Sarah. Photos!. You are a brave rule-breaker. I thought those were supposed to be the hardest and therefore the last items to sort. Tho I love how your dogs and human family get equal footing. Happy New Year!
Did you read the Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning too? I've actually been putting off the photos for quite some time, but suddenly they spoke to me so I went for it while the going was good. Still have letters to sort though -- and those might be harder!
I did! And it was helpful, but honestly, it didn’t fundamentally change my behavior. But, letters! Oh man, in an era when no one sends letters, those are the family jewels. I hope you curl up with a nice pot of tea!
I think, at this point, you have some sort of internal dowsing thing for milkweed going on. Like maybe you can smell it while not being consciously aware of it so it just seems like "I just found milkweed!" when really your body-sense was leading you straight to it. Super handy!
Not that you're lacking for things to do but I can't help but point out that all those organized photos are a natural segue into writing your biography... I'll just let that idea simmer. :-D
Dowsing for milkweed --that's just what it feels like! Unless, of course, the milkweed is dowsing for me? Sometimes it seems hard to tell, but I love it either way. Thanks for the image!
Thanks! And that is good to know. Bossy as this milkweed is, I'd hate for y'all to get sick of it before it gets tired of me... What is thrilling though, is how it (and my learning about it), keeps getting deeper. Indeed, it feels like it leads me back to your work as it seems in many ways to be a creature of the commons-- like the myriad creatures it supports.
Plants like milkweed are absolutely at the center of the commons! Think of all it gives—to you personally, to the people with whom you share your creative ideas around it, as well as the things you make; to monarch butterflies; and I’m sure roles in the ecosystem I am not aware of (water retention? filtration? soil stabilization? feeding wild bees I’m sure)—and then think of what it means not to have access to it. If everywhere you encountered milkweed were suddenly closed off, privatized and inaccessible, or destroyed through commodification.
That’s what was lost when the commons were taken: sustenance, intact ecosystems, clean water, food for humans and non-human animals, AND the human right to have a relationship with all of it. <3
(I am eager to see if the milkweed seeds I finally remembered to plant this fall will come up. But trepidatious because I’m certain some magpies swept in immediately and ate what they could find!)
Yes to all of this. Much of the milkweed I gather is on private property or public/private (a nature preserve where anyone can go but which has rules),though my favorite thing is to find it just off the shoulder of roads and highways -- thriving where it chooses to be in an environment that suits. Would that we all could.
This book that just came, The Milkweed Lands, talks about all of this--not only what the myriad varieties of milkweed contribute, but how they do it -- from pollinator minutiae to flyways. And it's so gorgeously illustrated it's a pleasure to learn from. And golly do I have a lot of learn. I hope your seeds do settle in--that they got cold scarified enough (and enough dodged the magpies), to sprout.
I’m not sure but I seem to have missed something...is milkweed really so much easier to process into fiber than flax? Can you just pull it apart with your fingers? What, no retting, flax break, scutching nor hackle? Having been obsessed with flax for a couple years now, and growing a small patch of my own, I can’t wait to go after the milkweed out there lying in the pasture. Your photos make it look lustrous and yummy. Thanks for being quirky enough to write about this.
Ah Sally --Well I have to say it was a love of flax that ultimately led me to milkweed, and yes, in some ways it does feel like that--just go get some, tease it apart with your hands, and lift out the fibers. THAT SAID, not having been bred for millennia for its fiber, the milkweed strands are gathered almost one at a time. Bulk processing (controlled retting, breaking, skutching, hackling), doesn't really work in my experience. Not that I've done much controlled retting, but the fibers don't behave like flax as the plants themselves (leaf nodules etc), can effect the length. Also the fibers can change from one plant to the next. And winter retting -- well, so much depends on moisture and temperature and whatever happens wherever you are. There is MUCH for me to learn, but so far part of the bliss of it for me is that very strand by strand collection--an excuse for a walk, for some tool-free fiber processing and yarn making, and the bliss of nature's generosity. It IS, however, lustrous and yummy and probably spinnable with tools-- indeed, if you have all the flax tools, maybe worth trying? Please, join the experiment if it appeals, in any fashion -- esp if you have your own stands of milkweed to try. And let me know how it goes! BTW -- I do boil it in washing soda after the cordage is skeined, much like flax, and it softens it beautifully. AND it wears and softens over time just exquisitely.
