I wrote a book. It is time to pre-order it!

I wrote a book. It is time to pre-order it!

(You knew that, didn't you. Sorry to overshare... kind of feels like a big deal still.) If you’re impatient, you can click over to the book page on my website to see some of the inside pages and read reviews HERE.

The book is called The Art of Tapestry Weaving. It is a tapestry techniques book that covers making a tapestry from the very beginning. It includes chapters about color and design as well as all the regular tapestry techniques. It was intended to help new weavers learn but also as a reference for people who have some experience in tapestry.

Remember that 1-800 time number we called as kids to figure out if our clocks were right?

Remember that 1-800 time number we called as kids to figure out if our clocks were right?

If you were in last week’s Change the Shed you know that I was a few minutes late. In fact, I suspect I am often a few minutes late starting because the clock on my computer is off and the program I use goes by the clock on the computer.

My dear student and friend Trish kindly helped me with this little “problem” this week. She pointed out that not only is there an international atomic clock with public access that can be checked, but that it is actually IN FORT COLLINS!!! (I always wondered what that array of tall radio towers with lights on the top north of town was). So living here, I should definitely have my time lined up.

Weaving about the Cameron Peak Fire, Part 2

Weaving about the Cameron Peak Fire, Part 2

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about the start of the Cameron Peak Fire in northern Colorado. This fire has brought up some challenging emotions for me and I’m sure I’m not done dealing with all of them.

This fire started August 13th high up near the Continental Divide near Chambers Lake. It was started by a person though the details have not been publicly released yet. It was a bluebird day. The fire sat at around 25,000 acres for a long time—weeks, and I was lulled into some sense of hope that it wouldn’t grow much more before the snows came. But fire is fickle and a beast waiting for just the right weather conditions. Last weekend the fire more than tripled with one run of 10 miles.

All the little tapestry diary pieces: a roundup

All the little tapestry diary pieces: a roundup

I’ve been weaving what I call my tapestry diary since November of 2016 when I did an artist residency at Petrified Forest National Park. I’ve had many posts about this practice over the last almost four years and I wanted to gather them all together here. I’ve also added category tags to many posts and these are tagged and can be found from the list on the blog. That list is on the right side on a computer and larger mobile devices (iPad) and is at the bottom of the blog list on a mobile phone. The tapestry diary posts are categorized Tapestry Diary and if you’re looking for something in another category, say, Looms or Yarn, that will help you out!

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The tapestry diary has been a place for me to play, work through events, remember places, and mostly just mess around with small looms. These pieces have all been small because that is part of the point. I sometimes call the practice sketch tapestry and have taught workshops about it. But you don’t need a workshop to quickly understand the concept. Weave something from an idea or a quick sketch that is simple and aims to evoke a place, something simple you saw, or an emotion. I like to keep these very small so they are finished quickly and I don’t get hung up on making them perfect. Ditch the perfectionism with this practice. It helps let go when things matter more.

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Reckoning with Myself: Part 2

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Reckoning with Myself: Part 2

“Reckoning with myself” is just my way of saying that I’m working on stuff. In Part 1 I was musing about space to work and a few tapestry designs I’m still working on. I still don’t have an answer about the big tapestries, but I can say that I spent a fun weekend enlarging the cartoon for one of them using my projector and a roll of paper my grandmother had labeled like this:

Using our "special" yarns

Using our "special" yarns

If you’re anything like me, you are a bit of a yarn hoarder. I’m sure there are those of you reading who only purchase or make yarns for one project at a time, but I can hardly imagine such a world. Nope. I have shelves of yarn and a growing stash of spinning fiber. I wrote THIS blog post on a similar subject on March 19th, 2020. The yarn I was going to use during the few months of pandemic lock-down. Little did I know we would still be here in late August expecting it all to continue for the foreseeable future.*

I figure all that stash was waiting for this moment. Lock-down. Stay-at-home. Social distancing. COVID has given me more time in the studio. It is time to consider those “special” yarns and whether I need to gift them or use them or continue to save them.

I put the word special in quotations because the reason they’re special is almost entirely not because they’re expensive but because I have some emotional or sentimental connection to them. As the tapestry by Alex Marriott at the bottom of this post says, I am so blessed. Not only do I have the funds from time to time to purchase more yarn than I can use, I have equipment to knit or weave them on and some time to do those non-essential tasks.

Still, many of these yarns are special to me and I thought it would be interesting to dig them out, share them, and think about why I’ve been saving them, sometimes for years.

Tapestry diary: Weaving about the Cameron Peak Fire

Tapestry diary: Weaving about the Cameron Peak Fire

Thursday, August 13th, the Cameron Peak Fire started near Chambers Lake way up the Poudre Canyon. This area is about 50 miles west of Fort Collins and is most definitely the outdoor playground of this city. In a year full of grief, this fire was a big personal hit. I know all the rational things: that there are far bigger problems in the world than wildfire, that the forest absolutely has to and would have eventually burned in this location, and that some of my grief stems from the loss of the privilege of actually enjoying such places on a regular basis. Still, it is a deep personal grief and I have done a lot of crying over the last week. . . .

I think the hardest thing is thinking about all the places I love and how they will be forever changed. As I left the Rawah on my birthday last week, I thought, “I can come back soon. This place will still be here.” But I was wrong. That place will not be the same in my lifetime. It will be years or decades before trails can be rebuilt if they are at all.