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The Long Thread Podcast

The Long Thread Podcast

The artists and artisans of the fiber world come to you in The Long Thread Podcast. Each episode features interviews with your favorite spinners, weavers, needleworkers, and fiber artists from across the globe. Get the inspiration, practical advice, and personal stories of experts as we follow the long thread.

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Episodes

Hannah Thiessen Howard, Slow Knitting

For Hannah Thiessen Howard, slow knitting isn?t about the speed of making stitches or finishing projects. Swift and leisurely knitters alike can embrace the purpose and experience of knitting and how it connects crafter to community. Selecting materials, choosing projects, and approaching your work with an open mind all contribute to a meaningful knitting life. Knitting can offer refuge, inspiration, and self-expression. It can also be a step, large or small, toward bringing about the kind of world that you?d like to see. From her first yarn-industry internship at a large international company, Hannah has gravitated to smaller and more independent projects, such as her work with the Hudson Valley Textile Project and consulting with small fiber-based companies. She has a new project in the works, a yarn-focused stock image website, that will provide photo resources that accurately reflect what crafts and crafters look like. Although knitting is her primary professional focus, Hannah?s fiber practice wouldn?t be complete without spinning, both for the education it offers about yarn properties and for the connection to animals and farms. Not only do spinners have a more intimate experience with a fiber source, but they often provide meaningful financial support fiber farmers. And what could be a better complement to slow knitting than the hands-on process of making yarn yourself? Hannah?s latest yarn passion is the carefully, lovingly curated collection that so many knitters mention with a hint of shame: her stash. Diving into the skeins she?s adopted over the years is an opportunity to reflect on her slow-knitting values . . . and decide what she wants to carry forward. Links Hannah Thiessen Howard?s website (https://slow-knitting.com/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hannahbelleknits/) Slow Knitting (https://slow-knitting.com/shop/p/slow-knitting) and Seasonal Slow Knitting (https://slow-knitting.com/shop/p/seasonal-slow-knitting) books By Hand Serial (https://www.byhandserial.com/) Greater Cumberland Fibershed (https://fibershed.org/affiliate/greater-cumberland-fibershed/) Hudson Valley Textile Project?s Common Threads (https://www.hvtextileproject.org/common-threads-publication) This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You?ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you?ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Yarn Barn of Kansas Learning how to weave but need the right shuttle? Hooked on knitting and in search of a lofty yarn? Yarn Barn of Kansas has been your partner in fiber since 1971. Whether you are around the corner from the Yarn Barn of Kansas, or around the country, they are truly your "local yarn store" with an experienced staff to answer all your fiber questions. Visit yarnbarn-ks.com (https://www.yarnbarn-ks.com/) to shop, learn, and explore. Peters Valley School of Craft logo Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector?and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (https://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today!
2024-02-24
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Keisha Cameron, High Hog Farm

Although she grew up in the freezing winters of New York, Keisha Cameron and her husband decided to move their young family to a peri-urban spot outside Atlanta, Georgia, to set down roots and rebuild their connection to the land. They began with raising what their family needed for food and other daily necessities, but over the past decade, High Hog Farm has developed stocks of rare-breed sheep, angora rabbits, and chickens. In their gardens, the family cultivate produce as well as medicinal and dye plants. As returning-generation farmers, they not only love what they do, they also feel an obligation as stewards of their land. Rediscovering the traditional ways of cultivating and using plants, Keisha has sampled different types of indigo, madder, marigolds, and a range of dyestuffs. The farm offers naturally dyed fibers as well as dyestuffs and classes in natural dyeing. As she grows attuned to her soil, she appreciates the multiple roles that a single plant can play. As a cultural seedkeeper, she focuses on not only preserving a diversity of plants but on reviving the knowledge of how they can serve a variety of needs. Although High Hog has been home to a variety of different farm animals, Keisha fell in love with sheep. She felt an instant affinity for Gulf Coast Natives, a rare breed that can carry color genetics and are exceptionally well suited to her location. Her insistence on participating fully in the lives of her animals has led her to explore fiber arts?but also to learn the demanding skill of shearing. As a crucial part of her animals? health, shearing is too important to leave undone if they can?t locate a shearer when needed. For followers around the country, High Hog Farm is mainly accessible through their newly relaunched website and online store (as well as their enchanting social media accounts). For the community closer at hand, the farm has developed a variety of programs in fiber arts, photography, food preservation, and a variety of other agrarian arts. On being part of the grassroots fiber community, Keisha says, ?I want to encourage everybody else, all the fiber artists and fiber and dye growers, to keep doing what you?re doing, because we are the people who are bringing color to the world.? Links High Hog Farm website (https://highhog.farm/) High Hog Farm?s Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/highhogfarm/) This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You?ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway?s array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you?ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Stewart Heritage Farm At Stewart Heritage Farm in New Market, Tennessee, farm to fiber and yarn has been a part of their story for 20 years. Home to a small herd of alpacas, Stewart Heritage produces small-batch roving, yarn, and finished goods available in 100-percent alpaca and natural blends in natural tones and brilliant hand-dyed colors. Discover the fine quality, long-lasting comfort, and soft luxury of alpaca to wear and enjoy in your home. Explore and shop alpaca at stewartheritagefarm.com (https://stewartheritagefarm.com/). Peters Valley School of Craft Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector?and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (https://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today!
2024-02-10
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Justin Squizzero, The Burroughs Garret