Thank you! So inspired! I am impressed by the gorgeous strick of milkweed floss you amassed on a winter’s walk! I only managed a handful of short fibers—i see what you mean it’s one strand at a time collection. Plus I couldn’t resist a handful of the blowsy seed-feathers. I’m curious what tool-free spinning method you use? Could I entreat you to do a Substack on that? I’ve only just found you—maybe you already have. I stink at drop spindle, and expect my flax wheel will pull the fibers out of my hand too fast, so I’m all ears. Yes the earth our mother is a generous and playful spirit. Every walk reveals marvels. “The beauties she so truly sees, she thinks I have no eye for these, and vexes me for reasons why….” (RFrost, My November Guest)
Actually Sally, I mostly twist it into cordage. Because of the strand by strand thing, it has somehow become easier. Plus I just love it. I have written about this before, on some Substack posts earlier this year, and also on my old blog. There is a link in the footnotes of this post to a couple of posts on the latter where I talked bout trying various more "flax-centric" methods. Indeed, there is a whole milkweed thread there. I couldn't agree more about the delight this plant seems to take in yanking me off what I thought was my path and into its orbit!
BTW -- There aresome neolithic and bronze age methods of splicing bast fibers (vs making cordage)--and you can learn more from Sally Pointer's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vGWoza1omo
Also --thank you for reading The Gusset and Welcome!
Oh my, here we all are, riding this endlessly flowing river of life for a while.... You've reminded me of my boxes of photos stacked up in the closet waiting and waiting. They're on my list. Images in this digital age take up less physical space and are more accessible, but the clutter in virtual space is mind boggling. Ah well, time to go out in the woods with the dogs! That's what we've been doing!
YES-- a walk in the woods with the dogs before the stacks of boxes for sure. I've actually been ignoring those boxes for a long time and was kind of surprised when suddenly they called to me. I kind of thought I'd never be able to do it. And DEFINITELY needed LONG dog walks every time I ended a session with the boxes. Beryl is ALL in favor of the present, thank goodness. And whatever we get to do tomorrow too...
How you DO make a girl wanna try to spin milkweed cordage! I was out for a walk in the woods just the other day and saw milkweed pods standing on the tippy tops of long stalks. I chose one end of a stalk with two pods just barely cracked open, with dragon-like seed scales and a sparkly white fluff emanating from inside. I thought perhaps you spun the fluff from inside the pods. But I see here (and should have seen and noted in all other posts about your romance with milkweed, that it is not the pod-fluff, but rather the stuff from the stalks. Once this rain lets up, I plan to head out and see if I can bring a stalk or two home with me, just to give it a try you know...to flirt a little with it and see if I too might want to enter into a relationship with spinning milkweed. 😁 We shall see. But oh how brave you are to tackle the photos of years gone by! Yikes. Bravo and well done and all of the for culling through it all, down to just one box. Whew. Monumental I'd say. And how fun to see these photos of you with the pack mules and with your son and teaching, etc. Thank you for sharing them. I do wonder...with your cleverness in spinning paper, might there be any way at all one could spin or weave all the other photos into yarn? or paper weavings? How lovely they would be...large paper weavings of all the other images. It would be laborious for sure. And probably the wooing of milkweed is far more enchanting than cutting up old photographs into strips, taping them end to end to make them weavable. Anyway...thank you for always being you Sarah, for inspiring, for sharing your creative life!
Oh gosh, sorry to distract even a little from the glorious writing that you're doing. Thinking of you so much as you write and spin and watch your mother slowly fade. Such a hard and also amazing thing.
As for milkweed --yes to the beauty of the seed silk! It's been used by the ton for flotation actually, especially in WW2. and more recently as a down-replacement source of insulation. I'm waiting for this to take off for sure.
Love your thought of cutting up the old photos --spinning and weaving them in some fashion. Alas, they are now gone --and probably just as well as you're right, I"m trying to reign in the ideas just now--make some space for... who knows what simmering ideas??????
I’ll track down your earlier writings —I’m on the milkweed trail! Have always loved that plant, it’s been calling me since I was a child. milkweed fluff pillows, hatching Monarch butterflies, it is magical! So glad to have found Gusset and a sister fiber fan!
Well done with the photos! I feel for you.... have just recently asserted my own ability to Throw Photos Out. And Beryl is so right, what's here now and continuing each day is key. And the milkweed's persistence is surely crucial to life in some delicate, wordless way - you are a good listener!
Sarah. Photos!. You are a brave rule-breaker. I thought those were supposed to be the hardest and therefore the last items to sort. Tho I love how your dogs and human family get equal footing. Happy New Year!
Did you read the Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning too? I've actually been putting off the photos for quite some time, but suddenly they spoke to me so I went for it while the going was good. Still have letters to sort though -- and those might be harder!
I did! And it was helpful, but honestly, it didn’t fundamentally change my behavior. But, letters! Oh man, in an era when no one sends letters, those are the family jewels. I hope you curl up with a nice pot of tea!
Happy new year sarah..so happy you were blessed with the stalks! Enjoy..stay warm
And Happy 2024 to you too. I hope your year blesses you as well, with whatever materials you hands are longing to work with.
