Category Archives: inspiration

Retrospect

Posted on March 31, 2023 | 1 comment

Today is the last day of March, and even in the Caribbean it is going out like a lion. Tomorrow I will start the new month (fully spring!) by flying home to New England. I’ve been counting down the days for the entire month of March. I’m now at that final number: one day to departure.

Twice a year my life takes a sharp turn from living in a house surrounded by my looms, my spinning wheels, my taka dai, my dyepots, while surrounded by good friends and family, to living on a boat with very little space, no looms aside from a copper pipe loom, a newly acquired tiny e-spinner, knitting and embroidery, and a few friends that are not often in the same anchorage I am. I take stock. Each year in winter I take stock of the things that consumed my time at home, and now at the beginning of spring I take stock of what I managed to accomplished while living on a boat. It’s my semi-annual retrospective of my goals and my priorities.

Meanwhile, the first things I’ll do on my return are thrilling events I’ve been thinking about all winter. Tomorrow my guild’s biennial exhibition will open. I won’t be there, and I don’t have anything in that show, but I am looking forward to seeing all the works when I visit early in the coming week. I will meet my oldest friend there. For several years she had a sculpture studio at this location, the Farmington Valley Arts Center. It feels like a different lifetime when I used to visit her there. I would drive from NJ, where I lived at the time. She had a son, and I had two sons, so getting together was a rather complicated endeavor at that time in our lives, but it was important to both of us to spend time together. I expect we will reminisce about that other life we had decades ago while also seeing the works of many of my dear weaving friends.

The postcard for the Handweavers’ Guild of Connecticut biennial exhibition

On April 2nd, the day after I return home, I’ll drive up to Leverett, Massachusetts, to see an exhibit of tapestries by the Tapestry Weavers in New England (TWiNE) that will be on display for the month of April. I’m excited that less than 24 hours after getting home I’ll be reconnecting with good friends at this event! Due to the generosity of one of my friends, who offered to hold my pieces for the entire winter, I have three pieces in this show.

Looking back is always a bittersweet endeavor, and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that. When I left home in December I had one more placemat to weave on my Japanese paper weft project. The biggest hurdle about that is the weft for that last placemat had to be unwoven from a previous previous placemat that was not the color I wanted. I will take that weft and re-dye in an indigo vat that I need to make. I am excited and intimidated about dyeing the re-used paper yarn to get the color of blue I want.

Neither my Caribbean tapestry or this sweater got finished this winter, but they both made progress. That’s all I can say, and I must make peace with progress instead of completion. As this sweater grew it got hotter and hotter to hold it in my lap while knitting, which is the main reason I set it aside.

When it became clear that I would not finish my Caribbean tapestry or the sweater above, I dug out an embroidery I started more than a year ago. I bought this design because of the sheep, no surprise! And that’s all I had finished when I put it away. I have enjoyed the few days that I spent embroidering the poinsettias and snowflakes. Wouldn’t it be nice to have it finished for the holidays at the end of this year? Not holding my breath.

In an effort to look on the bright side of my not-finished Caribbean tapestry, I plan to take it to the TWiNE show on April 22, to demonstrate weaving while I sit the gallery on that date. I’m glad I found a bright side to this disappointment.

The only thing I actually finished this winter was the hot water bottle cover I made from Kate Davies recent design group called “All Over,” a collection of stranded knitted designs. I think there will be some chilly nights at home ahead when I can use it! (Also I finished spinning about 100 grams of merino/silk hand dyed fiber…but I’m not counting that because finishing a spinning project is only the beginning of whatever project the yarn is meant to become!)

Along the way of making projects and fulfilling (or not fulfilling) goals, there were plenty of wonderful distractions, like knitting underway while listening to an audio book, which was only calm enough to do one time, when we sailed down the western coast of Guadeloupe.

Drying laundry while Bob writes a blogpost.

Lunch with friends overlooking one of the pitons in St. Lucia.

So many tropical flowers and animals

Months of beautiful views

And one of my favorite visuals: windows and shutters

Look at the view out the window at the back of the room with the open doors.

This is the kitchen at Fort Napolean on Terre de Haute, Les Saintes–another great room with a stunning window and the stark reality of getting water in the 19th century fort.

And speaking of kitchens, I often enjoyed making dinners onboard. I made a version of Isabella’s quiche (from La Brasserie in English Harbour, Antigua). It’s pretty close to hers–incredibly deep and creamy.

I was overjoyed to find mushrooms–all the way from France!–in Fort de France, Martinique. That called for chicken supremes in mustard/cream sauce with mushrooms. It was a good evening!

It was a winter full of lemons and limes. Everything is better with a little lemon or lime, and fresh herbs which grow in abundance here.

In the balance of things accomplished and things experienced, I guess there was a healthy dose of each. I would have loved more time to work with my hands and experiment with some ideas that are burning a hole in my brain! —but— it’s hard to give up the amazing experiences that kept me from working. The weather did not cooperate much this year. There was too much wind which made travel difficult and working at anchor very difficult. I live on motion sick meds every time we sail to a new location, and that takes a day or so to get out of my system. I am not patient waiting to feel better. On the bright side I listened to some wonderful books. At the top of that list would be Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton.

In retrospect I wish I had more work to show for my time here, and less days feeling the drag of mal de mer. But on the bright side, and thank heaven there is always a bright side, I am filled with ideas to pursue at home and some great memories of time spent with sailing friends and Bob.

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Posted in books, dyeing, inspiration, Uncategorized

Two Weavers of Montserrat

Posted on January 23, 2018 | 3 comments

It was a banner day when we got ourselves back to Montserrat and managed to visit the Sea Island Cotton studio. First, it was my birthday. Second, Montserrat is not an easy place to visit, even by ferry as we’d done the week before. It was a miserable sail there, and I suffered a bad case of mal de mer. Predictably, the anchorage had some waves rolling through, and getting on the small dock with our dinghy was less than ideal. But once I stepped ashore the possibility of getting to meet the mother/daughter team of Sea Island Cotton buoyed my enthusiasm!

Look what a charming place it is!

Hey, Baltimoreans and bird lovers! Take a look at the local oriole.

Anne Davis, the mother of the weaving duo, started this business in the early 90s, when her studio and home were in Portsmouth, the capital of Montserrat that was destroyed in the eruption. After that eruption, she lost everything and had to relocate and start again. About two-thirds of the inhabitants who lost their homes decided to take advantage of government funding to move to the UK. The island population still has not recovered from this large exodus. Anne never considered leaving the island. Her studio and house are now located in the small village of Salem, which is not particularly close to where tourists arrive by ferry or by their own boats. You’d have to know about her from guidebooks and get a cab to visit.

