In response to your question about your conversation on Wild Weaving Zoom get together: Several things intrigued me. The first is how you constantly challenge yourself with "What Happens?". That can be such a far reaching question, taking one down a myriad of interesting paths--each giving a slightly different result. The other is your energy and creativity. Your enthusiasm is contagious and shows itself in the work you do. Thank you.
Thank you so much for these lovely thoughts and observations Rebecca.
And what happens -- it is such an intriguing question isn't it! Sometimes I think it is the materials themselves asking me rather than the other way around. Or maybe we just ask back and forth until we can't resist trying something? Lots of things don't work out of course, but the spark of possibility is weirdly energizing.
Such a fun series of drawings and musings. I'm a firm devotee of visible mending, bright yarns being more and more evident on my white (!) handspun and knitted fave socks. And bits of embroidery over stains and little holes in shirts. You just reminded me I'm wearing a good white best shirt with a little black walnut stain, don't ask, so maybe that will become a stitched sunflower..so good to spend time with you reading The Gusset again, thank you.
A stitched sunflower -- what a perfect thing to cover a black walnut stain (of course I'm intrigued but will not ask....). Your clothes must be such a pleasure to see.
No questions, just a note that I really enjoyed Conversations (and meeting Beryl in motion!). Oh, and yes, that that idea for a text tapestry how to zine, that would be aces if you (and Beryl) are ever inclined. But mostly, it was really good to see you at the other end of the computer, from Moscow to Salem via England, as it were…
The long way around from here to there! What an amazing thing it is to live in the distant future, even as we work away in our ancient way, one bit of yarn at a time.
Thank you for the encouragement for a tapestry text zine --the ideafloats around in my brain for sure -- and I just need whatever it takes to set other things aside and begin...
She does, for the most part. When I let her she prefers to be 30 to 50 feet in front of me, but I have to be careful on switchbacks and usually only feel comfortable when I can see a long way (otherwise she has to heel). But yes, if there is a path, she'll stick with it, which is reassuring.
And thank you for coming with us! Thanks too for letting me know that such things will be enjoyed as then I can make/include more --as the walks allow of course!
Thanks for sharing your Mend Land with your quiet knowledge of what needs to be done to move each item back to being usable again! Taking a walk with you and Beryl along the tumbling creek is also a treat!
You help me to feel in company about how curiously accomplished I feel when I fix anything via needle and thread or hammer / screwdriver! 😁
You might really enjoy Katie Green Bean's blogs about making, creative life and her walks with her dog Jack in a Wales national park close to where she now lives. Do you know about her?
Oh I love Katie Green Bean and own a number of her zines. I haven't check in on her in a while though, and now am freshly inspired--not only to see her wonderful comics and textile work, but now to see her vlog walks with Jack. Knowing her I imagine they are gentle and inspiring. Thanks
I especially enjoyed this blog on mends as mending is one of my favorite things to do. Most of my mends end up as mini paintings in embroidery thread (and probably take up far too much time). Your mends have encouraged me to be “looser” in my task, but I’ll have to think on that. Darn, nothing in my mending basket today! Thanks for your wonderful blog, Sarah. 💕😊
OH my oh my. Your mends sound beyond amazing. Long ago (even in high school), I wanted all my mends to be pictorial --dragons and flowers and such. But the idea of paintings. My oh my. Suddenly I'm imagining little landscapes and still lifes. What beauteous things they must be. I'm inspired -- even as I know that if I set out to do that, I"d probably not ever get anything mended. Unless, of course, I used one of my myriad random unfinished embroideries as a patch. Or a wee tapestry?
I have never mended a piece of clothing in my life. I think this is because of my failure to make a skirt as a girl in home ec class. The sewing machine freaked me out; that large needle going up and down so fast. And I wasn't as good at paying attention then. So I'm thinking I might try, if I have an item that is beloved to me, because you've shown me that it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be "good". And besides, my taste runs toward the more wabi sabi organic anyway. ps: Thanks for sharing your sister's substack. I really enjoyed her piece about her Gram's dress.
I’m going to take the bit about not being able to hold a needle easily as a warning to myself. I love darning wool socks with patches of different colors.
In 2019 I was making mosaic collages of little bits of paper, alternating woven-style between pictures and colors. Now I can no longer see such little pictures except by taking off my glasses and holding the paper up to my eye.
I wonder if my eyes knew in advance somehow and gave me the desire to do exactly that before it was too late.
I'll tell Lyn that you are enjoying her Substack. I do too--a parallel and also unique path that I get to visit. And golly -- you should have seen our Grandmother's closet.
