Plant Witch: Birch Bramble Reed accepted into "Entanglements" at FAA

Plant Witch: Birch Bramble Reed was accepted into the Fairbanks Arts Association juried show “Entanglements” this spring. The First Friday reception is this week, Friday April 1, from 5-7 pm. It will be on exhibit in the Bear Gallery through the end of April and available for purchase through the gallery.

Warp: Hand dyed long staple Supima cotton warp

Weft: Hand dyed rose viscose weft

Inlays: linen/mohair and Pima cotton

The ogham inlays in the piece represent birch, bramble, and reed for beginnings/new growth, harvest, and renewal..
The ogham for birch - beithe, symbolizes beginnings and new growth. It’s the joy of baby sprouts, of digging into still cold earth to plant this year’s crops, it is the hope and optimism of the beginning of the growing season.
The ogham for bramble - muin, symbolizes harvest, fruitfulness, and feasting. It’s perhaps the most iconic and eagerly anticipated phase of the garden’s cycle, providing the #plantwitch with ample opportunity to relish in their baskets and buckets and handsfull of produce.
The ogham for reed - ngetal, symbolizes renewal and healing, it stands in here for the fallow season of the garden after the lasts of the harvests.

Plant Witch represents the magic of growing things: seeds unfurling deep underground at Imbolc, sprouting at Ostara, blooming at Beltane, growing through Litha, harvesting at Lammas, preserving the bounty through Mabon, and deepening the compost at Samhain.

Tending a garden, cultivating houseplants, chatting with wild plants, befriending plant allies. Food and flowers and medicine and dye.

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Weft Magic

The 8 of Cups, my first Tarot-inspired warp - is more than half threaded, which means we're getting so close to weaving I can almost taste it! These skeins of Seacell (and mini skein of handspun Sea Island Cotton) are the first weft; it will be a (deeply meaningful) personal piece for me.

You may notice that these skeins are not quite uniformly dyed.  This is intentional. I've been experimenting with a dye technique that leads to this sort of beautiful inconsistency. Usually when I dye weft for a wrap, I want all the skeins to be as similar as possible so that there are no noticeable differences through the length of the piece. I figured a personal piece then was the best place to experiment with this technique on a weft, though I plan to use it more in the future on warps! I'm excited to see just how it weaves up.

When I lay out the yarn to be dyed, I lay the skeins out next to each other so that they create a sort of canvas. Then I use the dye to paint symbols, or words, or images onto that canvas. Then I fill in the blank space with the (other) colors for the yarn. This imbeds the meaning into the threads in a far-below-the-surface kind of way. In this instance I painted triskeles and moon sigils into the yarn. The images themselves will never be visible in the final piece of cloth, but the meaning is deep in every thread.

With the impending federal regulations governing baby wraps effective early next year, I'll be launching a new babywrap brand with a couple of dear colleagues.  Our tagline for Cauldron & Cloth - chatter launching soon, keep an eye out! - is "woven with love and magic" and this is one of the ways I weave with magic. <3

Donation Auction to benefit the Northern Alaska Environmental Center : Jack Frost cowl with handspun weft

The next donation auction item is a cowl from the Jack Frost warp with hand spun super fine merino weft.  The weft is in a colorway named "Sugar Plum Fairy" and has stellina sparkle fiber in with the super fine merino.  It is textural, soft, and elegant.  The auction will be to benefit the Northern Alaska Environmental Center in support of its work to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  With the release of details of the 45th President's plans to open this sacred and wild space to drilling, this feels like it needs to be the next of this hand spun and handwoven offering series.

Weaving Jack Frost was a meditation on snow and cold; I finished the warp as the last snow was melting in my yard and while I was personally more than ready for green grass and warm air, I was also keenly aware of the way that winter is changing.  I wove this warp as a gratitude practice for the cold and as an offering to the spirits of the frost.  

The Arctic is warming as a consequence of climate change, and that warming is reflected in changing winter weather patterns here where I live.  Cruise ships can now make their way as far north as Nome.  The villages of Shismaref and Newtok are relocating (yes, the residents are moving the entire town) due to the effects of climate change.  Climate change echoes throughout the ecosystem and indigenous lifeways of the Arctic and it breaks my heart.  

The land I live on bears Athabaskan place names, and the Gwich'in people call the coastal plain in ANWR "Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit."  This translates to "The Sacred Place Where Life Begins," as it is the birthing and nursing grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd who have nourished the Gwich'in for millennia.  I have linked below the trailer for a documentary movie by Miho Aida "The Sacred Place Where Life Begins | Gwich'in Women Speak," you can find out more about the project (and donate!) at http://mihoaida.com/gwichin/.  One of the advisors for the project is/was Princess Lucaj, a local Gwich'in woman whose voice is powerful.  She writes publicly on Medium, go read her there and follow her on social meda!  She commented recently about how the indigenous human rights issues are often overlooked in discussions of conservation and ecological policymaking.  Its powerful and important stuff, this question of under whose legal stewardship this land should be.    While that legal stewardship remains with the settler government, it is the absolute least we can do to support the work of defending these wild and sacred places.

May this small offering from my hands, the intention and prayers poured into the spinning, the magic and gratitude of the weaving, and the money it raises work in support of climate healing and defense of the sacred.  So mote it be.  

The donation auction will be held next Wednesday, May 31st from 1 pm to 6 pm Alaska time in the chatter group on Facebook.  Join us there! 

#KeepAlaskaCold #DefendTheSacred #KeepItInTheGround #JustTransition 

IF SHE CAN DO IT, YOU CAN TOO presents a sneak peak of a new documentary by MIHO AIDA: The Sacred Place Where Life Begins | Gwich'in Women Speak. The arctic native Gwich'in women from all walks of life speak out to protect the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil development.