Justin Squizzero loves exploring the frontiers of technology, seeing how he can tune a piece of equipment to produce a complex textile. The technology that fascinates him reached its peak before the 20th century. Weaving on an old loom doesn?t mean trying to turn back time, though?it means choosing the most refined technology to create the handwoven fabrics that he envisions. If a modern tool is better than the historic one (like the laser cutter that produced the small metal rings called mails, which were needed to to convert his loom from weaving coverlets to damask), that would be one thing. For all the supposed advances in technology in the last several hundred years, though, the best tool for weaving fine linen damask is still the one invented by Joseph-Marie Jacquard more than 200 years ago. Studying with Norman Kennedy and Kate Smith at the Marshfield School of Weaving helped Justin deepen his understanding of and fascination with the tools and techniques of 18th- and 19th-century weaving. What began as a winter occupation between summers working in museums led to beginning a business as a traditional handweaver, becoming a regular teacher in School?s unique curriculum, and most recently taking on the role as its Director. In Justin?s weaving practice, discovery and ingenuity are as vital looking to the past as to the future. Visit the show notes page (https://handwovenmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-justin-squizzero/) to see a photo of Justin's Jacquard loom. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you?ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Yarn Barn of Kansas You?re ready to start a new project but don?t have the right yarn. Or you have the yarn but not the right tool. Yarn Barn of Kansas can help! They stock a wide range of materials and equipment for knitting, weaving, spinning, and crochet. They ship all over the country, usually within a day or two of receiving the order. Plan your project this week, start working on it next week! See yarnbarn-ks.com (https://www.yarnbarn-ks.com/) to get started. Links The Burroughs Garret (https://www.theburroughsgarret.com/) Marshfield School of Weaving (https://www.marshfieldschoolofweaving.org/)
2024-01-27
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Kaffe Fassett, Artist & Color Master

Kaffe Fassett doesn?t play favorites in his work?he doesn?t have a favorite medium, and he definitely doesn?t have a favorite color. What he has is a powerful delight in combining the simple elements of color, line, and image, and a passion for helping other people share in that joy. For someone whose career is inextricably linked to stitching, his needlework techniques are surprisingly simple. ?I?m never interested in technical acrobatics,? he says. ?I think that color is what is fabulous, and you know, a beautiful image that has beautiful colors doesn?t need to go any further.? Some of his best-known work layers brightly colored cotton fabrics of his own design into patchwork quilts, which he takes to beautiful locations to photograph. Yet one of the textiles he?s excited about is a vintage patchwork quilt top worked in diamonds and squares, with striking contrasts placed next to soothing harmonies. Visit the show notes page at pieceworkmagazine.com (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-kaffe-fassett) to see a photo of the quilt. Kaffe?s work has expanded into so many formats in part because of a series of remarkable collaborations, both with companies (including Rowan, FreeSpirit Fabrics, and Peruvian Connection) and other artists. When sharing ideas or teaching, particularly with partner Brandon Mably, the enjoyment of seeing the spark of creative understanding in someone else is part of the joy. ?That's what I would say to people: you know, the first thing is, get friends who are sympathetic to your dream. Try to find somebody who?s going to encourage you rather than discourage you.? As the first living textile artist to have a show at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Kaffe?s artwork is valued and renowned the world over?yet through books, patterns, and his own ?paint box? of fabrics and materials, his work is accessible to every crafter. This episode is brought to you by Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Kaffe Fassett Studio (https://www.kaffefassett.com/) List of Kaffe Fassett books (https://www.kaffefassett.com/publications/) Find a listing of Kaffe?s events (https://www.kaffefassett.com/about/events/) Kaffe?s designs and collaborations in yarn, needlepoint, and quilting fabrics are available on his website. (https://www.kaffefassett.com/gallery/)
2024-01-13
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Stephany Wilkes, Shearer, Wool Classer & Author