Your sewing machine freakout sounds fully justified. I'm comfortable with them, but only at relatively slow speeds. Perhaps one of the reasons I'm so attached to my treadle machine is that it only goes super fast if I treadle super fast, so I feel like I'm more in charge. Hand sewing though -- even the sturdily half-assed--or maybe especially the sturdily half-assed kind I do-- is fully under one's own hand control. Did you see Cynthia's comment above where her mends become pictures? Made me think about patching things with little tapestries or embroideries that need a home. My mittens are now mostly patched with swatches from other projects because sewing them on is the easiest !!!
Dear Sarah! Inspiring Gusset this week. Thank you!
I find your footnotes provide a whole lot of links and resources that are as inspiring as your delightful representations of your daily antics with Beryl 🙏🏻
Oh gosh thank you Mandy. Velma commented a time or two ago that between the footnotes and the text and the comics, there are actually three posts in each one! Crazy.
I so thoroughly enjoyed your Nearly Wild Weaving presentation just as I do your weekly Gusset musings. You are so down-to-earth and uplifting at the same time. Thank you for being there and so sharing of yourself.
Gosh Joanne, thank you for being here for all of it. To be down-to-earth and uplifting at the same time --I couldn't ask for anything more. Indeed, I'm blushing with pleasure.
Just dropping a line to let you know how much I love your Gussett writings and look forward to your email in my inbox. I thoroughly enjoyed the virtual walk in the woods with you and Beryl this week too. What a treat to listen to your conversation on Nearly Wild Weaving. I hope to actually watch the presentation today so I can see the video and your beautiful tapestries too. Have a fabulous day!
Thank you Barbara, for these lovely words! I do feel fortunate to be have such woodsy trails not too far from home -- and to be able to get out into them with such a companion as Beryl. It feels like an extra treat to get to share our walks, so I'm super glad you enjoy them.
Thanks too for coming to nearly wild weaving land. What a treat that was.
How appropriate that you wrote about mending! I have been doing just that lately. I even bought Kerstin Neumuller's Mend and Patch book! I am also patching/learning with my new Speedweve patching tool. It feels so good to mend, then get to continue again using items or clothes we love. Having 5 kids, I've patched many pants knees, backpack straps, pockets, stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, and much more! ❤️ I just wish I could walk on that forest trail! That cheered me up, since I am home sick today with Covid! You truly never know what will happen! 🤣 Thanks for this Gusset, heralding our mending. 🪡
How fantastic to have a speed weave patching tool I've seen them in action via video and been most intrigued. Of course what I end up doing is using knitting swatches, scraps of handwoven fabric ( even, sometimes, random little tapestries), but my attempts don't hold a candle to keeping up with the scraps and tears and wears of five growing children. Oh me oh my. Well done you. I'm inspired.
LOVE that sort of walk in the woods that you & Beryl we’re having at the opening of todays piece. it’s been too long since I’ve had that pleasure. even though it’s obviously still winter, there’s So Much GREEN there! 😊
(as for the rest ~ on mending ~ totally with you on that!)
Alas, though we had a weird warm spell, it snowed like crazy yesterday. Back and forth. Still, the winter wheat is peeking out of the ground, and the evergreens -- well, they do stay delightfully green. Thanks for coming on our walk with us.
Swearah, as for the Ninety-Nine Nouns project, I feel compelled to remind you that it's really Ninety-Nine-Plus-One Nouns since I forced you to sell me "Fizz" when you wove the Z backwards, fixed it, and woke up the next morning thinking that the Z deserved its chance to be free too, so you went back in and rewove it backwards--a story that MEANS THE WORLD TO ME! Now Fizz sits over my desk while I write my frolicsome novels, reminding me that perfection is not only a useless goal but also boring. FIZZ INDEED!! So--ninety-nine-plus-one!! (Dang--I have a photo, but can't attach it!)
Fizzzzzzz-- yes indeed. I will count it for sure. Also the other three I sold at the beginning which altogether do actually bring me just about to ninety nine. Of course as Rochelle pointed out the other day, ninety-nine can also just mean "A LOT"-- the way a person might say, "Oh I walked a million miles!" , or as in WAtership down where it is said that Rabbits can only count to four and do not linguistically distinguish anything between five and a million.
In response to your question about your conversation on Wild Weaving Zoom get together: Several things intrigued me. The first is how you constantly challenge yourself with "What Happens?". That can be such a far reaching question, taking one down a myriad of interesting paths--each giving a slightly different result. The other is your energy and creativity. Your enthusiasm is contagious and shows itself in the work you do. Thank you.