Back to the start—Anne learned to weave from a local weaver resident who was originally from Canada. The government provided funding for this Canadian weaver to teach local women to weave. I didn’t get many of those details about that project, but Anne said she is the only student who continued to weave after the course finished. Anne and her daughter Lovena now have two looms: a LeClerc counter balance loom with a weaving width of about 36”, and what looks like an ancient 4-shaft Baby Wolf by Schacht. The identifying herd of sheep that is branded into the castle on the loom is mostly gone. Perhaps it’s just the tropical climate that makes the loom appear older than it may be! Both looms were empty when I visited. Anne was planning to put a warp on the LeClerc in the next day or so. Lovena weaves on the Baby Wolf.

Only Lovena was in the shop when we arrived. I called ahead, using the phone that the cab driver offered when I told him where I wanted to go.

The hanging rods had many beach cover-ups, scarves and shawls, all woven in what looks like a gauze structure to me.

Then there are shelves and shelves of table linens in many different structures. It was hard to choose, but I was not going to leave empty handed. All the table linens are finished with fringe, which is a bit of pet peeve for me. But they were all so beautifully woven, with great selvedges and in beautiful weave structures and colors, I had to overlook the fringe. I’ll deal with hems when the fringes begin to wear out.

Unfortunately, there is no longer any sea island cotton to be had. The cotton industry died along with many other things after the eruption. Anne and Lovena order cotton yarns from Camilla Valley Yarns in Canada. Wow!—same company I’ve used on numerous occasions! Small world. Lovena didn’t seem to think shipping from Canada took long, but I imagine she has a more easy going outlook than I do! We have exchanged email addresses so I think I will give her links to a few of the larger US weaving suppliers– and maybe some of the not so large vendors that I enjoying using.

Bob surprised us all by inviting Lovena to come out to Pandora for a glass of wine when she closed the shop. She accepted the offer and decided to close early and get her mother to join her. I wasn’t sure what they’d think when they arrived at the harbor in Little Bay and saw how large the waves were coming through the bay. Anne showed some concern and wanted assurances from Bob that the dinghy would hold all of them! I’m impressed that both women braved the unknown to visit us.

The most interesting part of our conversation was when we told both women that we’d been on Montserrat about a week earlier and mentioned our disappointment that our tour guide would not stop for a visit. Lovena remembered seeing both our faces in a passing van! She remembered mine from the middle of the van–a woman who looked bugged eyed at her as we passed. And she remembered Bob in the very back of the van, looking back at her as we passed. She told her mother she was certain that they were about to get van full of customers….and then they didn’t….

I’ll post a photo of my treasures if I can get them loaded. Everything about this post has taken ages (speaking of

We’ve definitely started an acquaintance, and I’m looking forward to a budding friendship with both women. What a birthday treat! It doesn’t get any better!

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Posted in inspiration, sailing, travel, weaving

St Kitts, Thomas Jefferson, Batik

Posted on January 11, 2018 | 1 comment

That’s an odd assortment of names in the title, yet that is the diversity of what we have seen on this island!

The weather has us pinned down off the southeast coast of St. Kitts. There are no harbors here for protection, which is the case for many of the West Indies islands in the Caribbean, and boy do I miss the protected harbors on Antigua. After sailing from Antigua last Saturday, we attempted to anchor off Nevis, but the best anchorage area was too rough! It was only 2pm in the afternoon, so we sailed about seven miles further to White House Bay on St. Kitts, and then had to move again for more protection. We were finally settled, although not comfortably, just before sunset. The winds have been quite strong, which is typical for this time of year. They are called the Christmas winds and usually last until the end of January.

The capital of St. Kitts is Basse Terre, and in the center of the city is a roundabout with a clock in the center called Piccadilly Square.

Cruise ships arrive almost daily in Basse Terre, and we can see them come and go from our anchorage, a few miles to the east. There is a hospital ship in the same area that has to leave every time a new cruise ship arrives. We learned that this ship is a medical school and that since the destruction of the medical school on Dominica this ship has taken on the faculty and students from that university. We watch it come and go every day to make room for the large cruise ships. I wonder what the faculty and students think of that. I’m trying to wrap my head around the students practicing surgical procedures on a vessel that has to be rolling around even slightly, in spite of having stabilizers. I contemplate over each evening as we watch the sunset from Pandora.

Yesterday we hired a tour guide to drive us around the island. Normally Bob and I detest this kind of touring, but this island has many windy roads and switchbacks that lead through the mountainous terrain, and driving is on the left. It was a smart decision not to tackle it ourselves!

Alexander Hamilton was born on nearby Nevis, and Thomas Jefferson’s great-great grandfather had a large plantation here on St. Kitts. The plantation has become a historic site here, no surprise, as well as the site of a botanical gardens and a local business of women who make batik fabrics. I’m quite fascinated to learn—so late in life!—that some of our founding fathers had such exotic origins! Years ago I visited the home of George Washington’s family, Sulgrave Manor, that seemed to be ‘right down the street’ from Princess Diana’s ancestral home Althorp. Both these family manses are in Northamptonshire, in the UK, so not so exotic. Still, I was well into adulthood before I ever gave a thought to exactly where our founding fathers originated. I just vaguely thought of them all as English. History is far more interesting in the details, isn’t it?

Romney Manor was first the site of gardens for a man named Tegereman who was chief of the indigenous tribe of Caribs. By 1625 this site had become a beautiful Euorpean style home for Sam Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s forebear.

The gardens are good mix of natural landscape and cultivated gardens.

It would hard to ever leave a spot like this…..more lemonade, please!

Along with the gardens, which are well cultivated and include beautifully landscaped areas of quite a variety of tropical plants, a group of women also run a textile business on the property of the plantation. The women make wonderful batik fabrics and their business, which started in 1976, is called Caribelle Batik. After 40 years, they must be on their 2^nd or even 3^rd generation of women keeping this technique alive and well. I’d say I was watching the 2^nd generation of master batik makers demonstrating for the tourists, since all of them were about my age.

The shop was full of about anything you can dream up to make with batik fabric. There were wall hangings, clothing, all kinds of little containers, pillow covers. I bought a nice selection of things to bring home for friends and family.

The designs are drawn with a stylus filled with melted beeswax.

They do intricate designs, and the best thrill of all was walking through the gardens, surrounded by exotic plants, views of the ocean, and lines and lines of batik fabrics drying in the breeze. I think this will be the highlight of my winter!

In addition to a rainforest full of exotic native and not so native plants that have found there way here, St. Kitts also has a large colony of green monkeys. They are everywhere! Our guide told us that they were brought to the island by the French, who brought them on their ships from Africa, along with their human cargo destined to be slaves. Some islanders have taken young monkeys for pets. I got accosted by a heckler, who came up from behind and just put this monkey into my arms. I didn’t mind, but I would have preferred to be asked. I guess he knows well that if he asks, most people will say no. It’s better to just throw a monkey into your arms and grab your phone before you have a chance to think. It’s the way of life in this part of the world, so it’s best just to go with it. Cute monkey, isn’t it?….wearing a diaper, thank heaven!

