatened most of the citizens of Wisconsin with teacher lay-offs, loss of the right to collective bargaining, loss of health care, and using our National Guard against us, in case we're unruly and protest.

But, the banks and Wallstreet have already bled this particular turnip dry. And, they got away with the pot of gold, too. The working class has turned its pockets inside out already. The poor, elderly and disabled are just not that lucrative a source of money, unless you take away their medicaid, their home health nurses working for $9 / hr. Our Governor has already handed out $117 million in tax cuts to corporations and wealthy backers. His great political miscalculation is to think that the teachers, nurses, lunch ladies, etc, will be the ones to pay for it. Over 100,000 outraged people turned out daily over 3 weeks in Madison, and across the state, to protest. They were non-violent protests, that felt more like a 4th of July parade, but they were deadly serious.

Dark, maybe, but also Spring, because we are standing up to fight back, and more than that, we are winning. After all, we are people of the Heartland, and this new legislation is nothing if not heartless. When I woke up one morning this week to go visit our State Senator, Dan Kapanke, a supporter of the Governor's bill, at our courthouse, it was hard to think what to write on my sign. Riot! was the only word that came to mind. No wonder I accidentally cut through 8 (!) warp threads when I got back to the loom.

Above images: a soft blizzard at midnight, pink-nosed and pink-toed, possum in the birdfeeder, and weaving linen on the barn loom

Romantics

2011-02-18T14:30:00.002-06:00

The melt and warm, lulling breeze makes it feel like spring, but there must still be a blizzard out there in the Dakotas with our name on it. The February full moon shone along the creek, and was heartbreakingly beautiful last night.

The belated Hard Times Valentine here is just an idea for anyone to try next year. It's another variation of the wound up rag surprise ball, this time made with vintage rag balls, with randomly sewn on texts I cut from a bodice-ripper romance novel (discard from our library). I tried to pick out the juicier parts.

It could have held trinkets, tickets, jewels or anything inside. Mine included fragments of a lusty affair between Gilbert and Eugenia. I don't know how it ended. I cut the rag strips arbitrarily, so all the Valentines ended inconclusively. Maybe everything will work out in the end. I love to unwind a rag ball, made by someone else, to see the fabrics that were part of someone else's story, the soft faded colors, lumpy textures, unravelling threads, flannels, plaids, rayons and cottons. They tell another story, an authentic story.

U Wanna Bang U Pots !??

2011-02-16T11:39:00.003-06:00

This is the pot I found in our old log house, missing handles, dusty, with a few dead lady bugs inside. I stepped outside and crashed the lid against the pot, like cymbals, and nearly deafened myself.

This is the humble pot I chose to take along with me to the hastily organized protest against our new Governor, Scott Walker's visit to La Crosse yesterday afternoon. Barb (in-Dell) alerted me to the protest, and she brought her chicken feed pan, and a spoon to beat on it, as well. Here is my equation: one woman with a cooking pot equals approximately 4 protesters without cooking pots. The noise level is incredible. I wish every one in that crowd of 500 had brought its cooking pot.

Scott Walker, the new, regressive Governor of the State of Wisconsin has been making decrees from what he must think of as his throne, since before he took office. His latest, to end 50 years of collective bargaining for almost all state workers, teachers, school lunch ladies, etc. as well as benefit cuts, is more than most people can swallow.

Collective bargaining means that everyone has a say about what wages and concessions will be made. Both sides agree on common goals, and work toward them. It's a civil system that has worked very well for over 50 years. Scott Walker says, There is nothing to negotiate, and besides that, he has decided that state employees aren't even going to be allowed to negotiate. He said yesterday, that he was sorry, but there's nothing he can do.

I thought it was the other way around, that there's nothing he thinks he can't do.

Icelandic women dissatisfied with Parliament surrounded the building for days, beating on the sides of the building with cooking pots, until their demands were met. This was years before the masses of people persuaded Mubarak to depart Cairo. The cooking pot idea is a marvel. When you feel angry, bang some pots and pans. My grandma did, and probably her grandma, and her grandma.

A Death and a Chase

2011-02-07T13:40:00.003-06:00

First there was a death. This chickadee flew off the feeder, straight into the workshop window. It fell to the snowbank below, twitched its feet, then gave up the ghost. Its breast feathers were lemony, and gray. A color I hadn't been able to see before. Its small feet, blue. Poor thing!

Next thing, a rabbit came straight down the path to the house, in the middle of the day. I noticed him, because usually the rabbits stay hid in the brush of the tree row during the day. And, this one seemed to be in a hurry.

When I was back at the loom again, well, actually at the window near the loom, trying to get a count of all the cardinals perched in the tree above the bird feeder (16 was the most I counted, but they kept moving. so I'm not sure) here came the same rabbit. Bounding over the deeply snowed bank on the other side of the creek, it crossed a rough row of snow covered creek rocks, and then came up the path behind the store.

The rabbit didn't even glance at the black sunflower seeds scattered on the ground around the feeder, but hurried by in determined haste. I took another count of the red birds, mainly because they were such a treat to look at in all the snow, plump and red, perched, like fruits on the gray branches.

What's this? Something moving, gray and slinky at the top of the hill across the creek, just where the rabbit came down through the snow, making its own trail. It's the weasel! The same from last summer that wouldn't let me cross the bridge to the house? Or an associate? The gray furred weasel undulated, body surfing through the snow, more than it used its legs, which were not long. And it was fast, following the rabbit's trail as far as the creek stones, then doubling back. It was back at the top of the bank, in a moment, in one gliding, cursive stroke.

The weasel looked small, only about 2/3 the rabbit's size, but was definitely in pursuit. Back to the rocks, the weasel streaked across, not getting wet, though weasels are aquatic. Soon he was up by the bird feeder, hesitating going first to the west, then toward me at the window, then going around the east side of my building. The rabbit had gone west, but was only a few minutes ahead. The weasel's gray, fine fur looked so soft and silky, and its face sleek and beautiful. But, oh my, what a mouth full of teeth are in that head! I thought weasels turned white in winter, but not this one.

