Making

Yarn-mas: winter adventures and a congregation of knitted creatures

Yarn-mas: winter adventures and a congregation of knitted creatures

I had a bit of a vacation over the holidays. A few days in my hometown of Gallup, New Mexico and some time high in the Collegiate Peaks area of Colorado. I laughed with my family and friends, took leisurely walks in the desert, snowshoed in the mountains, and while chatting, doing puzzles, and playing games, I knitted. With all that time around kitchen tables I probably could have knit half a sweater. But I didn’t. Instead I made a gaggle of tiny creatures.*

The chickens were my favorite. They showed up everywhere and eventually a gang of punk-rock chickens appeared.

The best Christmas Tree ever

The best Christmas Tree ever

When I was a kid, my father had an ongoing joke every. single. year. He threatened to paint a Christmas tree on a white window shade* To decorate the tree, all you had to do was grasp the bar at the bottom of the shade firmly and pull down. At the end of the season, grasp the same bar, give a sharp downward tug and let go and the shade would roll up.

Needless to say neither me or my sister thought this was funny. And every year Dad stuck a real tree in a stand. In later years they were trees in pots from the nursery which were planted after Christmas in the back yard and all died about two months later.

Maybe this suggestion that real trees were a lot of work when brought inside the house has stuck with me. Or maybe I’m just fundamentally lazy. But a real tree has not found its way inside my house since I left home.**

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Colors of fall: writing retreats and fall colors

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Colors of fall: writing retreats and fall colors

I spent a week working in a friend’s timeshare last week (thank you Kristy!). I got a lot of writing done and I even participated in Spinzilla. I spent some time hiking including one trek into Rocky Mountain National Park. Here are a few of my explorations.

I wrote a lot on my next project. Having time away from the studio and all other distractions of daily life is a good way for me to get a lot done. I’m working at creating this in my own office, but I’m not quite there yet.

It turns out, spinning is a good way to jog your brain free when it feels a little blocked and I think a good companion to writing.

A textile trip to a beautiful city

A textile trip to a beautiful city

I had the good fortune to be able to go to the Textile Society of America conference last week in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. the theme of this conference was The Social Fabric: Deep Local to Pan Global.

What a beautiful city Vancouver is. I hadn’t been there before and I enjoyed everything from good food to public transportation to some amazing public parks and beaches.

I signed up for the conference because I felt a need to expand my awareness of the fiber world. The conference is largely academic, but I like that kind of thing. It gave me a chance to hear what people are researching in the world of fiber and to find some wonderful inspiration in papers, keynotes, exhibitions, and talking to other attendees.

Untangled

Untangled

It is ready!

My first book is out in the world. Untangled: A Crafty Sheep’s Guide to Tapestry Weaving has been several years in the making. The idea came from a student in a workshop I taught at the Michigan League of Handweavers Conference probably in 2015. Marge heard me describing yet another little trick I like to use when weaving tapestry and she said I should write a book about those tips. So I did.

Growing up on the edge of the Navajo Reservation

Growing up on the edge of the Navajo Reservation

In my last post I reviewed Spider Woman’s Children: Navajo Weavers Today, a new book by Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas. As part of that post I found myself writing what follows but then felt my own experience was out of place when discussing that beautiful publication. So what follows is some thoughts about my own relationship to Navajo weaving today. You can read the blog post about the book HERE.

I grew up in Gallup, NM. That town on I-40 is perched on the edge of the Navajo Indian Reservation just south of where Lynda and Barbara grew up. Slowly, I came to know a little about Navajo weaving. My parents took us to Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site whenever we had out-of-town guests they wanted to show around. Inevitably that was followed by a trip to Canyon de Chelly. I understood nothing of tribal/US politics as a child. Nor did I understand much about poverty or the roots of the struggles the Navajo people have experienced at the hands of the federal government.