brought to you by

the letter a and the color blue

Weaving isn’t even on the list!

Indigo is though, even if I don’t remember writing it down.

How clever is that?

First to slip out of my pen and onto the list.

Then to leap off the list and into a real live dye pot.

And then to make yarn so beautiful that it sparks off a thoroughly satisfying day.

Because though it might seem as if I live in continually-blissed-out-nonstop-maker-mode, all fully immersive days with minimal outside input—such times are actually rare treats and ever worth noticing.

Not that it isn’t helpful to also notice the other kind:

But because those hard days or moments also exist (and have an insidious habit of sneaking into a person’s life just when she’s feeling smug about doing things that have to be done, or thinking she’s free to daydream), I am extra thrilled by the days (or moments) when external things have no effect at all—those phenomenal times when it is hard to tell the difference between work and rest; when you’re in a state that is crazy busy, utterly relaxed, and fully engaged; when hands, heart and head are one and almost no matter what you’re doing, everything is amazing.¹

It helps, of course, if your phone is on silent in the other room and you are so busy exploring the possibilities of the linen yarns you boiled up last week² that you forget that they (the phone and the outside world), even exist.

But how not to fill your sweatshirt with black walnuts on the way home from a trot with Beryl after a big wind knocks all that brown-dye abundance to the ground. And of course the nuts want to be soaked and simmered right now while the hulls are thick and green even though it is too darned hot for such nonsense. And naturally you have to keep going so you can see which colors or yarns or letters make your heart sing—to warp the loom and wind some quills and bobbins.

I mean, of course! And then what happened?

Well first of all, here’s the technical part:

For hand, I used one strand of the three ply linen as ground weft and three strands of the freshly dyed darker indigo wool for the letters.

Note: I used backlit photos for both of these letters vs front lighting for the versions at the top of the page.

For head, I used two strands of the undyed singles linen for ground weft, and two strands of the lighter blue singles linen for the letters.

Both have a hand spun tussah silk four selvedge warp (strong, fine and easy to weave on—one of the few ways I actually relish silk).³ Both words are 3” x 5”

And here’s what I know so far:

1. The letter a always make my heart sing.

2. Visually, hand is smooth, crisp and easy to read while head is softer, fuzzier—perhaps a little gentler. The actual weaving was perhaps a touch easier with the three ply linen in the sense that managing one strand of linen on a bobbin is easier than two singles together (lively as it is, one strand of the two is always leaping off for parts unknown). On the other hand it’s lovely to have two strands to split and use separately for smoothing out curves. So I guess it’s a draw and I’ll have to decide in the moment next time.

3. It is always easier to weave letters with wool. Well honestly it is is always eaiser for me to weave almost anything with wool (certainly tapestry)—but since the look of linen (and milkweed and paper and dead leaf cordage) thrill me to the bone, all are worth the effort. A thing I suppose is obvious from my recent work.

mixed lichen (second bath, first bath); black walnut (first bath, second bath); yarn from spinning experiments with an unknown down breed

And what of those dye pots?

boiled but undyed (3 skeins), lichen (two skeins), indigo (three skeins), black walnut (two skeins)

1. All was delicious—to smell and to look at.

2. As ever there were differences between protein and cellulose fiber. As you can see in the photos above, the wool yarn sucked up those luscious brown dye molecules (no mordant for any of the fibers), while the cellulose fibers varied with the dye. The black walnut gave good color even as I’m fascinated by how it leans toward grey rather than brown. The lichen gave hardly any color at all. Next time I have a lichen dye pot I may try a sodium acetate and chalk cellulose fiber pre-mordant as I’ve had good luck with it on other dyestuffs.⁴ (Or maybe lichens and cellulose fibers just are not friends and it’s not worth the effort. Anyone have experience with this? Be nice to hear your thoughts in the comments).

   

3. Once I have dye pots are going it’s hard not to throw everything in sight into one of them.

   

   This time I added a couple of little skeins wound off Shelley’s gorgeous hand dyed yarn⁵ to broaden the colors at hand for a possible grandbaby sweater. Gotta match your late summer vegetables, don’t cha know!