Nice mittens!
Well mended for sure! Warmer every year now that I'm using old swatches to patch them...
I think, at this point, you have some sort of internal dowsing thing for milkweed going on. Like maybe you can smell it while not being consciously aware of it so it just seems like "I just found milkweed!" when really your body-sense was leading you straight to it. Super handy!
Not that you're lacking for things to do but I can't help but point out that all those organized photos are a natural segue into writing your biography... I'll just let that idea simmer. :-D
Happy New Year!!
Dowsing for milkweed --that's just what it feels like! Unless, of course, the milkweed is dowsing for me? Sometimes it seems hard to tell, but I love it either way. Thanks for the image!
Also -- simmer simmer simmer....
May I just second the lovely hint here about writing your biography Sarah? please do simmer on that! :)
Geez Jennifer..... What a thought! Hmmmmph.
I love the collage of life and ideas and work in this post. And I can never get enough of your milkweed posts!
Thanks! And that is good to know. Bossy as this milkweed is, I'd hate for y'all to get sick of it before it gets tired of me... What is thrilling though, is how it (and my learning about it), keeps getting deeper. Indeed, it feels like it leads me back to your work as it seems in many ways to be a creature of the commons-- like the myriad creatures it supports.
Plants like milkweed are absolutely at the center of the commons! Think of all it gives—to you personally, to the people with whom you share your creative ideas around it, as well as the things you make; to monarch butterflies; and I’m sure roles in the ecosystem I am not aware of (water retention? filtration? soil stabilization? feeding wild bees I’m sure)—and then think of what it means not to have access to it. If everywhere you encountered milkweed were suddenly closed off, privatized and inaccessible, or destroyed through commodification.
That’s what was lost when the commons were taken: sustenance, intact ecosystems, clean water, food for humans and non-human animals, AND the human right to have a relationship with all of it. <3
(I am eager to see if the milkweed seeds I finally remembered to plant this fall will come up. But trepidatious because I’m certain some magpies swept in immediately and ate what they could find!)
Yes to all of this. Much of the milkweed I gather is on private property or public/private (a nature preserve where anyone can go but which has rules),though my favorite thing is to find it just off the shoulder of roads and highways -- thriving where it chooses to be in an environment that suits. Would that we all could.
This book that just came, The Milkweed Lands, talks about all of this--not only what the myriad varieties of milkweed contribute, but how they do it -- from pollinator minutiae to flyways. And it's so gorgeously illustrated it's a pleasure to learn from. And golly do I have a lot of learn. I hope your seeds do settle in--that they got cold scarified enough (and enough dodged the magpies), to sprout.
I’m not sure but I seem to have missed something...is milkweed really so much easier to process into fiber than flax? Can you just pull it apart with your fingers? What, no retting, flax break, scutching nor hackle? Having been obsessed with flax for a couple years now, and growing a small patch of my own, I can’t wait to go after the milkweed out there lying in the pasture. Your photos make it look lustrous and yummy. Thanks for being quirky enough to write about this.
Ah Sally --Well I have to say it was a love of flax that ultimately led me to milkweed, and yes, in some ways it does feel like that--just go get some, tease it apart with your hands, and lift out the fibers. THAT SAID, not having been bred for millennia for its fiber, the milkweed strands are gathered almost one at a time. Bulk processing (controlled retting, breaking, skutching, hackling), doesn't really work in my experience. Not that I've done much controlled retting, but the fibers don't behave like flax as the plants themselves (leaf nodules etc), can effect the length. Also the fibers can change from one plant to the next. And winter retting -- well, so much depends on moisture and temperature and whatever happens wherever you are. There is MUCH for me to learn, but so far part of the bliss of it for me is that very strand by strand collection--an excuse for a walk, for some tool-free fiber processing and yarn making, and the bliss of nature's generosity. It IS, however, lustrous and yummy and probably spinnable with tools-- indeed, if you have all the flax tools, maybe worth trying? Please, join the experiment if it appeals, in any fashion -- esp if you have your own stands of milkweed to try. And let me know how it goes! BTW -- I do boil it in washing soda after the cordage is skeined, much like flax, and it softens it beautifully. AND it wears and softens over time just exquisitely.
Thank you! So inspired! I am impressed by the gorgeous strick of milkweed floss you amassed on a winter’s walk! I only managed a handful of short fibers—i see what you mean it’s one strand at a time collection. Plus I couldn’t resist a handful of the blowsy seed-feathers. I’m curious what tool-free spinning method you use? Could I entreat you to do a Substack on that? I’ve only just found you—maybe you already have. I stink at drop spindle, and expect my flax wheel will pull the fibers out of my hand too fast, so I’m all ears. Yes the earth our mother is a generous and playful spirit. Every walk reveals marvels. “The beauties she so truly sees, she thinks I have no eye for these, and vexes me for reasons why….” (RFrost, My November Guest)
You open our eyes. Thank you, thank you!
