The Happy Hempist

Legalize it, don't criticize it! In case there were any doubt, let me say it:  I am a weed proponent. I approve legalizing marijuana, for any use. More, I dislike marijuana criminalization. I hope the laws against growing it, and using it, and imprisoning people for growing it, or using it, will change.  Even so, using the hemp to weave, was a bad trip for me.

My first, and long ago bad experience, involved a ball of knotty hemp macrame twine, created in Poland, I bought, hoping to make it work as a warp. I managed to form it into a small set of knotty rag potholders on my loom, and could, and did say, never again.

So I've been a doubter concerning hemp's popularity in recent years, until I saw Elisabeth Hill's (Plain Weave and Beyond) blog post about her waffle weave hempen towels, and the beauty of working with the yarn as warp. Never say never. I ordered some right away.

It arrived, a hunky cone of 7000 + yards at an economical price, to boot.  I have since built two scarfs with the fiber as warp, using my usual mix of linen, cotton, silk, and now hemp, for wefts, and it is lovely, and a lovely weaving experience. Thank you, Elisabeth.

The yarn looks a little hairy, but moves smoothly through heddles and reed, and its color and quality is linen-like, more than cottony. In the finished scarf it is soft, and comfortable to wear.

  You don't have to take my word for it--you can trust hers. Here is what Elisabeth said about hemp.  She is a weaving phenomenon in Western Massachusetts, where she just received her Master Weaver certificate.  Her weaving is beautiful, exploring many different weave structures, textures, and colors, with curiosity and imagination.  I have learned so much from her.

Wisconsin Troubles (Short Form)

 I'm hanging out my weaving wash, making a laundry list of disappointments.  

We can now definitively say that the Stop Walker button I have been wearing has no magical powers.

Take a deep breath. Take another one. Repeat. 

Elin's on Monday

 

 

 

 

 

Elin lives here now, and she asked us to lunch. Her wool rugs are made with sheep fleece she dyed and had spun around a jute cord at a local woolen mill.  The weaves are point twill, and the rugs she is making are thick, with nuanced color,  and they are beautiful.

There was wine to drink, too. Olga showed us some weaves from Africa collected by her son.  We think they are made of fine strips of bark.  After lunch, Elin took us into her her small dye works.  

sluts vote

 (Today's post is political).

The Republican Party has been taken hostage by Christian fundamentalists with such a bold and regressive social agenda, it makes my head spin.  I am a feminist, social democrat, in case that wasn't clear. Also, I'm the mother of two young women about the same age, and socio-economic status of Sandra Fluke ( a young woman advocating for better access to affordable contraceptives from their insurers, and called a slut on a nationally syndicated radio show for her effort). Neither here, nor there, but to acknowledge my emotional bias.

So I am mystified, as in, there's something fishy about this, about why the Republican Party's presidential candidates, now all men, are so cheerfully self destructing their party's chance to win the Presidential election in 2012.  According to them, women's reproductive systems seem to be the main problem facing our country.  The Catholic Bishops don't like it, Republican Governors don't like it, none of the Republican hopeful candidates like it, a certain radio talk show host guy doesn't like it, and Senator Issa doesn't like it. But, like it or not, women have these lady parts. And we have ideas about how we want and  don't want to use them.  They say, No, it's about religious freedom, but it comes down to what these guys want is  to get right in and tell us what not to do with ourselves.  This presents a problem for them, though, because attached to every female reproductive system is an actual woman, who has a mind, and a vote. Women are 54% of the electorate, and we're getting mad.

I don't get it. If they want to control what a women can do with her body, shouldn't they at least try to win our hearts and minds?  Shouldn't they be offering something good?  But no,  they talk about this outrageous and invasive private stuff as if we aren't even in the room, listening, with our jaws dropping. 

This anti-women agenda, to limit women's economic options and educational opportunities, takes back any small gains we've made.  Equal pay and educational opportunity are still a dream.  In my state of Wisconsin, a Republican senator, male, just introduced a bill to link Single Parenting with child abuse and neglect.  No surprise that the majority of single parents are women. Marriage legitimizes this problem, apparently,  not quality affordable child care, health care, and equal wages.

I admit my buttons on women's issues are easy to push, and my youngest son knows it.  So, he sent me an email yesterday with a link to Mitt Romney's casual remark that, if elected, Obama care would be toast, and"we're going to get rid of Planned Parenthood." My son also put red meat in front of me with another comment on Romney's pronouncement, Don't the Republicans remember that women have the vote? to which someone else replied,  We're going to get rid of that. 

In my old  school days, when a boy's fly was unzipped, we'd say "shut your barn door,  the horses are running away."  Well, I think these guys, candidates, Bishops, talk-show-host-guy, Senators, Governors have let their horses (yuck) out of the barn, and I don't think there's any apology, or anything else they can do now to shut that barn door. 

As the bumper sticker says, Sluts Vote.

Where I've been

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.

SNO-CRUSH: Avalanche Quilters

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.

I Believe in Blog

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.