I took my camera and sneaked out the front door hoping to see more, but there was just a shadow of
a gray tail (?) sliding under the gas pig in the side yard. I had disrupted the chase, but my feeling is that the weasel still had the advantage. Another unresolved story, with life and death consequences, unfolding outside my window.

What actually came next is I went back to my weaving, wondering how, exactly, a rabbit's expression can appear anxious, and how is a person supposed to get anything done around here, with all this drama?

Paint It Black

2011-01-31T13:39:00.000-06:00

The store is painted dark now. It smells painty. The hooks are rehung, and the yellow cabinet by the front door again. A new set of shelves are still in the works. I'm starting to put merchandise on display. I'm so pleased that the space is already easier to work with, and dedicated to textiles from now on. The new wall color makes me feel very clear about what I want to see here.

I made the pieced cloth lamp after seeing a beautiful collection of pieced shades made by Dutch artist Maartje Vandennoort Like piecing a quilt for a room, why not cover a lamp in soft patterns?

The New Black

2011-01-27T11:15:00.001-06:00

Very dark, very warm gray on the walls. I'm working toward the stairs today. This is good, so far.
Something else good, Annie Larson's feature yesterday on Urban Outfitters' blog.

Storekeeping

2011-01-21T16:58:00.003-06:00

I'm painting a room in my store a dark, charcoal gray, so I've moved furniture around. The sun comes in at a low angle lighting new corners. Many spider webs come to light. Outside it's cold, and very bright.

I do prefer January to August. It must be my Arctic Circle genetic pool.

snow days

2011-01-18T16:59:00.001-06:00

The bee boxes have snow tops, and look like giant petit fours in the snowy yard. Cardinals, jays,

titmice, juncos finches, downies and sap suckers rush the feeders, with whirring feathers. Every other day it snows a few more inches, and in the middle of the night we sometimes wake to hear Frank, the snowplow guy, clearing our driveways.

These are good weaving days. I wanted to enter a textile show, and took some pictures for it. The deadline is today, but I couldn't manage to burn the cd, which was a frustration. Why am I so dull when it comes to this stuff? I'm still weaving the little cuff alpaca wristwarmers, and rag, linen and cotton panels to sew into soft furnishings. The title of this weave series is We're Not Out of the Woods Yet. I made some good coffee and wove for a little while, and felt much better. January is my new favorite month.

SNO-CRUSH: Avalanche Quilters

2011-01-04T22:26:00.003-06:00

Sno-Crush is over, but I want to show this quilt made by the Avalanche Quilters, a group of women that quilted for many years in and around Avalanche. Over the years, the members changed, but the method was always the same. Anyone could join, no matter what her quilting skills were, and we made every decision by group consensus. What pattern to make, what materials? We'd all contribute from our closets and cupboards.

Everyone sewed pieces together and made blocks. We would lay the blocks out on the floor, and everyone stood around it, looking, then rearranging. The rest of the group either approved, or suggested another way. When everyone was finally agreed, we sewed it in teams, and we marked the quilt. Then we put it in on our frame, and everyone quilted. During this process, which sometimes took months, we had many ancillary discussions, deepened friendships, counseled our marriages, distributed eggs, and excess garden produce, planned parties, and childcare, discussed politics, and
buttoned our lips about what we said at quilting. We also found we all had distinct opinions about color and design, and we learned how to express our ideas, how to negotiate, and to compromise. In the end, each quilt is a very uneven quality. None of our group quilts looks like a quilt that any one of us would have made. But each one is a shining, imperfect beauty.

The last day of the quilting, we embroidered our names around the edge of the quilt, holding it upside down across our laps. Then everyone's name went into a hat, and we drew out the name of a winner.

This quilt is called House Top, and styled after the Gee's Bend Quilts. It is wool scrap, no batting, with a flannel back. The edge is black cotton velveteen. The gray wool squares are a silk and wool combination. This is the second time the quilt has been shown, and it still has some pins in two squares. It's not finished! That is a hopeful sign to me, that there are still quilting days ahead.

SNO-CRUSH: Annie Larson

2010-12-27T13:16:00.002-06:00

Talk about crushes, I've felt a soft spot for Annie Larson and her particular creativity, for a long time. When I first met her, she was still in high school, sewing handbags before anyone else had thought of it, and even before she knew how to sew. She brought 5 of her bags in to my store to sell, and I was captivated. From the get-go she was obviously an artist, making it up as she went, in the middle of a midwestern small town high school.

From there she went to University (of Minnesota) where she studied fashion design, was graduated, and then worked for several years for Target, designing junior's and men's apparel. She always had her own stuff going on the side, making and showing collections of clothing that radiated high energy, and fashion bounce. She was often noticed.

Next thing, she has imagined her own company, with a Brother KH-950 Electroknit Knitting Machine, ALL Knitwear, her own label, launched in April, 2010. She left Target behind, and she's pretty much a star now. If you're interested in fashion and blogs, you've probably seen her work in several high profile blogs in the past year.

I'm so proud of her, and what's more, she's so inspiring, and always makes me want to shake up my own things in a different, better way. Do keep your eye on her. Oh, and buy some of her pieces!

They look fresh and flattering on anybody.

I still have some of her ringspun cotton knitted hats and her scarves in SNO-CRUSH.

Hats are $48 - $55, and her scarf is $96. You can email me for what's available (susan@avalanchelooms.com), or you can also purchase her work directly from her at ALL for Everyone where you can see her full collection, her latest news, and a bunch of cute pictures of Annie herself.

SNO-CRUSH: Wild Things! Amy Arnold

2010-12-18T13:33:00.004-06:00

Bear, with 2 accessory ceramic honey bees.

Squirrel, with 3 accessory ceramic acorns.

Mouse, with 3 accessory, ceramic, pink baby mice.

(Forest creatures: $400. each, includes accessories)

I wish you could meet Amy Arnold. She's wildly talented, funny, warm -- and good looking! I'm sure I'm not the only one with an obvious crush on her! The creator of original Peepwool, creatures and animals (made mainly of Amy's wonderful imagination, and some recycled fabrics), Amy has recently added ceramic to her textile figures. Not your usual forest creatures, but definitely from the wild, they are the meet-and-greet committee at the SNO CRUSH show.

