The Birth Collection

The Birth Collection was begun in 2018, and the final piece finally came off of the loom in 2021.

The Birth Story series of mini tapestries debuted this month (January 2023) at my First Friday show and will be in the Imbolc shop update, so I thought that now is the perfect time to share about this collection

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Birth is a threshold. Giving birth, the body becomes a portal, inviting life from one side of the veil into the other. Baby moves from darkness of womb like a seed in soil into the light of this world. We become the doorway for spirit. There is a special energy that emerges when we stand between two worlds. It is an energy that we share with sprouting plants, with hatching eggs, with algae blooms and flower buds, with animal mamas everywhere. 

We can prepare. We can dream. We can plan. And yet when the birth field opens around us, we can only surrender to the process. Sometimes it exactly as we imagined, and sometimes it is very very different. Whether a surgical birth or a vaginal one, a natural birth or a medically assisted one; we cannot control the energy of birth. We can harness ourselves to it, we can be the vessel for it, we can fight it, we can ride it, but we cannot control it. The body opens and baby crosses the threshold. It is a sacred thing this opening, a thing of blood and bone and flesh and pain and breath and sometimes excrement too, that brings a sweet new unfolding into the world.

I did much of the prep work for this warp -including spinning the supplemental yarn for Unfolding - in my last trimester of pregnancy, at the same time as I was doing my own personal spiritual preparations for birth, calling in my guides and allies and working with my ancestral spirits to provide a safe and protected birth space for my daughter and an easy labor for myself.  The talisman shown in some of the photos below features the goddess Frigg and was a focal point for much of my personal work. 

The warp is of longstaple cotton/hemp from Saltwater Rose Threads and is dyed in soft earth tones and florals.

Birth: Unfolding

This piece is named Unfolding and is a meditation on the journey of labor.  There are 10 supplementary warp threads of the handspun rose viscose.  One tail (and its fringe) starts with three supplements and the other seven are added in staggered along the length of the wrap so that the opposite tail (and its fringe) have 10 supplements.  This is meant to represent dilation.  3 cm dilation is (very broadly speaking) a benchmark for when you may admitted to hospital or when a midwife will tell you to head to the birth center.  It (again very broadly speaking) marks the entrance into the active phase of labor.  10 cm, of course, is full dilation.  

The weft is rose viscose from Saltwater Rose Threads and I dyed it in shades of soft pinks and taupes.  The dilation symbology is also embedded in the weft.  I dyed ten concentric circles into the blank canvas of the weft, along with three runes:  laguz for the waves of labor, flowing birth, and amniotic fluid; berkana for birth and new life and the goddess tree, and jera for fruitful harvest and the childbearing year.  I use the symbology of runes in my fiber practice as a way of (re)connecting to the spiritual paths of my ancestors. 

The handspun supplementary yarn is made of rose viscose which I dyed in the same floral tones as appear in the warp.  I spun it and then chain plied it which allows for a color grad along its length (in this instance it is multiple smaller color grads throughout the skein).  This means that the supplementary warp threads change color along the length of the warp and the weft inlays do likewise, fading through colors in a single inlay.

There are handspun weft inlays throughout the piece.  For the most part, they are worked in themes of three and ten.  Three for the three phases of labor, the three aspects of the goddess, the three visible phases of the moon, the triad of baby-mother-grandmother (for the baby is present in the uterus of the fetal mother in the womb of the grandmother).  Ten again for the 10 cm dilation and for the way that ten signifies completion and change in our decimal number system.  

Others are meandering inlays that trace different paths with single or multiple inlays going at once that felt very much like storytelling as I did them.

Near one tail, there is a twined inlay of the Berkana rune (the same as is dyed into the weft.) Berkana is an ancient word for the birch tree, and the runes symbolically represents growth and rebirth. It is a rune of new beginnings. It indicates good news, birth, fertility and times of family rejoicing. 

Birth: Surrender

Birth Surrender was woven as a semi custom, so its design was in collaboration with the customer to whom the wrap went home. These collaborations are deeply personal to the person for whom I am working and involves intimate and often private visual symbology.