We had stopped for this view when the ‘monkey man’ approached me.

How about a monkey in its natural setting. They are pretty shy so we haven’t gotten close to the wild ones.

In the middle of our day our tour guide took us to a local restaurant–just a couple of picnic tables under an awning, with a ‘kitchen’ in an attached shed. No refrigeration. Our guide said all the food was prepared daily so no need to refrigerate anything. Well, hmmm. The choices were pretty varied, so it’s hard for me to imagine that they used everything up everyday.

Yeah, I know! It looks pretty rough, and I’ll admit that I was nervous about the food. It was all delicious–barbecued pork ribs, rice and pigeon peas, green salad, and Caribbean mac n cheese. Others had baked chicken, or baked mackerel with same side dishes. No one got sick.

I am staying onboard today. The wind has abated, although our weather guru says it’s best not to change locations until the weather is more settled at the beginning of next week. Sheesh! It’s only Wednesday! I plan to spend some time working on a small tapestry that is getting embarrassingly old, and then I will spend some time on my little Norwegian woven band. Later we will meet our cruising friends for sundowners at the beach bar, SaltPlage, where the view of the sunset will extraordinary! Well, as you can, we already had our sundowners…I could not get this post online yesterday.

So, that’s my report. St. Kitts is an interesting and unusual mix of history, lush flora and fauna, and beautiful local textile work. All good for me.

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Posted in dyeing, gardening, holiday, inspiration, sailing, tapestry, weaving

On Impulse

Posted on October 29, 2017 | Leave a comment

Taking a trip on impulse, buying something new that crosses your path, or getting together with friends on a whim are wonderful opportunities for inspiration and finding deeper meaning in the things we choose to do. October has been full of wonderful opportunities, and I feel lucky that I gave in to a number of impulses this month.

Last weekend the New England Lace Guild arranged for a tour and some presentations at the Textile Museum in Willimantic. There are only two part time employees at this museum, and although neither of them has a background in textiles, they are both committed to the history of this town and to keeping the records of the textile work done in this part of Connecticut. We had a tour of the museum and two terrific presentations on the history of the mills in the area and the working conditions and lifestyle of the mill workers.

Here is our group standing outside the museum building which used to be the mill store for the American Thread Company, where they sold cotton threads and yarn. Some of our group remember coming here as children when their mothers shopped for thread and yarn.

In the photo above we are looking across the street to the mill buildings, situated along the Willimantic River. This mill was made of stone and has weathered almost two centuries quite well.The museum houses the equipment that was used to clean, comb and spin cotton threads and yarn, as well as some of the equipment used in other mills that wove fabrics.

Naturally, I was most intrigued with taking photos of the looms.

….and the collection of vintage sewing machines.

Note the vintage wooden thread spools. The museum has a machine that made these spools.

The attic is a stunning room that houses the archives and library of the museum.

It was a beautiful fall day with wonderful views from every window!

As luck would have it, later that week at our regular bobbin lace study group, Mary had found a website for a sewing pattern company in England that uses names from the age of textile mills to promote their designs. The company is Merchant and Mills in Rye, Sussex County. The clothing designs are modern, but the names are historic–such as the “landgate,” the “foreman,” “Ellis and Hattie.” They also have a couple of patterns for traditional work bags from that time period. On impulse (no surprise!) I ordered one of the patterns. They have beautiful fabrics too, but the shipping is pretty steep so I refrained from ordering anything heavier than a paper pattern.

This weekend one of our local guild members hosted a Japanese tea ceremony (Chado) at her house. She has met a Japanese woman who has started taking weaving classes. The Japanese woman is married to a man who is not Japanese but has become intrigued with Japanese culture and has been studying tea. Anthony and Noriko conducted the tea ceremony wearing Japanes kimono. The clothing alone would have entertained us and stimulated a lengthy session of questions, but the tea ceremony took it all to another level!

The ceremony took place on Sally’s enclosed porch that has beautiful views of her gardens and the surrounding woods. On this late October day, the sun was as brilliant as the golden leaves floating down from the trees. Anthony brought all the accessories to make this event special, including the shoji screen and tatami covered table and the tea stand. The vessel heating the water is a cast iron kettle set on a bronze base. The light coming through the shoji screen was beautiful.

Here are Anthony and Noriko together during the ceremony. It was quite a feat for Anthony to prepare about 15 cups of tea for us because each cup is brewed individually.

Here is a closer look at their kimono!

We were all intrigued with the tools and implements used in the ceremony. Everything has has a function while also being an example of beautiful craftsmanship. One of the implements used in the ceremony is a small ceramic stand that holds the lid to the kettle while the host is pouring the hot water into the tea cup. The stand he chose to bring for our ceremony was fashioned to look like a silk reel. It was a delicate thing, and he chose to bring this particular piece to acknowledge that his guests were weavers. This is the kind of attention to detail that is at the core of a tea ceremony.

Perhaps the item I loved most was the small silk drawstring bag that held the tea caddy.

I love the Japanese sense of color! I love the way the braid has been laced to the bag, and the braid itself is so ingenious!

Can you see that the bitter end of the braid is twice as thick as the rest? I believe the braid was started leaving a length of unwoven silk at the beginning, braided in the narrower design. When the length needed to encircle the bag had been woven, the two ends of the narrower braid were brought together to finish in a thicker braid. The drawstring can be closed by making a loop in the thinner part of the braid and slipping the thick end through the loop. When the drawstring is tightened it will not come undone. I also think the braid has to be inserted through the lacing before the braid is finished, when the two ends of the thinner braid are brought together to begin the thicker braid. I’m not an expert, but this is how I would attempt to do this…..and I hope to give it a try next spring when I return home!

Our hostess for the tea ceremony venue also surprised us with a hot meal after the ceremony! This gave us some additional time to get to know Anthony and Noriko a bit better and ask them questions about Japanese culture and their traditional textiles. It was also a wonderful time to be together and share a meal. It’s yet another day spent with weavers that will be a treasured memory for all of us.

It’s almost time for me to slip my moorings at home and join Bob on our floating winter home. He is in Hampton, Virginia, now, waiting for November 1, and a good weather window to sail to Antigua. I will join him there in mid-November. So I am beginning the process of winding down things at home–gardens, projects, preparing to close our house. Sometimes when my list of chores gets overwhelming I start something new as an escape from the things I’d rather not do! This week I found myself pulled to make more throw pillow for our boat–this time for the cockpit–our outside sitting area, what you might call our outside terrace, if you will. Here are the fabrics I chose when I made an impromptu visit to the fabric store earlier this week.