Thank you so much for these lovely thoughts and observations Rebecca.
And what happens -- it is such an intriguing question isn't it! Sometimes I think it is the materials themselves asking me rather than the other way around. Or maybe we just ask back and forth until we can't resist trying something? Lots of things don't work out of course, but the spark of possibility is weirdly energizing.
Such a fun series of drawings and musings. I'm a firm devotee of visible mending, bright yarns being more and more evident on my white (!) handspun and knitted fave socks. And bits of embroidery over stains and little holes in shirts. You just reminded me I'm wearing a good white best shirt with a little black walnut stain, don't ask, so maybe that will become a stitched sunflower..so good to spend time with you reading The Gusset again, thank you.
A stitched sunflower -- what a perfect thing to cover a black walnut stain (of course I'm intrigued but will not ask....). Your clothes must be such a pleasure to see.
No questions, just a note that I really enjoyed Conversations (and meeting Beryl in motion!). Oh, and yes, that that idea for a text tapestry how to zine, that would be aces if you (and Beryl) are ever inclined. But mostly, it was really good to see you at the other end of the computer, from Moscow to Salem via England, as it were…
The long way around from here to there! What an amazing thing it is to live in the distant future, even as we work away in our ancient way, one bit of yarn at a time.
Thank you for the encouragement for a tapestry text zine --the ideafloats around in my brain for sure -- and I just need whatever it takes to set other things aside and begin...
Beryl is such a charmer. Does she always keep to the trail like that? Showing you the way?!
She does, for the most part. When I let her she prefers to be 30 to 50 feet in front of me, but I have to be careful on switchbacks and usually only feel comfortable when I can see a long way (otherwise she has to heel). But yes, if there is a path, she'll stick with it, which is reassuring.
Thank you ever so kindly for taking me on your lovely walk through the woods with Beryl. 🥰
And thank you for coming with us! Thanks too for letting me know that such things will be enjoyed as then I can make/include more --as the walks allow of course!
Thanks for sharing your Mend Land with your quiet knowledge of what needs to be done to move each item back to being usable again! Taking a walk with you and Beryl along the tumbling creek is also a treat!
You are so welcome. Thank you for coming along with us up the switch backs.
You help me to feel in company about how curiously accomplished I feel when I fix anything via needle and thread or hammer / screwdriver! 😁
You might really enjoy Katie Green Bean's blogs about making, creative life and her walks with her dog Jack in a Wales national park close to where she now lives. Do you know about her?
Her videos / vlogs....
Oh I love Katie Green Bean and own a number of her zines. I haven't check in on her in a while though, and now am freshly inspired--not only to see her wonderful comics and textile work, but now to see her vlog walks with Jack. Knowing her I imagine they are gentle and inspiring. Thanks
What a delightful collection of days and doings, very enjoyable
I especially enjoyed this blog on mends as mending is one of my favorite things to do. Most of my mends end up as mini paintings in embroidery thread (and probably take up far too much time). Your mends have encouraged me to be “looser” in my task, but I’ll have to think on that. Darn, nothing in my mending basket today! Thanks for your wonderful blog, Sarah. 💕😊
OH my oh my. Your mends sound beyond amazing. Long ago (even in high school), I wanted all my mends to be pictorial --dragons and flowers and such. But the idea of paintings. My oh my. Suddenly I'm imagining little landscapes and still lifes. What beauteous things they must be. I'm inspired -- even as I know that if I set out to do that, I"d probably not ever get anything mended. Unless, of course, I used one of my myriad random unfinished embroideries as a patch. Or a wee tapestry?
What pleasure merely to think of yours. Thanks.
I have never mended a piece of clothing in my life. I think this is because of my failure to make a skirt as a girl in home ec class. The sewing machine freaked me out; that large needle going up and down so fast. And I wasn't as good at paying attention then. So I'm thinking I might try, if I have an item that is beloved to me, because you've shown me that it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be "good". And besides, my taste runs toward the more wabi sabi organic anyway. ps: Thanks for sharing your sister's substack. I really enjoyed her piece about her Gram's dress.
The headlight! 💡
I’m going to take the bit about not being able to hold a needle easily as a warning to myself. I love darning wool socks with patches of different colors.
In 2019 I was making mosaic collages of little bits of paper, alternating woven-style between pictures and colors. Now I can no longer see such little pictures except by taking off my glasses and holding the paper up to my eye.
I wonder if my eyes knew in advance somehow and gave me the desire to do exactly that before it was too late.
