praise song to the unfilled page

in which Sarah pauses...

Pauses. Pauses. Pauses?

Like a deliberate stillness? An intentional breath?

No.

That’s not it at all.

This moment is nothing so graceful as a pause. Try again.

How about— your basic screeching halt.

Or— a cease and desist proclamation:

None shall pass!

That’s more like it.

Not a thought will you have, nor plan will you make until you answer these questions three:¹

Um—overkill, but OK.

What is your Name?

Sarah

What is your Quest?

To sing² Praise Songs to textiles.³

What is in front of your nose that you’re too busy making plans to notice!

“Ahhhhhhhh….”

Wait — no— just a second. I guess I see. At least— I think—

Do you?

Well sure. Except this—this is just my loom — with a nice extension to be sure — but not, you know, particularly attractive.

What has attractiveness go to do with praise songs?

Don't get me wrong, I adore it; one of its myriad benefits is that anything I weave on it is guaranteed to look better than the tool itself --no offense meant, dear loom⁴ for how not to love your stately and functional self, your bits of leftover tape, your steady service. You are a fine fine thing to be sure.

But is noticing right this second really worth forgetting that thing I urgently need to write on the grocery list?

This is not about your favorite kind of lentil. Though it could be.

Indeed, alas, it was… And then there was the book I found in a little free library when I was just taking a quick walk to get some greens at the farm store.

And who could resist you, niddy noddy, you coffee filter yarn, glowing together on my workbench. Just look at the light…

Anyway, so it has gone all week and honestly it has been a little exhausting— my busy, industrious, important plans, worries and organizational strategies raveling into nothing as I am blessed by a quality of light, a story, or stub of pencil.

Truly, it’s disconcerting.

Of course I believe in noticing— in being in the moment. Noticing is the mantra of the age, is it not?

But this blissing out is not part of a study or deliberate practice— this is being bloody blindsided. Like the praise song is writing me.

And the lost plans were terribly important: brilliant observations I hoped to share, cleverly evolving answers to burning questions, lists of unscheduled appointments and problems to be solved. All have evaporated into nothing without so much as a by your leave.

It feels a bit dangerous, you know?

And yet — and yet—now that I think about it, maybe I headed into this deliberately, one little thing leading to another until.. well.. there I am staring at a sidewalk grate, entranced.

For some of this weeks’ most intense moments have been the direct result of Mary’s (probably casual) comment on last week’s Gusset:

Your letters are always so perfect! I’d be “cheating” and embroidering mine on top

and my response:

Oh but not cheating at all! Embroidered letters are glorious. Indeed, if my hands keep flipping out, I may go back to just that. I actually did a whole series of tapestries in 2016⁵ where I wove super simple tapestries and then embroidered on top. It was a BLAST

And while writing that I once again felt the texture of chain stitch on weft faced wool. Then I heard the sound of the needle slipping through paper as I embroidering four letter words back in January while awaiting the birth of my glorious granddaughter. To combine the two hadn’t occurred to me —not now that I have looms and yarn and lists of words on every conceivable scrap of paper—but the idea was wildly enticing.

So enticing that I completely ignored it in favor of other urgent things that needed to be done.

Until I couldn’t, for my hands would enjoy the break from letter weaving.

My brain might miss the letter formation and word-building that makes each tapestry an adventure, for I'd need to weave a completely plain tapestry or two⁶ to embroider upon--

there is probably something else to do, but so what? (detail); handwoven tapestry; hand spun wool; 2 1/2” x 31” 2018

So what indeed.

For it turns out that, more than the words, the super plain weaving is itself the thing I needed. Other than being interrupted in the flow by the aforementioned screeching halts to notice how great it all is I even wove into the wee hours (for one night anyway).

And though obvivious to how rotten I’d likely feel the next day, I did notice that without the distraction of letters I was extra aware of my selvages and top/bottom loops⁷ -- and even that added an extra frisson of delight to the rhythm of back and forth while tapping white wool weft into place.

The next morning, indeed, I ignored my plan to begin embroidering and dove straight into another warp—this time a vertical one, just to see how it felt.

And how it felt was—that thing my photos can never quite capture and typed words cannot convey—

— but which nonetheless was strong enough to make me want to stop again— and yet again—to wonder if embroidery— or even words— are the point at all.

Which brings me here, to Tuesday where, now rather late for lunch, all I can think to say is that I haven’t the foggiest idea about any of it.

And that, I suppose, is the point of a quest, right?

1. Apologies to Monty Python and the Holy Grail…

2. I say “sing” but only in the sense that the word somehow encompasses spinning, weaving, knitting, relishing, writing, embracing, gazing upon, telling tales about etc etc…

3. My dear friend Rochelle shared this phrase with me, and the wonderful book, Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall from which (I think) the phrase came. Do read it!

4. Quick to make of super inexpensive and readily available materials, these looms are lightweight, waterproof, versatile, adjustable and adaptable to all kinds of weaving. They are also made of plastic, which yes is inherently icky for a million reasons I don’t need to go into, but I’ve loved them for decades— even featured them in my book Kids Weaving— and they are my main go-to loom for my little word tapestries. Here’s a blog post I wrote about them a few years ago, with pics and instructions and a bunch of further links as well in case you’re curious.

5. 2016 Tapestry Archive

6. Except that they are not technically tapestries at all since I’m weaving selvage to selvage here and I’ve always understood a tapestry to be a “weft faced plain weave where the wefts are discontinuous across the shed.” Of course people define tapestry in many ways, and perhaps I could call it one when I've stitched on to of it? Or maybe I”ll just not worry about such things for now..

7. All of these word tapestries (indeed, almost all small tapestries I’ve woven for the last 20 years or so), are woven using the Fringeless four selvedge warping method with its two supplemental warps (you can see the loops in the photos). To learn more about this, check out FRINGELESS, the fabulous (if I do say so myself), class I teach with Rebecca Mezoff, and/or a blog post I wrote in 2016 explaining the technique