I am making two pillows that are 18″ x 18″ out of the shell fabric with the striped fabric used for piping along the edge.

Here is one of them–a bit odd to see this summery shell fabric against a backdrop of fall decorations. Today I plan to make two smaller, rectangular pillows (12″ x 16″) out of the coordinating striped fabric. Photos to come soon, I hope! Since Bob has already left, I will deliver these pillows and a trove of other things we forgot to put onboard, to one of Bob’s crew members. He is renting a car and driving to Virginia on Tuesday. It’s my last chance to put bulky things onboard. The list is long, and I hope Jim is renting a BIG car!

The last impulse of this impulsive month was a purchase! I bought a tape loom on etsy. It’s a little gem made by a woodworking woman who calls herself Handywoman. She makes the looms out of cherry then embellishes them with images. The one I’ve chosen has images of England and Scotland on each side, and there is even a carrying bag made out of flag fabric! I can’t wait for it to arrive. There should just be time for me to put a warp on it before I have take it with me. I will have to plan my packing carefully to allow room for traveling with this loom!

It’s raining buckets today, so it’s a good day for chores. I will make the last two pillows and then tackle some more lace for the christening gown. Time to get down to work!

Summertime Weaving and other Arts

Posted on July 30, 2017 | Leave a comment

This is the summer of regional weaving conferences all over the US, and I enjoyed a day trip to Northampton, Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago to visit the exhibits and vendor hall of NEWS, the New England Weaving Seminar. This is always a great way to rekindle and rejuvenate my love of weaving. There are so many weavers, even just in New England, who are doing inspiring things!

One of our Connecticut guild members, and a good friend from my local weavers’ group, has made a fabulous doll this year. This is not her first miniature figure, and she is definitely honing her skills as time passes! In her travels she acquired a porcelain doll head of a Japanese male. She and her husband began sculpting hands and feet out of polymer clay to go with the head. Then they began the daunting task of making a soft-sculpture, pose-able body for the figure. And then came the weaving! This fellow has a full set of traditional Japanese undergarments in white, all handwoven! His kimono is a dark indigo plain weave, and his obi is also handwoven–even the thongs on his handmade shoes are woven!–in the same pattern as his obi. It’s an amazing piece, and I’m so glad it got such a prominent place in the gallery. Being in the front window you could easily view from all sides.

The lighting is challenging for getting a photo that shows the details of his woven garments. He is holding an origami crane, also made by Sally. Really, isn’t he fabulous?? I doubt the judges knew what to make of this! And I wonder if they opened up his kimono to see his handwoven undergarments.

The guild exhibits were quite good this year. The space was light and large so that each guild table could be seen well from multiple directions.

Maybe it was not the most creative use of space, but the displays themselves were quite inspired. Very enjoyable. This is the display for the Weavers’ Guild of Boston.

It was a wonderful day for me, and far too short. By the time I caught up with friends and had a dash through the vendor booths it was past time to head home.

My favorite place in the vendor hall is upstairs, where Vav Stuga and Pro Chem share a space. I always find way more than I meant to buy in these two booths. This year Pro Chem had a deep basket full of stamps for printing fabric, and Vav Stuga had a bundle of past Vav Magazine calendars at a discount. Who could resist either of those? Not me!

There was a new vendor this year, Lofty Fibers from New Hampshire. On top of selling some wonderful linens and the Jaggerspun wool/silk blends, they have developed a small gadget called a “Tempo Treadle” that keeps track of your treadling sequence and will alert you if you make a mistake. Isn’t that a handy thing to have? I would like to have one for my AVL mechanical dobby, which has a very bad habit of not lifting all the shafts that are pegged or lifting one too many. It’s a mysterious –and pervasive– problem, and I would love to have an alarm system for this! Barry said he’ll look into making one for AVLs.

There was a wonderful 3-woman exhibit of works by Norma Smayda, Jan Doyle, and Antonia Kormos. All three women are Rhode Island weavers, although my small area group in Connecticut claims Tony too, as well a number of other Rhode Island residents who regularly come our meetings. Tony is in her 90s and still doing fabulous work in many complex weaves as well as bobbin lace.

Changing gears a bit, but still celebrating inspiring works of art, the next photo is of a gift that Bob and I recently gave each other. Back in June we celebrated our 40th anniversary. Pretty amazing to both of us! We enjoy looking at art together, although we are not wealthy enough to actually as much art as we’d like. We count ourselves lucky to have some accomplished artistic friends….because of that we heard of an artistic exchange between the US and Russia, where a group of Russian painters came to the US last spring to paint plein aire along the coast of Maine. Bob and I sailed coastal Maine for 16 years before we started sailing in the Caribbean for our winters, so images of Maine bring back some wonderful memories of summer travels during our increasingly long marriage (I mean that in a good way!).

One artist in particular captured one of our best memories with this depiction of a lobster pound near Stonington, Maine. Almost every summer we would stop and anchor near Stonington, just off from Billings Marina. We’d take our dinghy ashore and walk into town, which included walking right by this very spot. It’s the still water of the pond that just undoes me. It looks wonderful close up and at any distance. We have hung this in a spot where we can view it from close up as well as all the way to the other side of the house, and we love it from all the vantage points.

The artist is Olga Karpacheva, and she has an impressive background of achievements in Russia. She has work in five Russian museums, and I found images of her work online that make me think she has special ties to the Volga River. She is also well known for her work in restoring art.

But this is the best thing I found about her online! –a photo of her painting the piece we bought! She is on the left. What a thrill for me to see this!

The summer offers a couple more exciting venues for seeing artwork, both woven and not woven. Here is my list!

I regret not posting this before the opening….but it’s still on, so try to get there! It was quite a thrill to reconnect with Helena after six or seven years. Her students included about a dozen Swedish weavers, one Icelandic, and two US weavers. No one lives near Washington Depot, so it was impressive that these students organized the event from so far, and almost all of them managed to get to the opening. The exhibit has been at two venues in Sweden before coming to New England, and the students organized these exhibitions as a tribute to Helena. What a wonderful event, and I’m so glad I was able to attend.

It was there that I learned of this exhibition, currently at the New Bedford Art Museum.

The couple who own Brown/Grotta were at the tapestry opening. They are quite excited by their current show of works which you can read about here. As luck would have it, Bob and I are visiting the New Bedford area in a few days, so it will be easy to add this to our itinerary. Yes, I feel lucky!

And I also met a pastel artist at the Nordic exhibition who shows work annually at the Lyme Art Association during their annual pastel exhibition. It’s interesting that I’ve seen this woman’s work for several years before now getting to meet her. The opening for the Nordic Tapestry Group was a convergence of how interwoven our artwork and relationships are. Lucky, indeed!

