Spark

In my head, Spark is one classy lady.  She shines in pearls and high heels, elegant and poised.  She loves a classic ensemble of blue jeans, a white t-shirt, sunglasses, and flats.  She’s the kind of woman you admire from afar, wondering how on earth she manages to be all that she is and when you get to know her you are blown away by her kindness, her caring, and her warm hugs.  

The Spring 2016 Great Competition of Weavers theme was “Under the Microscope.”  This competition was only open to OOAK (one of a kind) wraps, so this is the only piece of Spark there ever was or ever will be.  Spark is inspired by the process of mitosis.  

As the daughter of a biologist, I have many fond memories of peering into the magical microscopic world contained in a drop of pond water.  I was fascinated by “zoomers,” my childhood name for microbes that shot across the slide propelled by cilia or flagella or amoeboid movement.  Yeast was particularly cool to watch, because of how FAST they multiplied!  Dad was a PhD student in the early ‘90s and did much of his dissertation work on an electron microscope.  It lived in its own room down the yellow linoleum hallway and I remember being SO impressed by it and by what could be seen through it.  I was 5 years old. I remember the sheer magic of catching a “zoomer” when it was splitting in two, and it was this memory that I hoped to capture with “Spark.”  

I considered a black/white/grey grad in homage to the images that we see through electron microscopes, but at least in my memory, the early behemoth of a microscope I stood on a stool to peer into gave a blue cast to its images, and I chose to show this in “Spark.”  

Spark is woven in an overshot variation where the warp intersects with the tabby weft to make a ground of plainweave.  In this particular variation there are actually a few picks of basketweave (basically a doubled thread plainweave) in this ground cloth.  The pattern weft then floats over this ground to create the pattern.  The ground of plainweave means that this is a very strong cloth even though the pattern weft has floats that are longer than would otherwise be optimal for the purposes of a baby wrap.  

Funny story: when I first went to look at Maggie (my loom), her former owner – a weaver in her 80’s who had to retire from weaving due to degenerative arthritis in her hands -  asked me what I was most excited to weave.  I had just learned overshot in my weaving class and had fallen hardcore in love with the weave.  I told her that I was most excited to weave overshot.  Fast forward 8 or 9 years and this is the first full project that I’ve woven on it in overshot.  There are always oh so many tempting projects! 

I truly love this structure, and it is super fun and fascinating to see it come to life behind the passing of the shuttles but it is not a quick weave.  After each pick, the weaver sets down one shuttle, picks up the other and throws it, making sure that the two wefts stay cleanly wound around each other along the selvedge.  I set up my treadles so that my right foot was treadling the plainweave tabby picks, and my left foot was treadling the pattern picks.  Each single pattern repeat required 74 steps on the treadles.  I believe that I picked up speed the last meter or so, but I was averaging 10 inches per hour.  And that’s based on an hour of strict weaving, no pauses to check my phone or nurse a baby or repair a broken thread! 

I also love that the process of mitosis – the division and replication of one into two – speaks to this precious era of babywearing.  This blink of time when our children are so very little is when they learn to identify themselves as themselves.  Early childhood development experts talk about the process of individuation, that babies begin life with a recognition of mom as part of self and have to learn that they are actually two beings. Babywearing allows us to continue holding them as they undergo this transition into independence.  The 4th trimester and the concept of the motherbaby dyad are biological and psychological realities that I wish were better understood and recognized by our culture.  

Spark’s final measurements are 3.2 m stih weighing in at 280 gsm.She is woven with 16/2 cotton for the warp and tabby weft and 8/2 lyocelle (commonly known as Tencel) pattern weft.

If you are interested in following along more closely as things go onto and come off of my loom, please come join my Facebook group! I also post updates on Instagram. 

Fire in the Sky and a Field of Dreams

Once upon a time in a land far far away there lived a little girl and a little boy.  The little girl and the little boy shared a mother and had been born within minutes of one another.  They were twins.  They grew up in a village on a hill with streets of stone, overlooking the oldest city in the land.  

Across the sea and past the mountains, a woman in a cabin in the woods went to her loom. She unspooled thread the color of the winter fire in the sky.  She unspooled thread the color of the fire flowers that grew in the summer.  And she wove a blanket for the little girl and the little boy.  

For you see, many moons past, she had sat on rocky shores and watched the waves and tasted the salt sea spray along with the mother of the twins.  Both had left their girlhood home to seek their futures far away.  

And so it was, you see, that one day the man with the post brought a package of distant love to the little girl and to the little boy.  It held the magic of a winter night, the brilliance of a summer day.

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Next on the loom are a pair of fairly short warps.  I'm weaving gifts for a very special brother and sister who live in Italy.  When I found out that one of my best friends was having twins, I started scheming as to what I could make for them.  They are now just turned 7 months old, and their birthday gifts are only just going on the loom.  Oops!  