Amy moved to Viroqua from Madison, WI. She now lives with her husband, and three young boys
on their farm, where she works in her studio.

SNO-CRUSH: Kathleen Aaker

2010-12-10T14:40:00.001-06:00

Kathleen Aaker wove her gauzy, linen shirts in a simple design. She's been wanting to weave something to wear for a long time, and she's found it. The stripes are the weft, and the warp/selvedge edge is the hem. The design is ingenious, and they look great on real people!

Since she lives on a boisterous creek (the South Fork of the Bad Axe) the sound of rushing water surrounds her. She calls her studio, Riverweave, and the mostly silk scarves she weaves, with deliberately slipped wefts are meant to look rivery. I think she loves and hates that river. She has said that the river is too noisy, keeping her awake sometimes. The river is also wild at flood times, sometimes leaving her stranded, so it's not hard to imagine it influences her weaving.

She and her husband planted a native grass prairie on their farm, and she weaves that grass, harvested at the end of summer, into long repp weave table runners and wall hangings. The repp weave is perle cotton, the grass, Native Big Bluestem. They are a beautiful setting for a harvest table. She wove one in white wool and prairie grass for her daughter's wedding table.

Finally, are her little Kats, pieced out of wool scrap. Meant as toy dolls, they have very long arms, the better to drag them by.

SNO-CRUSH: Irene Johnson

2010-12-10T11:15:00.000-06:00

Irene is a skilled and excellent weaver, with an intuitive sense of color and design that reflects her Finnish ethnicity. Born on the Iron Range in Northern Minnesota during the Great Depression, her
family only spoke Finnish. She learned English when she went to school, and her name changed from Airi to Irene.

She has had a life long love of textiles, and taught herself to sew, knit, and weave. She attended dress design courses at the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1960's.

The daughter of Minnesota Farmer Labor Party democrats, feminist, and atheist, she has had a profound influence on her daughter (me!). Just for the record, I wove a rug before she did.

She loves to use wool rag, and has a huge collection of deconstructed, washed and dried woolen pieces to work with. She piles wool on her table, adding or subtracting pieces, until she feels she has the right mix. She has a thing for men's overcoats, like men used to wear. She loves old wool coats because the wool fabric was a better quality, and she particularly likes combining checks, twills, and tweeds together in a collage of textures. Wool rag rugs are long wearing, and seldom need cleaning. One tip: to clean a wool rug, bury it in dry, cold snow for a few hours, then broom it off. It's dry cleaned!

The black and white and blue rug, above, is made mainly of men's English wool overcoats. White and black are for birch woods, and blue is lake, sky, or blueberries in Ely, Minnesota, where she and my dad live.
"A rug should lay flat on the floor," my mother says.

SNO CRUSH: Barb Monroe

2010-12-09T17:19:00.001-06:00

When Barb, a nurse, and her husband retired to live in Dell, she thought she'd spend these happy, golden years either learning to play the piano, or weaving.

It was her fate to meet weavers, not piano teachers, so she cut the piano idea adrift. She calls her weaving studio, It Could Have Been a Piano.

She loves color, and knows how to use it well. She also likes to try out weaves from the Weaver's Handbook. If she doesn't like how something is turning out on her loom, she's not afraid to take a
scissors to it.

For Sno Crush Barb knitted wool mittens, using traditional Scandinavian designs, inverting the colors on each mitten, and knitting in non-traditional colors. The money from sales of these mittens she wants to donate to our two local food pantries.

Barb came home from a trip to Italy this year, inspired to weave the red, black and gray tencel and cotton placemats. They are elegant, and sleek, an 8-harness pattern that she says is very simple to thread.

SNO-CRUSH: Angela Feltes

2010-12-09T12:47:00.000-06:00

Weaver, spinner, colorista, Angela Feltes is a creative force. Whether it's glass, complex weaves, yarn spinning, or dye, she's ready for it. She takes on challenges fearlessly, in fact, she seems to thrive on them. I've chosen her black and white pieces to show here, though her weaving is often very colorful.

She produces simple structured weaves, like this weighty goose-eye table runner in black and white linen and cotton. It feels like it could be a century old, just taken from a rustic Scandinavian table. Her little black and white square-in-a-square 8-harness pattern is deceptively simple, and comely. The ivory spun Lincoln wool and mohair skein is luxurious, and full of potential.

She lives in the country near Viroqua, with children, husband, dog and cat. (She can also drive a snowplow down a precipitous snowy driveway). She is a woman who clearly can do whatever she sets her mind to.

Angie was the instigating force in the creation of Kindred Threads, her weaving store and cooperative weaving and dye workshop in downtown Viroqua. Sadly, it is closed now, but a strong weaving group emerged from it.

SNO-CRUSH: Peter Doval, Jean Beck

2010-12-05T12:03:00.005-06:00

Jean Beck
This remarkable woman, maker, and baker, is also my neighbor, an Avalancher. What a poor place it would have seemed to me here, if she hadn't been living just up the hill.

She's a farmer, who loves to keep some chickens, and here-a-cow, there-a-goat. She grows wonderful apples on her Bonnie Best trees. She's known for her generosity, helping anyone who she sees needs some special attention. She has a gift for knowing who and when.

She can make anything, beautifully. She knits like a dream, made dolls, puppets and brooms. She strings fences, lays stone, makes firewood, candy clear toys, and remarkable molded cookies. She reads a
lot, and has strong, well-informed opinions. She's a conversationalist, and seasons it well with her wry humor.

She keeps house with her husband; their three children are grown up now.

I asked her to make something for this show, and she designed and sewed these lovely, well-made and serviceable aprons, in 3 sizes.

Peter Doval
Peter is well known here for his turned wood bowls. With a brief hiatus working on stone, he has returned to wood turning.

He works with local trees, maple, birch, box elder, cherry. He is meticulous in every aspect of producing his work. He searches out good wood to turn, and patiently brings his bowls into form, turning, drying, and finishing. Over the years he has worked to develop a wonderful, durable finish. His bowls are light, smooth, and beautifully shaped. They are always desired.