Summer Weaving

Posted on July 13, 2017 | 1 comment

Summer is a time when my weaving projects must take priority since that’s when I’m home to work! Yet summer offers SO many wonderful distractions! The garden, family and friends visiting, lots of conferences to attend. I want to kick back and enjoy the season, but I also feel the pressure to make as much progress as possible before I leave home again.

These are the scenes that greet me each day on my walk along the Connecticut River, although the peonies and iris have shifted to roses, and now the roses are being overtaken by hydrangea.

It’s been a banner year for roses in my own garden. I have to give all the credit to Bob since he has fertilized every time I’ve asked, and he’s also used some kind of eco-friendly spray when the gypsy moths fell out of the trees on to the rose bushes.

We have a granite wall that is about 100′ long and planted in pink and yellow roses, interspersed with lavender, daisies, and boxwoods.

I’m going to back up a bit and reminisce about the trip I took to Tennessee to attend the Southeast Fiber Festival back in April. Back in April? Time flies! I took three weeks to drive down to Gatlinburg and back. It was a perfect mix of relaxation and adventure. After spending Easter weekend with my new granddaughter and her parents, I continued south to meet my good friend and tapestry weaver AnnaByrd to make the rest of the trip together. We had a wonderful 500 mile drive through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Smoky Mountains. Both going and returning we stopped in New Market, Virginia, and enjoyed lunch in a cafe at the civil war museum there. We were both taking a 3-day class with Jon Eric Riis on Coptic tapestry techniques.

In spite of the terrible destruction in Gatlinburg by last autumn’s fires, Arrowmont is still a stunning place. There is plenty of evidence of the chaotic and destroying force of fire, but I was relieved to see that there was still plenty untouched. This view is not the direction of the fire came from.

A view of the main building from the dining hall. The dining arrangement is the best I’ve had at a conference. I wish I’d photographed the dining room. It is cafeteria style, and the food is excellent. You sit at real wooden dining tables that have real chairs. Although there are a lot of tables in this large room, it feels quite like gathering in a home situation because the food is excellent and so obviously prepared with care, and the setting is so comfortably home like. Well done!

My few photos from this trip are not memorable, but the memories they conjure for me are too good not to use. Here is Jon during his keynote address for the conference.

The slides of his work covered most of his weaving career. I had no idea he’d been weaving for 50 years–how can he be old enough to have had such a long career? I have always loved his Icarus tapestries, and I no idea just how many works he’s done over the years. Look at this assemblage of pears! I know, it’s a bad photo– what can you expect of a photo of a projected slide during the presentation?

AnnByrd took this photo of Jon and me together, and it’s a great memory for me, even though blurry. Some day the memory of the workshop will become like this photo….a bit out of focus–but hopefully not too soon.

On display in the instructors’ exhibit were a series of partial faces that Riis wove entirely in metallic yarns. I don’t know HOW he got such a beautiful surface with such challenging materials. On the last day, after this work was crated, he unpacked a few and let us pass them around. Look at the curve of the chin–and the shading!

There are 20 partial faces in this series that hang together in a grid. The piece is called “Diaglogue.” You can see it here.

About 10 days after I returned home from this adventure, I was off to the Cape with a couple of lace making friends. We were headed to the Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham, Massachusetts, for the annual weekend retreat of the New England Lace Guild. It’s a wonderful setting near the beach, all our meals are served to us family style at big tables in a large dining room. We have private rooms and shared baths, and we can stay up all night making lace if we like, go for walks, take classes, and even buy stuff from the Van Scivers who always come. For the past two years I’ve opted not to take a class, and instead, filled my days sitting in the sunroom with a couple of my own projects that needed uninterrupted attention. There are plenty of other lace makers who do the same.

I spent the weekend working on this project while also keeping track of the eagle cam that was following the eaglet Spirit, on the Anacostia River, just off the Potomac in Washington, DC. You can just see Spirit at the edge of the nest (upper right) on my computer screen.

Here is one of the two classrooms….. since the center is in a large Georgian house, the rooms are generous and furnished from decades past.

Back at home, with the summer unfolding, we’ve celebrated our 40th anniversary, and been treated to a long weekend with both our sons and daughter in law, along with cherished new granddaughter Tori and a few good friends. I’m working on a couple of floor loom projects and two tapestries.

One tapestry is the line of text that our son Christopher asked me to weave. As of this week, I am 20% done. It seems like an insane thing to weave, and even Archie tried to dissuade me from this project, in spite of having woven quite a lot of text himself. Yet I find it both relaxing and challenging. Chris made the font and then hand manipulated the spacing of letters for my cartoon. I am not making any marks on the warp, since I’ve found that I have more success working from a cartoon when I let the cartoon be an idea of the weaving, rather than trying to actually follow the cartoon slavishly.

And here is the work in progress on the design I created in Riis’s Coptic workshop. The workshop was titled “Unraveling Coptic Weaving,” and we were to bring family photos to reinterpret in a Coptic style. I balked at that idea and brought a lot of other images that intrigued me more–Minoan dancers, Greek vase paintings, and one of the bas relief religious figures from the facade of St. John the Divine Cathedral in NYC. Anyway, after playing with those compelling ideas, I settled back on the idea of a family member…..dear little Tori.

The warp is sett at 16 epi, which is considerably finer than the finest sett I’ve ever used before — 12 epi. Between the fine sett and the neutral color of the warp thread, I am struggling to see what I’m doing! Still, when I pick the right threads, the weaving is also compelling.

It was a good challenge for me to draw this cartoon. Tori will be surrounded by clouds with hearts in the corners….schmaltzy for sure, but I hope to balance that a bit by using some tertiary colors. Each cloud and each heart is somewhat different from each other….the only way I can do it. We’ll see.

This morning I measured the lace that I started at the retreat. It’s also for Tori. I just photographed it after I put away the measuring tape. It is now a whopping 32″ long!

So I’d better get back to work on these projects so I can get some of them finished before the season changes!

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Posted in drawing, gardening, inspiration, Lace, tapestry, weaving

Women’s Work

Posted on June 1, 2017 | 1 comment

Today’s mail held a treasure I’ve been looking forward to seeing! Last week on Etsy I found a vintage bedsheet with matching bolster pillow that had been embroidered in counted cross stitch and bordered with laddered hemstitch. The sheet itself is a luxurious, heavy weight French ‘metis,’ which is 65% linen and 35% cotton. According the to vendor, Hanky Heiress, this fabric blend was developed to be an ‘easy-care alternative’ to 100% linen sheets. Look how beautiful it is!

Here it is opened up across my bed. The blue and orange cross stitch look wonderful on my vintage, machine woven, overshot bedspread! I’m thrilled!