Perhaps it sound odd to say this after waxing enthusiastic about all this color, but dyeing is not a thing I particularly love to do. It is, however, a thing I love to have done (especially once everything is cleaned up and the skeins are glowing at me as they dry). For how not to pick and dry a million plums, dye every skein in sight, and, indeed, go a little little overboard when the dye plants and vegetables are plentiful?⁶ (Thank goodness the yarn won’t spoil if I don’t use all of it in a timely fashion—unlike the fruit and veggies).

So that is where you find me right this minute—thinking I will cut into that melon as soon as I send this, and planning a walk with Beryl after that to see if we can make some boring downtown chores more interesting. She’s full of beans right now, with her her teeth freshly clean. Aren’t you thrilled to know that?

I will say though, that while she was at the vet it was so weird to be in a dog-free house that I got caught up in the BarbaraJean’s idea from last week’s comments: that Beryl might need a coracle so she can float above the water rather than have to wade into it, so had to find this photo taken long ago with my beloved Sirius (2000-2018) —

—a photo that made its way into a tapestry back in those really intense dye-pot days when my head was full of Palouse by the Sea and my hands were strong enough to weave dreams.

Red Nuns; hand woven tapestry; 35" x 35"; wool, natural dyes ©Sarah C. Swett 2005

Don’t you kind of want to be there now?

Remember to comment with the button above rather than by hitting reply for if you choose the latter I won’t see your lovely words. Thanks.

1. Everything Is Amazing —a science newsletter about the ways we perceive the world and the incredible things that surround us.

2. In this case, a comparison between the two linen yarns I was busy boiling up last week when I wrote: the three ply (top right), and the singles (bottom right and pale blue yarn).

3. Which reminds me to mention once again that on September 7 (11AM PT, 10AM MT), Rebecca Mezoff and I are going to have a live Youtube chat about “this tapestry life,” with a special emphasis on four selvedge warping and our Fringeless Class. So come if you can and bring your questions! The live stream will be HERE so set a notification for yourself if you have a YouTube account and if you don't but want to come, make sure to add it to your calendar.

4. I first saw this recipe in Journeys in Natural Dyeing by Kristine Vejar and Adrienne Rodriguez, though I’m sure it is other places as well — certainly in Kristine’s other book, The Modern Natural Dyer (though I don’t own it so can’t say for sure). It (the recipe) works really really well though, and has allowed me to get amazing color with various natural dyes (at least ones that usually need a mordant) on cellulose fibers so totally worth trying.

5. Shelley of The Yarn Underground, my LYS, that is. Her Palouse Yarn Company colors and yarns are yummy!

And apropos of nothing except that I seem to be putting a lot of links to cool things I love into these footnotes, let me add two more.

1. Amazing weaver Sarah Neubert has just made an instructional video about a hand woven upholstery mending technique she developed. It’s a lovely, peaceful video to watch, and I learned a number of things I’d never have thought of. It’s also out in the world on a donation basis so you can watch it for free no matter what, and donate what you want if you want. It is a model I adore and applaud and try to emulate here at The Gusset. It’s also a really cool weaving/mending technique.

2. I met Kerstin Neumüller on Instagram (back in the days before advertising made it weird), and I’ve been a massive fan from the beginning. Her books on mending and dyeing are wonderful, and in the last few years I’ve been completely over the top smitten with her hand carved heddles. I wrote about Margaret (the name of the my little heddle) when she came to me three years ago, and since that time Kerstin’s work has expanded so that she now has another book, Simple Weave, in which she not only talks about using these little heddles (for all kinds of weaving including tapestry), but also about carving them! You can even get carving blocks on her website. I was going to wait to write about this book until I got back into a Margaret centric project, but that hasn’t happened yet and I didn’t want you to miss out if this is the thing you’ve been waiting for.

6. All of which abundance makes Young Sarah extremely happy. She doesn’t care either way though, about the way I’ve also apparently been going sartorially overboard with the color blue. I’ve caught myself wearing it top to bottom several times this week! Weirdest of all, I was caught out, for while debating the various peach varieties on offer at the farmer’s market a woman asked me if I had glasses to match my every outfit (cuz blue glasses—and the answer was no). But it reminded me of a video a friend sent the other day about the Green Lady of Brooklyn and I did have to pause for a moment — blue clothes, blue dog….yipes. Or…what fun!