Photo credit: Mackenzie Rohn and 14 Mile Farm

Here in Interior Alaska the summer brings 24 hours of daylight and temperatures sometimes in the 90s.  Winter brings 20 hours of dark and temperatures sometimes 40 degrees below zero.  Fun fact: 40 below is the temperature at which the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet; 40 below Celsius is the same as 40 below Fahrenheit.  

Summer paints the fields, the meadows, the roadsides a bright fuschia with the blooming of fireweed.  Winter paints the skies with ribbons of light.

There is such a stark contrast to the phases of the year, and yet the two are two halves of a perfectly balanced whole.  There's a special relationship between twins, between 2 beings who shared an abode in the womb.  I thought this was the perfect pairing for a sweet pair of twins.

Photo credit: Forest & Field Photography and Maya Salganek

This pair of warps is is only the first step in my exploration of paying homage to the fireweed and to the aurora.  All photos were taken here in Fairbanks where I live.  Expect to see more projects along these lines in the future!  I'm already dreaming up a hand-dyed aurora....

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Project details:

Warp of 8/2 cotton 

Crackle threading, draft found here:

Weaving Draft: cw108265, Crackle Design Project, Ralph Griswold, United States, 2004, #13482

There will be at least one piece available for draw off of each of these warps.  

Owl Flight

OwlFlight is a very special warp. It is Avery's warp. Our piece of it will be our very first handwoven. And when her wearing days are over? I'll chop it and sew it up into a blanket quilt for her.  Should her tastes run girly, full of pink and sparkles, it will be an oasis of blues and whites and brown splashed across her bed. I admit to finding this prospect  slightly amusing.  When she spreads her wings and launches into the world, be it college or a calling, I will bundle it up to travel with her.  A bit of mama love, always and forever. 

Here is the story of how it came about. It gets a little woo-woo, just so's you know.  

Last October I found myself in Seattle, attending a prenatal yoga teacher training alongside my mother.  I'm a yoga teacher as well as a weaver, and my mom is a midwife.  Last summer Husband and I had decided it was time to invite another soul to join us on this life path.  I've always always known I wanted children.  And finally I was ready to choose motherhood.  Part of my preparation for the journey that is pregnancy and birth and motherhood was this prenatal yoga training.  It was wonderful.  I highly highly recommend it, if you are into that sort of thing! 

The weekend following the training, I attended a workshop on the Energetics of Fertility taught by a goddess of a woman named Taylor Phinny.  (Seriously, she's amazing and wonderful.  Check her out, especially if you are in the Encinitas, California area!)

It was a wonderful weekend: meditations to connect with the womb space, with the principle of Divine Feminine energy.  We spoke in depth about energetic self-care for fertility, about practical ways to honor the monthly cycle of fertility and cultivate the feminine self.  She gave me an energy healing session that I count among the most powerful healings I've ever received, clearing an energy block inherited through the line of my grandmothers.  

I saw my womb as Cerridwen's cauldron, awaiting souls to rebirth into this world of ours.

And then, in our final meditation together, she took me even deeper.  Guided me to a forest clearing where I met with my children.  Watched them from the trees as they played with other shining young ones, then welcomed them with open arms and teary eyes.  We sat together, walked among the trees, and then we traveled North.  They found their papa's sleeping self and said hello.  Bear hugs all around.  

Coming back to myself, to my body in the yoga room at the workshop, Taylor offered me chalks and paper.  And I drew.  Sketched out the essences of my children.  Soul portraits.

In those few minutes in deep astral/psychic meditation space, I knew these shining souls intimately.  Deeply.  Irrevocably entwined.  I felt them around me the following months, waiting for just the right mixture of genetics to choose to be conceived.  For a while I was equal parts terrified and excited, because I was nearly sure that two would jump in at once.  Twins seem like a lot of work.  I'm pretty happy they decided to take turns!  

Early in the pregnancy it was clear to me that the child I had drawn as an Owl in flight was going to be born.

Spirit drawing.  Soul portrait.  Yeah, I'm more than a little woo-woo! 

When I began contemplating what to weave to welcome the inhabitant of my womb into the world, I knew that it had to be this. Blues and browns and greys.  OwlFlight.

If you keep your eye on 14 Mile Farm in the coming years, I can tell you now that you will see wrap warps based on the soul portraits of each of my children! 

Warp Details: 10/2 mercerized cotton in herringbone twill.  

Wrap pieces as well as cowls will be available by draw. 

One wrap will be sent out as a traveling tester.  

If you are interested in hosting the tester and/or to be first to find out about pieces for sale, join the 14 Mile chatter group on Facebook.