The seller of this sheet and bolster set believes it’s from the 1960s, and she speculated that that they have never been used. Now that I’ve seen it firsthand, I agree with her. Who knows where it originated; by the time I found it, it was residing with an Etsy vendor in Cheshire, England. What a sad thing that it may have spent 50 years in a drawer or closet. I have been imagining various scenarios in which this might happen, and the only that makes sense to me is that someone made this as a gift for someone else. Perhaps it was a wedding gift, with the two initials signifying the union of two different names. I can only imagine that the woman who did this put so much love into this gift. It is truly a treasure! And I’d like to think that the woman who received it loved it so much that she was hesitant to actually use it. Well, I intend to use it, and I intend to enjoy it. I will always think of this story that I have created to go with it. I feel it has good potential for being true!

It amazes and inspires me that women (and men too) have been making and embellishing textiles since the dawn of humanity. There’s a reasonable chance that textiles are older than pottery, as Elizabeth Weyland Barber has speculated. It seems we are hardwired to surround ourselves with the work of our hands.

In early April I learned that our friend Hank, had arrived in Havana on his boat and would soon try to deliver all the all donations of lace-making materials to the woman I met last year. I wrote about the lace makers last year while Bob and I were visiting Cuba on our boat. Due to lack of communication in Cuba as well as while sailing offshore, I did not get confirmation of the delivery until mid-May. What an emotional moment that was for me! And I understand there were few tears shed by Hank and his wife, along with the women who received this bounty, and even the male interpreter! I cried myself when I saw the photos and this wonderful video that Hank and Seale made for me.

When Bob and I first hatched this idea of sending materials to Cuba, neither we nor Adriana fully realized the effort involved. I had been quite saddened to see the poor quality materials women had access to–sewing thread used in multiple plies for embroidery and crochet, and poor quality knitting and crochet yarns that looked like some Russian version of Lily’s “Sugar N Cream” yarn–and only available in one color — Ecru! Mailing gifts is simply not possible, since all mail is opened and usually the contents are ‘re-purposed.’ Even making a face to face delivery had a high degree of risk for confiscation. Adriana and Hank worked out the best plan they could come up with, and still both of them were worried about being discovered. It is forbidden in Cuba to have guilds or groups, so the women who meet to do various types of lace together have to be quite careful. I am so relieved that this venture was a success!

This is now my favorite photo of Adriana, where she looks like a young woman again, full of excitement for the many projects that lay ahead for her and all the other women she tutors in lace techniques. I can almost see the ideas starting to swirl in her head!

Here is photo of the stash before Bob and I packed it up in four extra-large vacuum seal bags. In early January, Bob sailed to the British Virgin Islands, where he transferred the stash to Hank’s boat. In early April, Hank sailed for Cuba as the leader of a rally of sailboats that would spend two weeks in Havana.

Best of all, here are some photos of Adriana’s lace work that I bought from her last April. First a Torchon doily that I gave as a present at my lace group’s annual holiday party.

And two pieces of Adriana’s tape lace that I kept for myself.

The work of our hands–across the decades– and across the world. And this is just the tip of the tip of what is out there in the world.

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Posted in bobbin lace, inspiration, Lace, travel

As Summer Wanes

Posted on September 5, 2016 | 2 comments

It’s Labor Day, the first truly chilly morning of the season, and I LOVE it! There will be a few more days of summer heat before we hit the equinox, but summer is winding down. I can feel it in the air and see it in the trees. In spite of hurricane Hermine heading northward, I feel autumn coming.

The month of August has hurtled by me. I had lots and lots of doctor appointments, and in between them, I tried to very hard to enjoy one workshop on ec0-dyeing and as many days of weaving and lace making as I could manage. Looking back, I feel fairly productive!

If you haven’t tried Eco-dyeing, give it a whirl! There is nothing like unwrapping a scarf or fabric to find some lovely imprints of leaves and flowers. If your first attempt doesn’t suit your taste just put the fabric/scarf away and try it again on another day. That’s what I’m doing this morning as I write this. I have a 1-yard length of lightweight linen and one silk scarf steaming. I used the rinse and spin cycle of my washing machine to re-wet them, and I just collected a few leaves on my morning walk: one small branch of Japanese maple with about a dozen leaves on it, some golden rod fronds with buds ready to open rather than in bloom, and a few fronds of sumac.

When I got home I spread out my damp linen fabric and silk scarf and placed my plant materials on half of each length of fabric or scarf, because I will fold the other half over to cover the plant material. To the things I gathered on my walk I added a few gems from my garden. Today I am trying tall ferns that I hope are ostrich ferns, since I read that those work well in eco-deying. I have a few dark purple oxalis leaves, some purple cranesbill flowers as well as leaves, some coleus leaves, and one small spray of red flowers from a dragon wing begonia. As I write this I realized I meant to to pick some hyacinth bean leaves and flowers. The leaves of the purple hyacinth vine have such dark veining, it might work very well in this technique. Drat! My fabric is already in the steamer.

Here are a couple of sites that I found very helpful in trying this technique. Sherry Harr did her doctoral thesis at Kansas State University on various textile dyeing techniques, and her article is quite thorough. There are several blogs where the authors have documented their plants and techniques rather well. Take a look at Threadborne and Obovate Designs.

In mid-August a few people from my local area guild got together and shared lots of plant material and had a go on our various fabrics and scarves. None of us had ever done this before, but we shared the internet info we found, and a couple of us had talked to others who had taken a workshop with Amelia Poole, whose work in this technique is stunning.

With a bit of info and a LOT of enthusiasm, we plunged ahead. We were quite lucky to have the use of Kate’s wonderful weaving/dyeing studio for this project. Here you can see how we layered the tubes of fabric with sticks to keep them from touching. To make the steamer there are some rocks and sticks at the bottom of the pan to keep the tubes of fabrics above the water level.

The taller tubes of fabric went in this make-shift steamer.

After 30 minutes of steaming and a little time cooling down, our tubes came out of the pot.

Unwrapping and hanging our scarves and fabric to dry on a rack. We were pretty thrilled with our results.

My first scarf turned out better than the other things I tried that day.

Look at the imprint from this giant dahlia.

I hope to compile a list of the plants and flowers that work best for me. Some things leave behind wonderful colors, but the imprint is just a blob. I’m more interested in the things that leave an actual impression of the leaf or flower. So far, this is my list of A plants and flowers:

Japanese maple leaves–great leaf definition
coleus leaves–faint leaf definition and pastel colors, lovely on silk
golden rod–great definition for leaves and flowers
purple oxalis–great definition
black hollyhock flowers–a wonderful, deep purple ‘blob’
cranesbill, purple–nicely shaped ‘blob’ somewhat recognizable as a flower silhouette

One of the perks of visiting the studios and houses of other weavers, is seeing the lovely details in their living and work spaces. Weavers usually have such a eye for beauty.