Between the sheep in the field and the lovely yarn in your hands lies the complex network of the wool industry. Fiber must be scoured, spun, and maybe dyed, and it all starts with shearing. Attending a Fibershed symposium in 2012, Stephany Wilkes was surprised to learn that one of the barriers to local fiber production was a lack of trained shearers. A knitter and software developer, she had no hands-on livestock experience when she signed up for a shearing class through an extension center and found herself up to her elbows in wool. Despite the grueling labor and intensely specialized learning process, she relished the work and the way it pushed her squarely into the world of American fiber production. Ten years into her career as a sheep shearer and wool classer, Stephany has supported small flocks, a small mill, and her fibershed. Her 2018 book, Raw Material: Working Wool in the West, is a riveting chronicle of her immersion in the world of sheep and wool. As a shearing instructor and catalyst for transformation in the fiber community, she has made it her business to improve the conditions and the market for quality wool. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you?ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Stephany Wilkes website (https://stephanywilkes.com/) Raw Material book (https://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/raw-material) Fibershed (https://fibershed.org/) Mendocino Wool & Fiber (https://www.mendowool.com/) mill Lani?s Lana (https://lanislana.com/) Stephany?s article ?Lani?s Lana: Sheep, Landscape, and Western Wool? appeared in Spin Off Winter 2023. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/spin-off-winter-2023) Wild Oat Hollow (https://www.wildoathollow.com/) Happy Goat (https://www.visithappygoat.com/) cashmere and contract grazing project Kaos Sheep Outfit (https://fibershed.org/producers/kaos-sheep-outfit/) Shave 'em to Save 'em (https://livestockconservancy.org/get-involved/shave-em-to-save-em/)
2023-12-30
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Lisa Chamoff, Indie Untangled

What do you get when a crafter who loves colorful hand-dyed yarns (and hates stalking shop updates) crosses paths with a fresh, new yarn producer? Like many of her knitter friends in 2013, Lisa Chamoff was enchanted by the artful and expressive work of the independent dyers whose skeins were cropping up around the yarn world. Shoppers found new favorites by word of mouth, hearing about a new colorway or restock here and there. At the same time, talented dyers with fledgling businesses relied on that word of mouth to sell a few skeins at a time. Lisa saw an opportunity for a new kind of website: a marketplace where shoppers and dyers could come together to share new work. Indie Untangled opened for discovery. After a few months of the online marketplace, Lisa realized that the hand-dyed-yarn fans who visit her site wanted more than just two days at the annual New York Sheep and Wool Festival (?Rhinebeck?). Gathering on the Friday before the larger festival, a group of crafters were interested in extending the weekend?s shopping and social opportunities. There was also an opportunity for smaller and newer yarn companies, who didn?t have booths at the larger show, to introduce themselves to an audience eager for the next new thing. Beginning with just a few booths, the Indie Untangled event is now an anchor of the New York Sheep and Wool Festival weekend, drawing a few dozen vendors and offering timed shopping opportunities. Although most of Indie Untangled?s offerings connect shoppers and dyers directly, Lisa also collaborates with dyers and yarn producers for Indie Untangled-exclusive projects, beginning with the Knitting Our National Parks Collection. The latest project is the yearlong subscription Heritage Wool Collective, which pairs dyers with unique yarns from small farms and mills, beginning in 2024. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You?ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you?ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Heritage Wool Collective Subscription (https://shop.indieuntangled.com/collections/subscriptions/products/heritage-wool-collective) Indie Untangled (https://indieuntangled.com/) Rhinebeck Indie Untangled Event (https://indieuntangled.com/rhinebeck/) Indie Untangled Marketplace (https://indieuntangled.com/marketplace/) Knitting Our National Parks Series (https://shop.indieuntangled.com/collections/knitting-our-national-parks)
2023-12-16
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Spotlight Episode: Suri Network