Held up in the light, they often glow. I am so happy to show his beautiful work here, and wood after all, is a fiber.

Peter lives and works in a small cabin on the hill, somewhere nearby.

SNO-CRUSH: Carole Austin

2010-12-03T15:21:00.002-06:00

If Carole made it, you want to see it, feel it, touch it, or eat it. Her talents are big, though she never likes to be the center of attention.

Gardening is what Carole spends most of her creative time doing. She weaves in the off season. She has beautiful, productive gardens, full of flowers and vegetables, and makes great use of the food she grows. She is a sublime cook.

Her weaving adventures began when she followed an ad to the home of a blind weaver in Milwaukee to buy a beautiful, large Glimakra loom. They had to disassemble it and carry it up a tiny, basement staircase, load it, and then she drove with it back across the state.

She has had remarkable adventures featuring bats. And a rat.

When she weaves, it is beautiful. On display here are samples of her recent doubleweaves, and a beautiful krokbragd cotton rag rug that I have long admired. She is a perfectionist and rarely satisfied with her work. I always hope for an early frost, so she'll get back to the loom. She lives on an old orchard farm with her husband and daughter. Two sons are recently out on their own.

Disclaimer: the above written description of Carole Austin is based solely on my own possibly inaccurate opinions and observations

SNO-CRUSH TODAY!

2010-11-20T01:47:00.002-06:00

Goodnight!

SNO-CRUSH

2010-11-12T18:17:00.005-06:00

SNO-CRUSH, my first All-Textile (and some Wooden Bowls) Show, starts here on Nov 20, 10 - 5, and continues through Dec 31. SNO-CRUSH (think Avalanche, think Crush on Color, Crush on Design, Crush on Textiles, Crush on Artists) came into my mind late this summer. An All-Textile exhibit of the work of design weavers, knitters, spinners and seamers, here in my store. I don't know why it took me so long to think of doing it.

I invite you to join us here on Saturday, Nov 20, the opening day of the show. I'll be serving coffee and biscuits that day, and showing the work of eight inspirational artists creating with imagination and skill in weave, knit, and sewn seams, yarn, cloth, color, texture and design. Also showing, a singular wooden bowl turner, whose work looks right in this company. The show continues through December. I'll be saying a little more about each of the artists in the next few days.

Deer Season, Deja Vu

2010-10-26T16:11:00.003-05:00

Deer season ahead. The deer are running now, sometimes in front of your car headlights. Driving at dusk is a fraught experience, 45 mph seems too fast. Not much has changed in my neighbor Falk's yard since last year, except he's not there. His old blue truck is parked behind the sheds.

I wove 3 more pillows of rag, linen, and Rosepath, and will weave some more. I'm waiting for new yarn to arrive, silk and alpaca cones in choice colors, only 2 back-ordered! My plan is to make wristwarmers and scarves with similar designs to these pillows. I'm also planning for Sno-Crush, first all textile show, here, Nov 20 - Dec 31.

uphill

2010-10-14T12:44:00.004-05:00

The wild clematis is a little garland of puffs along the hill road. The woods on the side hill of the valley is not so leafy now, but the Witch Hazel is in bloom with its small yellow starry flowers.
I wish my weaving could merge into the rough fissured bark of the century (at least) white pine. I don't try to copy what I see. It's usually after I've woven something, that I see what I have been looking at.

Late Bus

2010-10-08T11:55:00.004-05:00

Dusk happens suddenly these days. I walk up the hill after the late school bus comes through Avalanche. The woods is settling down, a few birds call, a cardinal chip-chip-chips. Two deer run across the road in front of me, their white tails flagging. There is a bow hunter in the woods.

My bench cushions are woven and shipped now. Still some pillows to make and sew together tomorrow. But now, there are a few of my Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms leftover, and some red wine, suppertime.

Hen of the Woods

2010-10-05T18:07:00.006-05:00

All weaving came to a standstill. My husband brought home many bags of clusters of Hen of the Woods, or, Maitakes, that he collected in the woods. The mushroom clusters grow at the base of oak trees in the fall. (Similar mushrooms growing on different tree species should be avoided). They are very flavorful, and taste like tender meat on chicken wings. They have a firm texture, a little chewy.

They pull apart easily before they are cooked. I've been sauteeing them , or roasting with olive oil, garlic and rosemary, salt and pepper.

Often the mushrooms are huge, and may weigh up to 40 pounds. Enough to last the whole winter, until the morels come up in the spring. They freeze well, so I've been putting them away, and sampling, sampling, sampling.

All Sewed Up

2010-10-04T23:51:00.003-05:00

All the panels are woven now. So, I sewed them. together. This isn't the bench they'll be used on, but I wanted to see how they'd look. I'm especially pleased with my sewing. I'm finally getting the hang of that.

I'm also pleased that these remind me of the rag rug covered sauna benches in the Finnish saunas of Northern Minnesota, that I loved when I was young. I wanted to weave something with a Finnish look, that brought back that memory of sauna smoke, lake and northwoods.

Rags and Mushrooms

2010-09-26T11:27:00.002-05:00

Look what popped up under the spruce tree this week. Could I eat them? Or, dye with them? Probably both, eat and die.

I'm weaving my favorites again, a little bit of rag, a little bit of linen, leaving the edges raw. They are a set of cushion covers I'm designing for modern concrete benches. Good textures to combine, smooth polished concrete, with rags and linen.

Foot bridge

2010-09-23T22:38:00.005-05:00

The new little foot bridge is painted with fresh red and white stripes. The last flood washed away the 2-plank bridge. This one should be easier to see on a foggy night, if I go back to work after supper.

I cross the creek many times each day, and hoped the stripes would give me a little energy each time I crossed. The bridge has a little bounce. Possibly the stripes will cause a transformation to occur each time I leave my (humble) kitchen and cross to the workshop: housewife to artist.

