After the Rain

After the Rain is an exploration of the joy and growth that can come after difficult times. This collection was equal parts a reflection of the emotional experience of entering the wider world again (engaging in work and school and in person friendships) after years of quarantine and isolation with small children, a reaffirmation of my love for the tradition and craft of handweaving, and a self indulgent explosion of rainbows.

The warp is a combination of hand dyed and commercially dyed 8/2 cottons, the ground weft is a commercially dyed 16/2 cotton.

The pattern wefts are approximately fingering weight, the rainbow above is hand spun while the vintage rainbow below is handdyed commercial sock yarn.

This is woven in a slightly modified traditional overshot pattern known as “Sun Moon and Stars” which is #74 in The Shuttlecraft Book of American Handweaving by Mary Meigs Atwater. Like much traditional overshot, it was woven on a four shaft loom. I deeply adore the juxtaposition of a very traditional overshot pattern with modern color choices and hand dyed yarns, so you can absolutely expect to see more explorations of this in future.

The After the Rain warp was actually going to in a quite different direction: full of moody blues and explorations of mental health until my 4 year old daughter requested “a rainbow sweater with a hood!” I certainly couldn’t say no! And once I got dyeing, all I wanted to do was put rainbows all over this warp. Thus, After the Rain was born. This ROYGVBV set of colorways is what I’m using in her sweater, and there’s a few iterations of it in the shop.

This collection is comprised of both woven pieces coming off of the loom, and corresponding hand dyed yarns. It is a way of creating a collection that I hope to explore further, working within a theme in all of my chosen mediums and releasing them into the world. Someday I hope to have my ish together to release them all at the same time and debut the entire collection vs. letting bits and pieces out ahead of others. But I’m very pleased with it overall!

Handspun 2021

Spinning is the fiber craft that is honestly the most process oriented, meditative craft for me. I can talk some good talk about weaving and sewing and knitting being a meditative process, and it can be! I often get lost in the rhythm or the focus of the handwork, but for me they are very much product-oriented all the same. I knit because I want a sweater, I weave because I want a towel or have a vision of cloth, I sew to make a thing or fix a thing. But spinning! Spinning is a joy and a solace. Its about the whims of texture and color. Its about the rhythm of hands (and sometimes feet). Adding twist untangles my brain. My breath slows. I fall into the process.

2021 was the year of reading words instead of making yarn. It was lovely, and an indulgence I’d mostly given up on in the oh-so-young childhood years. Which is to say that very little was spun, my spindles got dusty, my wheel neglected. (Can you tell I’ve been picking them up again, since I’m waxing poetic about it?) But I did get a bit of this and a bit of that spun up: here’s 2021 in twist.

Twinkle Lights and Christmas Market are two colorways from Inglenook Fibers, on two of my favorite bases: targhee/bamboo/silk and merino/tussah/flax respectively. These were a pure indulgence and spun on a whim in the aftermath of the holidays and to bring in the new year for 2021. They’re both destined to find homes on the loom, and I cannot wait to see them woven up.

These spindles are full of Jacob wool from a bit of a fleece that was part of the Guild’s program about the Shave ‘em to Save ‘em program. I’m collecting a whole pile of spun yarn from various undyed fibers and am only beginning to dream up what they might become.

Turning Leaf Lichen is another Inglenook Fibers- a combination of two different batts, each spun as one of the two plies. I really enjoy spinning from batts, the textural variety between different wools, silks, and viscose fibers is a delight. This recently migrated into my “possibly a sweater” pile from my “probably to be woven” pile. But we’ll see.

This skein of superwash wool was an impulse purchase at the Fairbanks Fiber Fest a few years ago. It was spun and knitted up into a shawl for Miss 3 this year. I think it was for her birthday?

This bit of Corriedale is the Witches Brew colorway curated by @1764Shepardess for #spin15aday. Some year eventually I’ll do a Halloween themed warp, and in the meantime some of this might find its way into a doll shawl or three.

These skeins! These are 2 ply lace weight skeins in The Woodland Pixie’s Red Fox colorway and I am as proud of them as I am of anything else I have ever spun. They’re destined for the Baby Fox warp. Once upon a time when I began spinning them, I was wearing my little foxy girl on my back nearly every day and these skeins were going to become a baby wrap. But we’ve since outgrown our wearing days, so they’ll be a for a couple of the specialest shawls ever. As you may have guessed, I began spinning these YEARS ago. And they hovered over me as an unfinished spin that I owed my attention to for the entire time, even as I set aside the bobbins and spun on something else. Part of it was the determination to spin fine a enough for a true two ply laceweight (I’ve just got a new whorl with higher ratios that should make such a thing easier or at least faster in the future), and part of it was that I was spinning for a product rather than for pure delight. The became a slog. The actual spinning was enjoyable, but my relationship with the project ceased to be, somewhere along the way. This is the spin that taught me that its not worth it to place expectations of productivity on my weaving. We - the yarn and I - are both better served if I flit from spin to spin on the whims of joy and indulgence.

I’m not sure what that means for the two sweater spins and the beginnings of a blanket spin sitting waiting on my shelves, nor for my firm preference to knit and wear sweaters of handspun, but I suppose it will all work itself out so long as I give myself permission to enjoy every bit of the process and release the expectations that make a meditative and indulgent practice into a job.