It was a glorious day for our project.

Fast forward to the beginning of September, and on this stunning weekend I spent a wonderful day at the monthly meeting of bobbin lace makers in Connecticut. You can find us here.

We met outside in a member’s garden under a canopy of billowing, striped canvas. Her terrace was surrounded by flowers–black-eyed Susans, phlox, and other late season bloomers, with a view of her large vegetable garden nearby, and in the distance her bee hives. She made an English cream tea for us that we had to share with the bees. Her tables were covered with vintage white on white embroidered cloths, topped with vintage linen tea towels that commemorated Queen Elizabeth’s reign–going back as far as her silver jubilee. I think we all felt a bit regal.

I hope Mary won’t mind that I shared this photo. Her expression is a mirror of how much we were all looking forward to having these treats!

Our hostess made Earl Grey tea biscuits dipped in chocolate that were off the charts!

On top of this wonderful tea we all actually spent time making lace, too!

This is also the weekend of the Haddam Neck Fair. Late summer is the time for all kinds of festivals that celebrate farming and animal husbandry. I have never been to this particular fair before, and it was a wonder.

First there were the animals. We watched a draft horse pulling contest, visited the goats and sheep, cows, chickens and rabbits. The textile displays were very small, but I met a woman on the fair committee, doing a spinning demonstration, and she hopes to grow the textile area of the fair in coming years.

Look at this beautiful Dorset sheep. Her new fleece growing back was as thick as felt and she loved attention.

Multi-colored Jacobs.

Seeing all the awards for best sheep or cow, all the way down to best cakes, and cupcakes, best flower arrangements, and best single flowers, or best zucchini, made Bob exclaim, “No one can possibly doubt humans’ need to compete!” Along a row of bud vases that showcased individual marigolds, the judges had written such poetic comments as: “As beautiful as a sexy, 1940s film star!” And, one a rose that no longer had a single petal left, “A stunner! Well done!”

I particularly like this arrangement of succulents in a well used frame. Clearly the judges did too.

Some whimsical flower arrangements. There were lots of categories for flower arrangements, and these were two in the category inspired by food. A tray of floral cupcakes!

And a slice of mum cake! The same kind of judges’ comments showed up on all the individual vegetables, from tomatoes to summer squash, to cucumbers. If you can grow it or make it, you can compete with others at some local fair!

It was a beautiful day, and it was quite lovely to see how much care and attention can go into growing a zucchini or a marigold!

Sadly, the textile area could not hold a candle to the livestock or the flowers and veggies. Maybe that will change in the future. All it will take are a few textile people who want to compete!

The day is getting away from me, and I should turn my attention to Archie’s book and to that never-ending boundweave project.

I’ll end with a recap of what I learned today. The tall ferns in my garden must not be ostrich ferns since they left no color. I did add some hyacinth bean vine, both leaves a clusters of flowers buds, but they also left no color or imprint.

Clusters of purple verbena flowers are interesting–they turn turquoise!

And signet marigolds left an interesting imprint. The red stripes turned black.

And speaking of flowers, I have to share one last image. The well known, oft-photographed field of sunflowers on the north fork of Long Island. Bob and I sailed to Sag Harbor and stayed for almost a week back in the middle of the month. Even when compared to an amazing dinner at the American Hotel, and wine tastings along the North Fork, seeing this field was the highlight of that trip!

Now to work!

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Posted in bobbin lace, dyeing, eco dyeing, holiday, inspiration, sailing, sheep, spinning

Weaving and Dreaming

Posted on July 25, 2016 | 1 comment

I’m dreaming about my next project as I zoom along on the current one. There are always surprises, and this yardage has had its share. Last fall I decided to make the warp a yard longer than I’d figured when I bought the materials. Yeah, so, it should not have been a surprise when I ran out of warp and had to fudge a second warp out of a solid grey to blend into this handpainted warp.

Then, for some reason, I neglected to make the mental leap to realizing that if my warp is now a yard longer than planned I might not have enough weft! That only occurred to me after I started weaving, about 2 weeks ago. Really, I amaze myself sometimes.

So I’ve spent this morning thinking about what I might use as weft for the rest of this yardage. I have not yet run out of handpainted JOY weft, but it was time to decide if I should switch to a solid color now so I had enough yardage that is clearly different to make a significant part of my garment–like sleeves or front bands.

I spent some time this morning digging through bins stacked pretty high, looking for a bin of tencel. Luckily most of these bins are clear so I can what’s in them. But wouldn’t you know the bins at the bottom of my various stacks are not clear so I had to unload everything to check out what is in those bins at the bottom of each stack. No luck in finding any tencel. I have lots of tencel, but at the moment I have no idea where it is!

So I moved on to looking at color cards for tencel, and found that there is no coral shade that comes even close to what I want. That led me down the rabbit hole of looking through my silk bins and silk color cards. I have the perfect shade of coral that I’d love to use, but not nearly enough of it! So I called Treenway and have placed an order for two 1000-yard skeins of a loely coral color #27. Those skeins will not arrive for almost three weeks. Sigh…Does this happen to you? Please say it does!

Fast forward to the end of the day. I wove another half yard today, in plain weave now, with the handpainted weft. Just moments ago, when I advanced the warp, I saw that I am only about a yard away from the end. That means I will have 5 yards of fabric instead of 6. The mistakes just pile up faster than I can keep track of them! I could swear I made a 7 yard warp and that’s why I ran out of materials. I have no idea what happened last fall, and I don’t know where my notes are! I hope this sounds familiar to you. Now I think I need to call Treenway and cut my order in half!

Luckily there have been some marvelous experiences lately to balance the derangement going on in my weaving. While others are busy heading off to Milwaukee for Convergence, I have gotten to enjoy some inspiring events much closer to home.

First is an exhibit in Providence that will be closing soon. I wish I’d seen it sooner so I could have spread the word earlier. I believe it closes this weekend. There is a small gallery called The Reading Room of the AS220 gallery, on Matthewson St. where Kate Barber has a wonderful exhibit of her recent work, called “Forward Folding.”

This postcard image is a detail of one her works on display, and it is stunning. Her exhibit is in an intimate setting with beautiful lighting. I stayed longer than I would have imagined to view her 22 pieces. There was such zen in the room I could not tear myself away. Kate is doing wonderful things with shibori on the loom which she uses to create crimped cloth. Some of the works are also dyed and embroidered.

There is a wonderful mascot at the gallery who watches for visitors and then greets you at the entrance. I’ve now forgotten her name. She is so calm that I almost mistook her for a ceramic dog!