Oh gosh -- the wisdom of the eyes and hands. Do it NOW while you can and want to. Thank you for that advice. Much appreciated.
I'll tell Lyn that you are enjoying her Substack. I do too--a parallel and also unique path that I get to visit. And golly -- you should have seen our Grandmother's closet.
Your sewing machine freakout sounds fully justified. I'm comfortable with them, but only at relatively slow speeds. Perhaps one of the reasons I'm so attached to my treadle machine is that it only goes super fast if I treadle super fast, so I feel like I'm more in charge. Hand sewing though -- even the sturdily half-assed--or maybe especially the sturdily half-assed kind I do-- is fully under one's own hand control. Did you see Cynthia's comment above where her mends become pictures? Made me think about patching things with little tapestries or embroideries that need a home. My mittens are now mostly patched with swatches from other projects because sewing them on is the easiest !!!
Dear Sarah! Inspiring Gusset this week. Thank you!
I find your footnotes provide a whole lot of links and resources that are as inspiring as your delightful representations of your daily antics with Beryl 🙏🏻
Oh gosh thank you Mandy. Velma commented a time or two ago that between the footnotes and the text and the comics, there are actually three posts in each one! Crazy.
I so thoroughly enjoyed your Nearly Wild Weaving presentation just as I do your weekly Gusset musings. You are so down-to-earth and uplifting at the same time. Thank you for being there and so sharing of yourself.
Gosh Joanne, thank you for being here for all of it. To be down-to-earth and uplifting at the same time --I couldn't ask for anything more. Indeed, I'm blushing with pleasure.
Just dropping a line to let you know how much I love your Gussett writings and look forward to your email in my inbox. I thoroughly enjoyed the virtual walk in the woods with you and Beryl this week too. What a treat to listen to your conversation on Nearly Wild Weaving. I hope to actually watch the presentation today so I can see the video and your beautiful tapestries too. Have a fabulous day!
Thank you Barbara, for these lovely words! I do feel fortunate to be have such woodsy trails not too far from home -- and to be able to get out into them with such a companion as Beryl. It feels like an extra treat to get to share our walks, so I'm super glad you enjoy them.
Thanks too for coming to nearly wild weaving land. What a treat that was.
How appropriate that you wrote about mending! I have been doing just that lately. I even bought Kerstin Neumuller's Mend and Patch book! I am also patching/learning with my new Speedweve patching tool. It feels so good to mend, then get to continue again using items or clothes we love. Having 5 kids, I've patched many pants knees, backpack straps, pockets, stuffed animals, pillows, blankets, and much more! ❤️ I just wish I could walk on that forest trail! That cheered me up, since I am home sick today with Covid! You truly never know what will happen! 🤣 Thanks for this Gusset, heralding our mending. 🪡
How fantastic to have a speed weave patching tool I've seen them in action via video and been most intrigued. Of course what I end up doing is using knitting swatches, scraps of handwoven fabric ( even, sometimes, random little tapestries), but my attempts don't hold a candle to keeping up with the scraps and tears and wears of five growing children. Oh me oh my. Well done you. I'm inspired.
LOVE that sort of walk in the woods that you & Beryl we’re having at the opening of todays piece. it’s been too long since I’ve had that pleasure. even though it’s obviously still winter, there’s So Much GREEN there! 😊
(as for the rest ~ on mending ~ totally with you on that!)
Alas, though we had a weird warm spell, it snowed like crazy yesterday. Back and forth. Still, the winter wheat is peeking out of the ground, and the evergreens -- well, they do stay delightfully green. Thanks for coming on our walk with us.
Swearah, as for the Ninety-Nine Nouns project, I feel compelled to remind you that it's really Ninety-Nine-Plus-One Nouns since I forced you to sell me "Fizz" when you wove the Z backwards, fixed it, and woke up the next morning thinking that the Z deserved its chance to be free too, so you went back in and rewove it backwards--a story that MEANS THE WORLD TO ME! Now Fizz sits over my desk while I write my frolicsome novels, reminding me that perfection is not only a useless goal but also boring. FIZZ INDEED!! So--ninety-nine-plus-one!! (Dang--I have a photo, but can't attach it!)
Fizzzzzzz-- yes indeed. I will count it for sure. Also the other three I sold at the beginning which altogether do actually bring me just about to ninety nine. Of course as Rochelle pointed out the other day, ninety-nine can also just mean "A LOT"-- the way a person might say, "Oh I walked a million miles!" , or as in WAtership down where it is said that Rabbits can only count to four and do not linguistically distinguish anything between five and a million.