[Sponsored Content] If you?ve been weaving, knitting, or playing with fiber for long?or if you?ve passed some fiber animals in a field?you probably think you know what an alpaca looks like: a fluffy creature with a long neck and spade-shaped ears. But you may not know that there?s a different kind of alpaca, one whose coat grows in long, silky ringlets instead of an allover fluffy halo. Suri alpacas make up a small fraction of the alpacas, both worldwide and in the United States, but their special fiber is worth checking out. The number of Suri alpacas isn?t specifically known, but they?re estimated to make up as little as 5?10% of the population, with the remainder being Huacaya alpacas. But although Huacayas dominate in numbers, Suris are gaining recognition, in part thanks to a group of farmers who formed an association to promote the breed. The Suri Network strives to ?protect, preserve, and promote the Suri alpaca? by educating fiber artists and farmers about this special fiber. What makes Suri alpacas different is the exceptionally long, lustrous, silky locks of fiber that they produce. Growing as much as 7" per year on a young animal, Suri fiber is far longer than almost any other animal-based fiber. When spun into yarn, it is strong and feels even softer than its micron count would suggest. The smooth fiber is a treat to work with on its own, and it also brings strength and softness to fiber blends. In recognition of the unique properties of the fiber, Suri Network has taken the unusual step of developing a trademark program, an indication to consumers that the producers have met the breed standards in a number of areas, including animal husbandry and suiting the fiber to its best purpose. In this episode, Suri Network members and Suri producers Liz Vahlkamp of Salt River Alpacas and Laurel Shouvlin of Bluebird Hills Farm describe what makes Suri alpacas special, what fiber artists can expect from working with Suri fiber, and how the Suri breed is taking its place in the world of yarn and fiber. This episode is brought to you by: Suri Network The Suri Network (https://surinetwork.org/) was established in 1997 to assist its members to protect, preserve, and promote the Suri alpaca. Since its beginnings, the Suri Network has been at the forefront of the alpaca industry promoting both the Suri alpaca and the use of its wondrous fleece. Links Suri Network (https://surinetwork.org/) Suri Simply Stunning (https://surinetwork.org/Suri-Simply-Stunning) Sip and Share (https://www.surinetwork.org/Sip-and-Share) about a variety of Suri subjects Suri Network Video (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYE1L1HvB2IaITJFIgX_agGUAej4MpHt1) series about spinning, knitting, felting, and weaving with Suri fiber
2023-12-09
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Sarah Neubert, Fiber Art & Radical Repair

The scale of Sarah Neubert?s work varies from miniature to monumental, from small pieces such as earrings to room-sized installations. She dreams of creating entire woven environments that are sensory and tactile, like cocoons or sanctuaries of fiber. Working on a large scale allows her to explore new techniques and push the boundaries of her art. However, she also appreciates the sense of accomplishment that comes from creating small, wearable pieces. Her classes at the upcoming Weave Together with Handwoven (https://weavetogether.handwovenmagazine.com/) event in February 2024 will let students work on a small tapestry loom to explore some of her favorite subjects. When Sarah teaches tapestry weaving with nontraditional wefts, she often brings found and foraged materials and invites students to bring their own elements to incorporate. Although these may be nontraditional (and even sometimes non-yarn), the weaving skills to incorporate and stabilize them strengthen the student?s grasp of weaving fundamentals. A class in textural weaving includes hand-manipulated techniques, traditional skills that she employs in very nontraditional ways. One of her recent projects, a Woven Upholstery Mending tutorial (https://www.sarahneubert.com/woven-mending), started with a refusal to just dispose of the couch that her cats had clawed. Using her weaving skills in a different application, she repaired her couch with rope and sturdy tools. When she shared her project and results on social media, the interest and enthusiasm were overwhelming. Sarah found herself designing and filming a course on how to create your own woven mends on furniture. Instead of charging to view the class, Sarah has posted it on YouTube on a donation-based model in hopes of keeping other couches out of landfills. ?I think having an energetic exchange is important in a lot of spaces, and I was really grateful for the people that donated,? she says. Weaving isn?t just a form of art for Sarah, it?s also therapeutic. At first accidentally and now deliberately, she has found relief from anxiety and an opportunity to process her emotions while working at the loom. She experiences this as a flow state, an opportunity to heal. Although her early experiences as a weaver were fraught with perfectionism, she now explores how to make a piece the best she can . . . and then make room for the next project. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Sarah Neubert?s website (https://www.sarahneubert.com/) Woven Upholstery Mending (https://www.sarahneubert.com/woven-mending) online class How to fix furniture with visible mending (How to fix furniture with visible mending) tutorial on YouTube Tapestry Cuff Bracelet (https://littlelooms.com/free-project-tapestry-cuff-bracelet/), a pattern for a woven cuff, available on the Little Looms website (https://littlelooms.com/) ?Woven Flow: Weaving as Meditation.? (https://handwovenmagazine.com/woven-flow-weaving-as-meditation/) Sarah Neubert, Handwoven website (https://handwovenmagazine.com/) ?Fiber art is finally being taken seriously.? (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/t-magazine/fiber-art-textiles.html) Julia Halperin, The New York Times Style Magazine (accessed online), September 11, 2023. Maya Angelou interview (https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2279/the-art-of-fiction-no-119-maya-angelou) in the Paris Review, 1990.
2023-12-02
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Jane Cooper, The Lost Flock