I'm attracted to bridges. I was married on an old bridge. (It was dismantled a year later--the bridge, not the marriage). Some bridges scare me. (The steep, narrow bridge over the Mississippi at Lansing, Iowa). I miss them when they're gone. (The old 8-span green bridge across the Wisconsin River at Spring Green was replaced this year. I'll never be resigned to the modern highway bridge). When standing on a bridge I like to look upstream, to see what the water is bringing down. A warp coming off the back beam of the loom is like a stream flowing toward me, the future, possibility. The fell is the present, the bridge, where I stand. Downstream, the water under the bridge, is the woven fabric winding on to the front beam, the story of what happened.

Paper and Linen

2010-09-09T14:43:00.005-05:00

This is a longer, many-flowered piece. I made it on the barn loom. It took so long to finish that I thought it must be at least 8 ft long as I unwrapped it from the loom's front beam. The flowers that were wound into the apron were pressed flat as if they'd been in a flower press. I spritzed them with water spray, and they perked right up.

As for its extraordinary length, it's a mere 5 feet long, and just 13 inches wide, a narrow textile. I call it a banner, or a ribbon. The birch twig hanger was selected, trimmed and smoothed. The woven linen tabs at the top look really nice with the twig. Yes, details like this please me very much.

Between the loom and the south window is the best light to take photographs. I'll post it on my Etsy shop, and then find a place to hang it here in the workshop. I collect my push pins, step ladder, monofilament, climb up and down, adjust the light, and don't drop the camera!

Maira Kalman illustrated the classic Wm. Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, Elements of Style, which I keep near.

old north

2010-09-08T11:15:00.001-05:00

Pictures from a family album I hadn't seen before. My grandfather, John Anton, ca. 1920, on a Minnesota lake. A picture of my grandmother as a young woman in Bessemer, Michigan, ca. 1920, before she married. There aren't many pictures of her. The farm in Bessemer was on a high bluff, and Lake Superior could be seen from there.

up north

2010-09-06T23:01:00.005-05:00

Along the trail to the falls, birch, scraffiti, no mosquitoes. The Kawishiwi Falls flow north, all the way to Hudson Bay. I'd like to go there, to the far north.

how I spent my summer vacation

2010-09-05T16:43:00.000-05:00

Now empty, it used to be a butcher shop on the Main St in Tower, Minn.

at the lake

2010-09-02T13:35:00.003-05:00

Now we are home from a visit to my parents at the lake up in Ely. We had a few swims and a sauna, hiked a trail, drank some beer, and looked at the lake. My mother has woven a pretty new rug in wool, with a violet stripe and some black and white checks. She said, "I wanted to let that violet wool be the star of this rug."

The design of this rug is so good. She knows how to use plaids to good effect, avoiding dizzying optical effects, and creating a simple and clear graphic quality. My mother has also been stacking in her winter wood supply for her weaving shop, which has only a woodstove for heat. Minnesota winters can be -40 degrees, and the snows are deep.

The pine woods smelled sweet in the mornings. After the sauna, the lake water felt so soft and silky on our skin. The feeling is exquisite, and something I look forward to all summer. The two ancient yellow folding chairs by the lake shore haven't collapsed yet!

out of chaos

2010-08-25T16:02:00.001-05:00

What my brain looks like, on the wall. I look at other artists' inspiration boards and realize that most take down what they had up last, and assemble new things to look at. I layer. The first things were pinned here 10 years ago when we built my shop. I want to see at a glance if I still care about the same things as I used to, and if I'm still on track.

Out of this scramble emerges some pretty orderly weaving, with organized color, and balanced designs.

Eating Bread and Honey

2010-08-19T15:05:00.003-05:00

That would be me, like a queen in her parlor, eating bread and honey. Mr. Pike, the beekeeper, delivered these bottles of honey from the hives in my yard, gathered in the flowers in our fields and woods. There's still quite a bit of honey left in the hives for the bees to use to get through the coming winter.

Scarf # 3 is drying on the line. I'll call it Sugar Maple, for the color the maples are about to turn on the hill. One more to make on this warp, but it will be back to the shadows with my normal nocturnal plan: copper, light olive green, dark orange and deep teal blue.

Sweets

2010-08-17T16:04:00.005-05:00

Scarf No. 3 on this mostly silk Rosepath warp. I'm really warming up to the seductive warm colors, with a little aqua for the sugar-on-top. Figuring out color is always my first interest, and I usually try to make it more difficult, because the results are often more interesting, at least to my eye. But even with a simple color scheme, nothing is automatic about color and design. There's always the chance of good color going bad. Seeing the rags I used to start this scarf makes me feel itchy to do a little more rag weaving.

There was a torrential downpour on Friday the 13th, another flood in Avalanche. It was a little scary. Soon after the waters subsided, a sister, nephew, and son and brother in-law, came to visit. Our table has been full of people talking, eating good food, and laughing about I don't remember what, but was very funny at the time. The good feeling is what lingers.

sophisticate

2010-08-12T15:55:00.003-05:00

I'm a storekeeper here, so I wrap up presents. I do love to wrap gifts. The wrapping should entice, and excite curiosity. It should be quick, and made out of something of little value, the gift inside is the prize. Here is a slim, sophisticate (a person with much worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture) poppy doll, wearing a chopsticks wrapper shift. Her heels are made of Japanese washi paper tape, her arms Finnish string. Her face is pasted on from an Asian market die cut paper in my shoe box of stuff.

She has a breezy attitude, like the recipient of the gift.

Long Thread, Lazy Girl

2010-08-09T11:56:00.002-05:00

Lazy, all my life. Even my name, Susan. Lazy Susan. I used to protest, but I know it fits me. Lazy is my nature. The adage long thread, lazy girl chastises the girl that puts too long a thread in her needle, so she won't have to rethread so often. I habitually try to get away with doing less.

And yet, I manage to work productively, even happily. Cursing when my long thread knots, and I have to rethread anyway. Weaving and needling paper rya knots today, dipping the Finnish paper yarn in water, watching the morning sun light filtered through the paper petals I'm weaving. Lazily.

Chartreuse & Some Bees

2010-07-31T12:45:00.003-05:00

High summer, and my eyes can't get enough of what I see. The bees have a surfeit of flowers, nectar is everywhere. There is too much of everything good, all at once. Everything is lush and ripe and overgrown, but the heat makes us sleepy and slow.

