blue and white

and grey and brown and green

Winter finally blew in this week.

First it was blustery, wet, brown and green.

Then it was cold and blue and snowy and wild and white.¹

Well, cold for here.²

Cold enough that my windows have looked like this for days.

Cold enough that when it warmed up a little, minus three seemed a perfectly reasonable temperature to head outside before dawn.

(The comics don’t show that I’m running in two pairs of leggings and three green jackets, or that my face is slathered with oil and Beryl’s paws with salve.³

Worth it though. It’s nice to feel my nose hairs freeze and see the world dressed in my favorite colors:

—blue and white and brown and grey with a touch green.⁴

Beryl of course, always fits the scheme.

So does the cinnamon sugar I made this morning to sprinkle on apple toast (that’s thin slices of raw apple on buttered toast—an almost instant approximation of the apple pie breakfast my great great grandparents apparently ate daily).

Not that I’m averse to the color shifts wrought by rare blast of blue sky and sun. Oh no. My whole body responds when skies clear and the blinding glittery light turns this:

— into this.

Needless to say the sun did not directly turned the crank on my drum carder (I had to eat the sun-grown vegetables to generate that bit of energy).⁵

But what’s not to love about eating vegetables?

And anyway, I’ll pay homage to whatever processes give me the wherewithal to transform the last dregs of a fleece (the tangled locks with more second cuts and fragments of vegetable matter than I can pick out and which otherwise would become compost)—

—into a pile of (still slightly nebulous), project possibility that will, I hope, soon have me as riveted as a blue dog and a well-peed-on tree.⁶

Time and experimentation will tell and I’ll undoubtedly let you know— however it unfolds.

In the meantime I’m thrilled to let you know about my upcoming live chat with Anna and Irene of Nearly Wild Weaving. It’s next month— the 22nd of February to be precise—and is part of their brilliant Tapestry In Conversation Series.

Every conversation I’ve seen so far has been delightful and creatively thought-provoking—and I’d love if you’d join us. The conversations are recorded so once you have purchased a ticket you can watch later if you have to miss it. Of course you can’t ask questions in the moment if you’re not there, so just in case— what topics/ ideas/thoughts about my tapestry life/work would you like me to cover? No promises mind (Linda has already requested that I bring Beryl on-screen and I’ll certainly do my best though will need her cooperation in the moment), but given what you already know about how I go meandering this way and that, topic-wise, I’d much appreciate seeing any and all thoughts about your particular areas of interest in the comments below. Thanks!

a “failed” tapestry experiment that I casually hung on the laundry line in 2020 (instead of putting it in the compost), and which has since taught me more about the tenacious nature of wedge weave woven coffee filter yarn than I could ever have learned from some more carefully cared for specimen of work.

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And if you know anyone who might enjoy these meanderings, please do click the button below and see what they think!

1. Truth to tell, high winds make me antsy — especially when big branches blow off the fir tree right outside my studio (happily not onto the roof). But I’ve been working on this and have found that it helps for me to get out into it (within reason and falling branches notwithstanding), rather than huddle inside listening to it roar. Not for hours mind you, but leaning into the force of it even for just a few minutes reminds me that that there is nothing I can/should do to make it calm down (unlike some other anxiety producing human-induced forces), so I might as well do my best to embrace its untamable whooshing magnificence the best I can. (Of course I’ve not yet had to experience a tornado or hurricane or other really really destructive wind for which I am immensely grateful).

2. A friend in Butte Montana said it was -41F there, which made our negative teens seem like nothing at all. How can the dogs stand it when they have to go out to poop????

3. I usually grease my face at temps like this, like long distance swimmers, and it makes a huge difference. Then when I read about “paw balm” for dogs, it made perfect sense to try so rubbed a friend’s homemade calendula/plantain salve on beryl’s pads (the only place that appeared to bother her), and after that she has been raring to go!

4. Green jackets, don’t you know — sometimes three deep!

5. In case you’re curious, it’s a basic Patrick Green Carder I bought in Missoula, MT in 1985. Some day I might have to replace the carding cloth, though so far, even with the hundreds of fleeces it’s helped with, it still works beautifully. Blessed are the well built, manually manipulated, and time-tested tools.

6. Spent much of yesterday second guessing myself but now feel more ready to actually dive in and make a mess.