The picture of a flock of primitive-breed sheep, the last of their kind, living on an island off the northeast coast of Scotland, has a certain romance to it. Plenty of knitters, spinners, fiber artists, and citizens of the modern world might idly dream of living on such an island and tending such a flock. With no background as a farmer and only a few years as a shepherd, Jane Cooper decided to bring that dream to life. Enchanted by the fiber of the Boreray sheep, and with her life transformed by a class on knitting with rare breeds, Jane decided to buy a small parcel of land and start a spinner?s flock by adopting a few wethers from another farmer. In a short time, however, she found herself with more land?and more sheep?than she planned for. And so began her adventure as the shepherd of the ?lost flock,? a group of sheep whose ancestors had escaped the official registry. Since obtaining her first sheep in 2013, Jane not only developed her own breeding program but established several other breeding flocks in the Orkneys. She has explored the recent and ancient history of her sheep, from the Vikings who used dual-coated wool in their sails to the breed registries established in the 20th century (and traced how her own sheep came to be called ?the lost flock.?) This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Orkney Boreray website (https://orkneyboreray.com/) The Lost Flock book by Jane Cooper US edition (https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-lost-flock/) and UK edition (https://chelseagreen.co.uk/book/the-lost-flock/) Blacker and Beyond (https://www.ravelry.com/groups/blacker--beyond-with-ffsb) Ravelry group Blacker Yarns (https://www.blackeryarns.co.uk/) and The Natural Fibre Company (https://www.thenaturalfibre.co.uk/) Woolsack (https://woolsack.org/) British wool website
2023-11-18
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Felicia Lo, Unapologetic Colorist

Felicia Lo spent most of her college years wearing a lot of black. The bright, happy color combinations that she loved as a child?lime green and hot pink, pink and yellow?didn?t fit other people?s idea of what colors went together, so she avoided wearing colors altogether. It took years to begin introducing color into her wardrobe again. As handdyeing began its groundswell in the early 2000s, Felicia began experimenting with dyeing fiber and then yarn. As it turned out, fiber artists across the world thought that her color sense was not only acceptable but irresistible. What began as a casual project in 2005 has grown into a company with a dozen staff members, hundreds of colorways, and a roster of yarn and fiber bases. Yet despite the company?s larger scale, each skein or braid of fiber is still prepared, colored, rinsed, and packaged by hand. Maintaining consistency in their very handmade product has meant transforming SweetGeorgia from her initial solo project into a team effort, with staff members collaborating on new colors and initiatives. Felicia published her book Dyeing to Spin & Knit in 2017, with techniques for fiber artists to choose colors, apply them effectively, and use their handdyed creations. That same year, she founded the School of SweetGeorgia to offer online classes and community, first in handdyeing and later in knitting, spinning, weaving, and other fiber arts. Although her fiber-arts practices stretch from spinning to crochet, tapestry, machine knitting, and weaving, Felicia always has a knitting project on the needles . . . and these days, it?s almost certainly not black. More of our conversation with Felicia, including what's on her needles and her suggestions on how to choose yarn colors for a knitting project how to choose the right yarn structure for a knitted project, is available in the library (https://farmfiberknits.com/library/CxLIBUXRRtOoXdNqgvPh_Q) for subscribers to Farm & Fiber Knits. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You?ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you?ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links SweetGeorgia (https://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/) School of SweetGeorgia (https://www.schoolofsweetgeorgia.com/) Dyeing to Spin & Knit (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/629139/dyeing-to-spin-and-knit-by-felicia-lo/)
2023-11-04
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Mary Jeanne Packer, Battenkill Fibers Carding & Spinning Mill