A piece of writing that I read nearly everyday, from Eva Zeisel, the exquisite designer:

"To me, beauty depends on one single person, on the person who looks at something and feels joy in looking at it because it pleases him without second thoughts, irrespective of whether is is useful, whether it is art, or whether it is in good taste. It is the love affair of the eyes with the things they focus on. As its enjoyment is immediate and spontaneous, it is quite impossible to put into words how to make beauty." (italics, mine)

Finding Blue

2010-07-26T22:24:00.000-05:00

Starting off again, from almost the same place, but not quite.

Poppy Pop-up Puppets!

2010-07-22T22:18:00.001-05:00

It's time to make some poppy dolls again. Yes, it's fun. The dolls are just poppy heads, with poppy crowns. Some rags are good for dresses. These are pop-up puppets, so they can twist and turn, and swing their string arms. Their hands are just knots. The stem is the stick that makes them bob up and down. A lively pair, Tillie and Leona, after the two sisters who used to live across the valley, and planted the poppy bed.

FYI: Two smart young women, Ursula and Rikkianne, have a shiny new collection of modern design pillows, wallets, and other sundries, made of recycled canvas bank money bags, and some of their own sweet silk screen designs.

This new collection was recently featured on Poppytalk style blog. Pay them a visit (and yes, I'll disclose that one of the smart young women, Ursula, is my own daughter, who has a good eye for styling beautiful photos) Chakra Pennywhistle!

Agenda

2010-07-15T17:55:00.004-05:00

Let's see. There's my antique Swedish spool winder that came along with an antique Swedish barn loom I bought a few years ago. Clamped to my shelf the winder fills pirns, the rolled up paper tubes, with cotton and linen and silk yarns. It's a small job that is very satisfying. This is what it looks like when I fill a pirn with Habu tsumugi indigo silk to make a linen and silk scarf. The cone of yarn sits below the winder on the counter.

Scarf # 2, linen and silk, in the classic plaid, a soft, textured scarf. I'm always attracted to this simple design plan, and the scale of the checks. Indigo and linen, or natural silk, in a Swedish lace weave,
called myggtjall, or mosquito, is a traditional curtain weave.

At mid-July I feel Christmas barreling towards me, and I know already that I am not ready, nor will I be ready for it. As a storekeeper I feel responsible to create holiday magic, and fulfill desires of children and teenagers, and parents, and spouses, rich uncles and young marrieds. "I've no idea what they would like, they're young, they're very stylish." "What can we get for someone who has everything?" "What is there for my husband?"

I do love to keep store, so I'll just do what I can not to disappoint the hopes I see when the Christmas customers come in the door. Maybe a little birch tree will be pretty this year for Christmas. With strands of butter paper origami box lights. And garlands of milkweed pods. There now, that's better.

Goose Eye

2010-07-05T13:07:00.002-05:00

When we first moved to Avalanche we thought we would farm. I decided to keep a pair of geese since we have a little creek here. One thing led to another, and soon we had a flock of geese and goslings, numbering 27 animal units. I loved to watch them swim, or stick their necks out and honk, running, flapping their wings chasing each other, or any unfortunate caught in their path. I remember a pair of scrap iron dealers drove up in a rusted truck once, eyeing my husband's hoard of old rusty junk from the road, and wanting to know if I was ready to sell. I may have been tempted, but the geese drove them back before they even made it to the porch. The scrapmen were pretty rough looking, so I was happy to see them go. And so it was with missionaries, insurance salesmen, and the tax assessor.

Since I had no marketing plan for the geese, and we had become vegetarian, the flock continued to multiply, until there were enough of them to rise into the air, form a vee and take aim at their chosen landing spot. The squeaky door of the log house, where their corn feed was stored, would bring on a rush and swirl, a general rising of bodies into the air, the vee formation, direct flight, and crash landing among a din of general honking and flapping bodies around my feet, a twice daily event. Once, my visiting mother-in-law, a neat, orderly woman unwittingly opened the squeaky loghouse door, as I watched in horror from my kitchen window. I dashed out, but not in time to save her. She had turned to see why the sky had suddenly darkened, only to realize that a flock of geese across the field had suddenly risen into the air, formed a squadron, and was now bearing down on her. She ducked and survived direct hits, but her dignity was injured.

One fall the goose lot having became too small for them, and feeling the call of the South, the flock rose with a general cacaphony, swirled twice around the lot, and then split. Half of the geese formed a vee, and flew off down the road past the old Avalanche general store (downtown Avalanche) about 4 ft off the ground. I watched as they swirled around Junie's trailer, and veered South. They settled on the stream about 2 miles south of Avalanche, and lived at the farm there comfortably for several more years.

It's been so many years since I gave them up, but I did like keeping them. They were a nuisance, mainly, but always interesting. They were a cantankerous lot. I loved the goslings, all in a row, necks outstretched, weep-weep-weeping behind the mother goose. And geese lay the loveliest eggs. I made oak gall ink and wrote with quills a few times. Once, I was inspired to make a set of authentic cork-and-leather shuttle cocks with real goose feathers, which added an element of unpredictability to a game of badminton.

Thinking of my geese this rainy, July, Monday, I just finished a set of goose eye woven summer scarfs, of hand-dyed bamboo, with linen, cotton and tencel. Oh, and a little silk.

Shee that Wanteth..

2010-06-22T20:35:00.004-05:00

. . . shee that wanteth a sleeke-stone to smooth hir linnen, wil take a pebble . . . (a woman with no sleekstone to smooth her linen will use a pebble) John Lyly, Euphues and his England, 1580

That would be me. Only instead of a sleekstone or a pebble, I have an antique sad iron.

I wove two towels on a long staple ivory cotton blanket warp, with linen wefts. After I cut them off the loom, I washed them in warm, soapy water, rinsed them, and hung them to dry. When they were dried, I used my antique sad irons to "smooth" the linen, instead of a cold mangle, which I have none.

The towel was laid out on my wood shop table, and I used the cold iron warp wise, working across the towel, then turning it over and working the iron in long strokes across the back, as well. I did this for about 15 minutes. It looked good then. I also dragged the iron weft wise, and that seemed to work, too.