Actually Sally, I mostly twist it into cordage. Because of the strand by strand thing, it has somehow become easier. Plus I just love it. I have written about this before, on some Substack posts earlier this year, and also on my old blog. There is a link in the footnotes of this post to a couple of posts on the latter where I talked bout trying various more "flax-centric" methods. Indeed, there is a whole milkweed thread there. I couldn't agree more about the delight this plant seems to take in yanking me off what I thought was my path and into its orbit!
BTW -- There aresome neolithic and bronze age methods of splicing bast fibers (vs making cordage)--and you can learn more from Sally Pointer's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vGWoza1omo
Also --thank you for reading The Gusset and Welcome!
What a beautiful feeling I get as I read your words. I’m overcome with tears of joy. Thank you
Oh golly Gwyneeth. Thank you. That means so much.
Love that last photo of Beryl on the beach! Thanks for the milkweed journey.
You are so welcome! Thanks to you for coming along
Thank you … especially for the last paragraph.
“past into present and on into unknowable tomorrow.”
A very heartfelt statement as I feel more than ever part of a ribbon of the timeline giving me perspective on this journey.
So glad it makes sense to you Logan. And that you're feeling it too.
Thank you dear Sarah and Beryl!!! May the coming year bring fun adventures and creativiy!!!
And you!
Oh my, here we all are, riding this endlessly flowing river of life for a while.... You've reminded me of my boxes of photos stacked up in the closet waiting and waiting. They're on my list. Images in this digital age take up less physical space and are more accessible, but the clutter in virtual space is mind boggling. Ah well, time to go out in the woods with the dogs! That's what we've been doing!
YES-- a walk in the woods with the dogs before the stacks of boxes for sure. I've actually been ignoring those boxes for a long time and was kind of surprised when suddenly they called to me. I kind of thought I'd never be able to do it. And DEFINITELY needed LONG dog walks every time I ended a session with the boxes. Beryl is ALL in favor of the present, thank goodness. And whatever we get to do tomorrow too...
How you DO make a girl wanna try to spin milkweed cordage! I was out for a walk in the woods just the other day and saw milkweed pods standing on the tippy tops of long stalks. I chose one end of a stalk with two pods just barely cracked open, with dragon-like seed scales and a sparkly white fluff emanating from inside. I thought perhaps you spun the fluff from inside the pods. But I see here (and should have seen and noted in all other posts about your romance with milkweed, that it is not the pod-fluff, but rather the stuff from the stalks. Once this rain lets up, I plan to head out and see if I can bring a stalk or two home with me, just to give it a try you know...to flirt a little with it and see if I too might want to enter into a relationship with spinning milkweed. 😁 We shall see. But oh how brave you are to tackle the photos of years gone by! Yikes. Bravo and well done and all of the for culling through it all, down to just one box. Whew. Monumental I'd say. And how fun to see these photos of you with the pack mules and with your son and teaching, etc. Thank you for sharing them. I do wonder...with your cleverness in spinning paper, might there be any way at all one could spin or weave all the other photos into yarn? or paper weavings? How lovely they would be...large paper weavings of all the other images. It would be laborious for sure. And probably the wooing of milkweed is far more enchanting than cutting up old photographs into strips, taping them end to end to make them weavable. Anyway...thank you for always being you Sarah, for inspiring, for sharing your creative life!
Oh gosh, sorry to distract even a little from the glorious writing that you're doing. Thinking of you so much as you write and spin and watch your mother slowly fade. Such a hard and also amazing thing.
As for milkweed --yes to the beauty of the seed silk! It's been used by the ton for flotation actually, especially in WW2. and more recently as a down-replacement source of insulation. I'm waiting for this to take off for sure.
Love your thought of cutting up the old photos --spinning and weaving them in some fashion. Alas, they are now gone --and probably just as well as you're right, I"m trying to reign in the ideas just now--make some space for... who knows what simmering ideas??????
I’ll track down your earlier writings —I’m on the milkweed trail! Have always loved that plant, it’s been calling me since I was a child. milkweed fluff pillows, hatching Monarch butterflies, it is magical! So glad to have found Gusset and a sister fiber fan!
Happy New Year! Life goes on. I'm in a confused state but reading your words is always helpful. Thanks.
Well done with the photos! I feel for you.... have just recently asserted my own ability to Throw Photos Out. And Beryl is so right, what's here now and continuing each day is key. And the milkweed's persistence is surely crucial to life in some delicate, wordless way - you are a good listener!
It's a wild thing, sending those photos on their way --and so freeing. Yay you for doing it too. Letters next. one of these days...