This piece features a hand dyed weft of silk/nettle and a double heart inlay on one tail that I spun from hand dyed superwash targhee.

Birth Healing

Birth Healing was woven as a semi custom, so its design was in collaboration with the customer to whom the wrap went home. These collaborations are deeply personal to the person for whom I am working and involves intimate and often private visual symbology.

This piece was an incredible honor to work on. It involves inlays and weft yarn changes with color blocking patterned intuitively and based on numerical symbology. It includes inlays of mohair locks and a variety of handspun and commercial yarns, hemstitching and faux lace inlays, and a large ogham inlay. I’m utterly in love with this piece and deeply grateful for the chance to create it.

Birth Story

This mixed media wall art piece has a blog post all of its own: check it out!

Birth Stories Series

The Birth Stories mini tapestry series that debuted at Just the Tips during my January 2022 First Friday exhibition grew directly out of this collection. This is an ongoing series that you are sure to hear more about in future! Stay tuned.

Snowbirding

Snowbirding was initially part of a weaver challenge wherein two weavers go head-to-head designing off of the same inspiration.  My dear friend Brianna over at Moth and Moon Fibreworks and I were paired with an image of a tropical beach at sunset.  

Neither of us met the deadline and both ended up producing distinctly autumnal warps.  After dyeing the yarn, I became inspired by the birch leaves just starting to go yellow in lace patterns in the forest canopy, the crampbark hinting at crimson, and the delightful earthy smell of boreal autumn taking over the woods in September.  The geese and cranes both gather for their annual migration away from the cold and the snow that will settle over this land I call home.  
It is a common thing in Alaska to flee the winters:  Retirees, those with the abundance of luxurious means, those with light pockets and lighter bags who want the freedom of wandering.  They seek the sun.  We call them Snowbirds.  They snowbird (it is a verb as well as a noun).  They return for the glory that is an Alaskan summer, called by the majesty of this land and the magic it conjures in even the most mundane soul.  And in the winter they go south.  
My inlaws are both retired now and in the sunset of their lives, and the last few winters they have made their home in Hawaii.  Their apartment opens onto a lanaii with a shared pool and a garden in which my father in law tends coconuts, mangoes, papaya, loofah (like the sponges!), hibiscus, angel trumpets and more.  The view is clear to the ocean and the horizon beyond.  As I contemplated the inspiration picture my mind kept circling back to sitting on the garden steps next to their lanaii, to watching the sun slip gloriously over the horizon, to the warmth of the night air and the smell of tropical flowers that met us in December when we visited last.  

The first baby wrap piece off of this warp featured a butter soft buttery yellow merino weft.  Three of the four wrap pieces of this design found homes in Alaska, which absolutely warms my heart.

My jewel-tone loving heart simply adored working with the deep purple eggplant weft on this piece.  This piece was a semi-custom; the mama with whom it eventually found a home was able to choose weft color, weave pattern, and length.  She was inspired by the monarch butterfly symbolizing new beginnings and its annual migration.  She chose to add random weft stripe accents in orange to add to the visual interest and really highlight this homage.

This shorty is the only wrap piece that lives "Outside" (as we Alaskans call the Lower 49 contiguous states of the USA).  The delicate pink of the skinny bamboo viscose weft brings out the tones of the horizon at dawn.  I'm continually entranced by the way that the weft shifts the overall feel of the piece.

This ring sling piece ended up staying local to me, going to live with a mama just one town over.  It was woven with a natty Egyptian cotton weft.  This slightly thicker weft lent a smooshy floppy thickness that is ideal for cush and support in a one shouldered ring sling.

I was able to really play around with wefts, weaving off a number of cowls and circle scarves as well as this baby blanket, backed with quilting fabric with a tropical motif.  Below, you see a skinny blue mercerized cotton weft, a hand dyed mercerized cotton weft in pinks and golds, and a cream/natural wool knitting yarn.  

(P.S. They are currently listed for sale in the shop! )