It was exciting to see the coarse weave became so lustrous, and smooth, and the Goose-eye design more prominent. The drape of the towel over my arm made me want to carry it with me everywhere, even to accost my husband enthusiastically with the towels, to feel the cool drape. I'd read about the technique a while ago in Vav (the Swedish weaving magazine) but forgot about it until now. The smoothed linen drapes, and though it folds, it doesn't crease, and the smoothing process was not too strenuous a workout. A linen smoothing board (made of a whalebone) and a glass smoother were found among an exhumed Viking woman's burial items, dating back over 1000 years.

Summer Rag Weave

2010-06-13T15:13:00.001-05:00

This is the right kind of day to weave a little rag daypack. With plaid fabric shoulder straps, and a honey bee applique (LFN ribbon trim) it's ready to go.

Peony

2010-06-02T21:26:00.002-05:00

The picture of the peony on this antique postcard could have been taken by the lady of the house I live in, 100 years ago. The house resembles ours, and there is an old peony planted at the same corner. My husband found it in an antique store, and mailed it to me, 30 years ago. He was in Wisconsin looking for a good farm we could buy. We were determined to leave the city and get back-to-the-land, where we meant to build our house, grow and preserve our own food, and I'd weave all the cloth for our clothes! He hadn't found anything promising.

Just like the lady who lived in my house then, I take photos of my white peony every year as it blooms in the front yard, propped up with sticks and bentwire edging fence. I also collect finch nests that blow down from the big white pine tree in spring storms, and line them up on my kitchen window sill. Other than that, I don't think her life was much like mine has been here. Our experiment in getting back to the land didn't turn out at all as we expected. What did happen was much more interesting. And, thank goodness, I never wove one thing for us to wear.

Around the Block

2010-05-29T15:35:00.002-05:00

I rode my bike up the road yesterday and passed the old house where Tillie and Leona, two sisters, married to two brothers, raised their families together during the Great Depression. At one time, I've been told, that 27 people lived together in this house. Those were hard times.

Now the poppies and the bleeding heart are putting on their show for an empty house.

Honey Makers

2010-05-23T21:55:00.004-05:00

Still weaving

2010-05-20T17:21:00.000-05:00

I know there are other things I could, even should, be doing. But I'm a dogwood flower machine now.

Lilacs

2010-05-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

I picked them along the driveway, and put them in an amber jar that holds the crooked branches without tipping. There used to be a little path through the bushes, that the kids made. Happy Mothers Day to all of you mothers, young and... not so young.

Goodbye, Yellow Bird

2010-05-05T12:57:00.002-05:00

The vibrant stack of fabrics were my purchases yesterday from Yellow Bird Art in Lansing, Iowa. Yes, we crossed the Mississippi River successfully once more, on the steep and narrow, scary bridge. Yellow Bird, sadly, is closing on May 15. There are still so many beautiful fabrics to choose from, and at a very deep discount. It is never a better time to lay in a fresh supply of fabrics. Many of the fabrics to choose from are not easily available elsewhere. This is a singular collection of fabric. Yellow Bird has consistently carried the most interesting and highest quality of fabrics for sewing & quilting, and I am very sad to see it close. Best wishes for a relaxing summer, Yellow Bird! You created a wonderful place.

A new stack of my store postcards just arrived. Waiting to see them is close to the excitement I used to feel waiting for our school pictures to come. Miraculously, post cards take just a few days.

It shows my stack of weathered bee boxes, whose chalky colors, dove tails, and rows of rusty nails inspired my spring/summer linen, cotton, and silk Rosepath scarfs.

Dogwood

2010-04-19T16:40:00.002-05:00

New blooms on a more structured trellis, another transparency of linen and paper. This one is going to Berlin! Some sections were woven by passing 5 individual linen filled pirns back and forth by hand, no shuttle. Now, the rya paper knots are reduced, for the simpler flower. The knots are flat on the back of the weave, and look like stitches. Ends are tied and twisted, held down by my sad iron, then stitched back to make loops to slide over a birch twig hanger. An even dozen, like eggs, like roses, like 12 hours.

Thunder shower

2010-04-15T17:25:00.003-05:00

It was suddenly raining this afternoon, with thunder. A spring shower! Here are my May flowers, off loom now. And, the stacks of damp bee boxes that keep luring my eye.

Flowery May

2010-04-05T15:25:00.008-05:00

That time of the year again, when white cherry blossoms hang conspicuously, here and there, on the hills, among gray trunks of a leafless woods. Here I am, back to my old barn loom, with a spaced linen warp of unbleached and half-bleach. I'm weaving and rya-knotting Finnish paper yarn, and cut silk rags into flowery pieces to hang. I'm still looking around for my plastic painting tarp to unweave for rya knots.

Out the Window

2010-04-01T23:25:00.001-05:00

The bee yard is east of the shop, so I can see it from where I'm sitting in my loom, warping linen today. Bill Pike and his grandson arrived with wooden crates of bee swarms, and the dark Hawaiian queen bees, opened up the boxes and settled everyone in.

The queen in her small private screened compartment (black, upside down in the picture) travelled with her own little sugar cube. Bill shook the bees into their new home after her. There is a little marshmallow plug in her compartment, that the bee colony will have to eat through, in order to free her for her queenly duties of egg laying and constant grooming. This yard is the only one he has set up in a valley. He hopes the bees will gather nectar from basswood trees in our woods, which makes a light amber, delicately flavored honey.

No one was stung, not even I taking these pictures without a bee hat on. In fact, standing there in clouds of buzzing honey bees, was strangely elating.

Honey bees

2010-03-29T17:58:00.008-05:00

Today the beeman brought bee boxes! It's a little early, but the weather is warm this week. My new tenants are very welcome. If it's a good season, we'll get some honey for our rent. The neon box colors are wonderful, and will fade to chalky neon. My old stack of empty boxes, with weathered wood, chalky paint, and dovetailed corners, always inspires me. I'm always mining for color and design to weave. Tomorrow, the bees arrive, with their Hawaiian queens.