Across the river, in Old Lyme, my local area weaving guild members are hard at work getting ready for the annual town festival where some of us will demonstrate various textile techniques. The big Clemens loom is ready for demonstrating the weaving of a traditional Canadian rag coverlet bed covering. Jody will the be first weaver, although she needs three helpers to do this. This is her coverlet that will be woven first. It will be 9 ft. wide by 9 ft. long. It’s a big undertaking!

This Saturday, July 30, Jody and her crew will be weaving on this behemoth loom, and others in our guild will be demonstrating various textile techniques. I plan to bring my spinning wheel to spin some lovely tussah silk sliver that a Connecticut woman who calls herself HoneyBuns prepares and dyes. I am spinning a wonderful colorway of rosey coral and gold.

Yesterday Jody and I went to see a wonderful film about an exhibition that is currently traveling through Europe. It was a stunning film and almost made up for the fact that I won’t get to see this exhibition in person. The exhibition is called “Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse,” and the film has the same name. The Royal Academy of Art put this exhibit together. It was quite moving, and I enjoyed sharing it with Jody and two other weavers from my local guild who also attended.

There were scenes of the exhibition itself, including a large room where Monet’s waterlily triptych has been displayed together for the first time ever, since each of the three pieces is owned by different museums. There is current footage of the gardens where each of the artists painted a century ago, and there are wonderful old photographs of the artists. The best image was Renoir’s portrait of Monet in the garden at Giverny, doing a painting of his own. I did not know that this portrait is owned by the Wadsworth Atheneum, so sometime in the future I will be able to view it in person!

Here is a short excerpt from the film:

Here is one more video with the curator discussing Monet’s Agapanthus triptych.

To all of you heading off to Convergence, have a wonderful time! I’ll be thinking of you and what I’m missing. Meanwhile, I am enjoying the down time of being at home in the studio. Maybe I’ll soon get to start the next project I’m dreaming of–I didn’t even tell you what it is!

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Posted in gardening, inspiration, weaving

Past Wedding, Full Forward on Inspiration!

Posted on August 11, 2015 | 1 comment

First a moment of shamless personal happiness: our older son was married over the weekend in Baltimore. It was a glorious event! I enjoyed every detail of it starting with our private time with the almost newly weds when we arrived on Wednesday evening last week, right through to the after-wedding-Sunday-brunch. It was a small wedding, but the honored guests came from as far as San Francisco and Denver and Florida, to as close as right down the street. It was a congregation of close knit friends and relatives. It couldn’t have been better!

We invited our very oldest friends–two couples we’ve known since long before either Rob or Chris were born–Chris and Pat and LeaAnn and Garrett– and a dear friend, Craig, who has been more than an uncle to our boys….and my sister Sheryl and her family–Carl, Madison and Chloe. It was perfect!

Elevator selfies are certainly the rage now!

The wedding party was large for so small a wedding– 6 bride’s maids, 6 groom’s men,
1 groom’s dog, 3 flower girls, and 2 ringbearers. The groom’s dog may have stolen the show. After walking down the aisle with the groom, he then gave the groom a ‘high-5’ moments before the bridesmaids entered.

He lay down peacefully between the bride and groom when the vows began.

When he began to make nesting movements with the bride’s beautiful wedding dress, he made no fuss at being moved in front of the groomsmen. Just look at all those Chuck Taylors!

He got to spend a few moments at the reception before he was sent up to the bridal suite to to relax with a very attentive friend.

Here are more moments from the day… I loved every minutes of it!

Photo ops in the beautiful Hotel Monaco in Baltimore.

The best man and the mother of the groom–moi!

I am shamelessly proud of these two young men–the groom and his best man brother!

The finale of the ceremony!

That wonderful moment for any mother of the groom!

The very best moments of this weekend aren’t documented with photographs. It was spending some wonderful time with both our sons, our new daugher in law, our friends, my sister and her family. It was finding two very sweet handwritten notes from my son thanking us for so much, acknowledging what a wonderful relationship we’ve had over the years behind us and the years to come. This note arrived with a gift just moments before I left our room to go down to the ceremony. It just doesn’t get any better!

With a little help from my friends (there’s always a Beatle theme when our family is together) Bob and I hosted a brunch for the newly weds on Sunday morning at their new house in the suburbs of Baltimore. If not for Pat and Jeremy, and of course Bob, the brunch would not have been nearly as buttoned down as it was! I guess we were way too busy hosting to get any photos.

I am so indebted to our old friends and my sister’s family for making such a long trek to be part of this event. Being with them put the frosting on the cake and the cherry on top!

Now back at home I am relishing the all the memories and enjoying looking through all the candid photos taken by friends. We’ll have the photographer’s images shortly.

I have turned my attentions back to the tapestry presentation I’ll be giving in early September to the weavers’ guild in Rhode Island, to working on what I’ve lovingly called the “Archie Project” for the past ….. years. I refuse to admit how long this project is taking!

Bob and I took inventory of his stash of dowels in the workshop to determine what he might need to buy in order to make a backstrap for loom for me. It looks like we have everything needed! I might be weaving by early next week.

This morning LeaAnn sent me links to a wonderful illustrator and writer who lives in Wales — Jackie Morris. My imagination took off while reading her blog. On Saturday, while we were celebrating a wedding, she wrote this:

The summer is always busy. It’s hard to find the silence required for clear thought. George MacKay Brown talked of writing poetry as ‘the interrogation of silence.’ I know not everyone needs it to work, to think, but I do.
…I become more fascinated by silence as I grow older. But finding silence is different to being silent. When you choose to stop speaking you unnerve people. They fill the silence, the space you leave. They interpret your silence in their own way.

At the end of her post she invited people to comment on how they achieve the silence they need to think and work, or to respond that they do not need to find this silence.

I agree whole heartedly with her description about needing inner silence and attempting to find it. There is no one place where I find mine. Sometimes it is easy to retreat to a wonderful silent place, and sometimes, no matter where I go I cannot get to it. I’m certain it has more to do with the state of my mind than the features or faults of any physical place. It all comes down to me. I just have to learn to be still and let it come.

As a weaver I often find that being at one of my looms is the best place for me to be silent and reap the benefits of where silence can lead. It doesn’t always work, but it is almost foolproof. On a floor loom or at a spinning wheel there is a rhythm of mechanical music that takes me deep into my inner self where there is a vast landscape of something like silence.

In tapestry I almost silently lift each warp thread by hand to create an image, and in that case it is my own deep thinking about the image that draws me away from the world, from any other noise but that deep music inside me. These are the reasons I return to weaving again and again.

After all the busy-ness of this summer–the SSCA extravaganza, visiting friends, the biennial weaving conference, and the wedding–it’s time to find that silence and get some good work done.

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Posted in family, inspiration, tapestry, weaving

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