I just finished scarf #3 on my warp of 16/2 Swedish cotton. This one is called Dilly, the name of a little town nearby. But, I wove it before I saw these bright, square bee boxes, and it looks like the same idea to me. I even wove in a color for the official Bee sign. I must have been picking up on some good bee vibrations.

Wednesday, Back to Work

2010-03-24T14:16:00.001-05:00

Now that all the excitement is over, it's back to work. The turquoise yarn is Bockens Swedish 16/2 lingarn, and the celery is cotolin. The warp is 16/2 Bockens Swedish cotton. This is another cotton and linen scarf with mixed weft rosepath designs on plainweave grounds. My wefts are wound on silver paper pirns, a cheery collection of colors in cotton, linen, and silk. Spring-a-ling!

I Believe in Blog

2010-03-19T11:55:00.001-05:00

I hope there is a God, if only to bless the Catholic nuns who are supporting Health Care Reform. Sister Simone Campbell, and 59,000 nuns oppose the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on Health Care. The nuns reject the bishops' concerns that Federal money will fund legal abortions in the Health Care bill. The nuns say it isn't so. They have read the bill.

They work in hospitals and community centers which largely serve poor women and children. They say the bill will provide coverage and support for the uninsured, those denied coverage for pre-existing conditions (pregnancy), and support of pregnant women. They call the bill "pro life" and are urging a
"life-affirming 'yes' vote." They say extending health coverage to 30 million people is right.

Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director of Network, an American Catholic lobby group, representing 59, 000 nuns, in a radio interview on As It Happens ( a Canadian broadcast I listened to last night) said she could not speak for the Catholic Bishops' position, other than to say it was a political divide, and not a divide in the church. She said, My mother always said not to talk about religion or politics....and here I am talking about religion and politics!

I am not from a family of believers. And, we loved to talk about politics, so it's a little hard to understand the concept. Maybe, in my family, politics is religion! I'm also a feminist, who wonders why the men in the Church ( Bishops) oppose Health Care Reform, but the women (Nuns) see the value? Isn't this a women's issue? A weaver's blog may be stretching thin to cover this topic, but I'm thinking about all of this while I'm weaving, throw that shuttle, bang that beater! It doesn't take too much imagination to think of an uninsured 24 yr old woman, pregnant, out of college, working at a restaurant for maybe $8 / hr. What are her options?

Our Federal tax money supports many, many things I am ideologically opposed to. War. The fiasco fence at the Mexican / US border. The arrest of 300 workers at Postville, Iowa in May, 2008. Those are just the first 3 that come to mind. Abortion is legal, and should be protected and funded by Federal money, in my opinion. This bill, unfortunately, does not do that. This bill does allow a woman, whose employer does not provide health benefits, to consider having her baby, with medical care, pre and post natal. This woman might be my daughter, or yours.

rag rug weaver?

2010-03-17T11:31:00.002-05:00

Since the frost has come out, the path is too soft to walk on. Luckily, there are a lot of bark slabs left over from our winter woodpile.

My little Norwood loom has a fresh 15 yard warp on now, in 16/2 Swedish cotton, with a subtle green pinstripe. A small stack of spring/summer scarves in cotton and linen is growing.
My designs are asymmetrical stripes and block inlays, that will frame the face in a different set of colors and stripes each time the wearer wraps it on. The differences will be subtle, but difference is interesting. In my book, difference is good.

Rags, rags, rags, more rags

2010-03-06T18:30:00.006-06:00

My romance with old and worn rag rugs goes on with an antique cotton rug that was a gift to me from my husband. He knows me so well. The soft colors and texture of this rug are perfect, and after years of use, and good care it has become something more than a handwoven rag rug. It's a real textile.

My new books are finally here. I'd been waiting with great anticipation (hunger?) to see Finnish American Rag Rugs: Art, Tradition & Ethnic Community, by Yvonne R. Lockwood, just published by Michigan State University Press. It is a study about rag rug culture and the role of rag weaving in Finnish America. It explores how this craft, rag weaving, reinforced the culture of the immigrant Finns, who settled in Michigan's upper penninsula. There are over 200 pictures of rugs, and old Finnish rag weavers, many now deceased, weaving at their looms. There are also pictures of Finnish hand-built looms, lakeside weaving sheds, rugs in saunas, old rugs, and techniques used by the Finnish weavers when designing and making their rugs. Books may be purchased here at Avalanche Looms. Or, email me for a copy, susan@avalanchelooms.com ( $29.95 + shipping)

Update on Mittens for Haiti: 4 pairs of mittens, knitted by Barb Monroe, have been sold to date. Barb and I are so pleased to have been able to turn her mittens into a contribution for Haitian relief, thanks to you mitten buyers! There is still one pair available, "Thistle" violet and fog gray mittens. (The purchase price of $45 will be donated to Partners in Health).

Workday

2010-02-20T12:09:00.009-06:00

I'd been waiting to see my new book, Matter and Meaning, by Claudy Jongstra, Dutch felt artist. Today was the day.

Inspired, I felted alpaca pockets, for a new set of rag weave Woolly Bully bags. I like these pockets, because the soft bags are animal like, to me, the pockets are like inner organs.

Then I made a March ad.

A little snow sifted down, but I broomed it off the path to the store, and there shouldn't be more than 1/2 inch by night fall.

Triple Dip

2010-02-11T14:14:00.001-06:00

A new cotton and linen scarf, long and soft, dip dyed in three different color baths. The rosepath designs were woven in a teal blue perle cotton, then overdyed. The coffee colored ends of the scarf were dip dyed in dark brown, then dark blue, and finally the whole scarf was immersed in a bath of
butternut brown.

Waste Not, Want Not

2010-02-05T15:03:00.000-06:00

vintage cotton, handsewn wallet

with corduroy zip pocket + card pockets + currency pocket

mixed patterns

an old adage, a new tag, a new theme

As usual, I most consistently recycle my old ideas. The Hard Times idea is one that just won't go away. So, I put a fresh bobbin in my sewing machine, and a new needle, and cut out some new wallets. Some feature mattress ticking pockets to stuff your cash into.