In 2009, Mary Jeanne Packer founded Battenkill Fibers Carding & Spinning Mill to work with small farms, yarn companies, and even individual handspinners who wanted great yarn. The partnerships built around the mill are helping revitalize the regional wool economy and sustain shepherds and shops alike. We are far from the days when 13 water-powered mills lined the Battenkill River in Greenwich, New York, all processing American wool, but through collaborations across the textile industry, the prospects for high-quality yarn look bright. For a farm with a few dozen sheep, a local yarn store wanting to make a special line of yarn, or even a handspinner with a prize fleece from the wool festival and no means to wash it, creating roving or yarn comes from a partnership with a mill built on expertise and trust. How should the fiber be washed, spun, and plied? What will bring out the best in the wool? The mill transforms and adds value to a year?s fiber crop, the results of the feed, care, and shearing that farmers condult year-round. Mary Jeanne relishes the opportunity to support members of the yarn community and make connections among them, so that a niche yarn company can source a special kind fiber or shepherds can keep their farms going with an additional source of revenue. Seeing gaps in the regional textile industry and opportunities for sustainable growth, Mary Jeanne and yarn shop owner Gail Parrinello brought together a group of farmers, dyers, millers, designers, makers, distributors, and retailers in a network called the Hudson Valley Textile Project. One of the initiatives of the project is Clean Fleece New York, a medium-scale scouring facility that processes batches of fiber too large for a small mill but below the minimum for an industrial-scale scouring facility, which has just opened in fall of 2023. More of our conversation with Mary Jeanne, including how to choose the right yarn structure for a knitted project, what surprising yarns you might be overlooking, and how to find the most wonderful yarns at a fiber festival, is available in the library (https://farmfiberknits.com/library/209474243) for subscribers to Farm & Fiber Knits. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Battenkill Fibers (https://www.battenkillfibers.com/) Hudson Valley Textile Project (https://www.hvtextileproject.org/) Clean Fleece New York (https://www.cleanfleece.com/) Mountain Meadow Wool (https://mountainmeadowwool.com/) Shaniko Wool Company (https://www.shanikowoolcompany.com/) Green Mountain Spinnery (https://www.spinnery.com/) Laxtons Wooltrace DK (https://www.bylaxtons.co.uk/products/wooltrace-dk) Foster Sheep Farm (https://www.fostersheepfarm.com/) Bare Naked Wools/Knitspot (https://www.barenakedwools.com/) The Woolly Thistle (https://thewoollythistle.com/) Brooklyn General Store (https://brooklyngeneral.com/) Kingdom Fleece and Fiberworks (https://www.kingdomfleeceandfiberworks.net/)
2023-10-21
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Deb Essen, Weaving Omnivore

Many weavers find their inspiration by asking, ?What if...? Since she first sat down at a loom, Deb Essen has pushed the limits of her weaving by asking, ?Why can?t I?? Deb has followed that question since childhood, right through her career as a weaving teacher and author. Since she first neglected her table-clearing duties to watch a weaving demonstration at the age of 9, the craft of weaving has held her fascinated. And despite the disciplines of teaching, designing, and writing, that childlike spirit of exploration still gets free rein in her weaving studio. ?I play with everything. I mean, that?s the beauty of weaving,? she says. ?There?s something to play with all the time.? When Deb talks about her favorite classes, the word ?play? comes up often, and her approach is as lighthearted as it is methodical. ?There?s always an amazing surprise for everybody in the class,? she says of her class on color in weaving. ?You kind of have to throw color theory for artists out the window? and sample different color combinations. (Deb will be teaching color in weaving at the first Weave Together with Handwoven (https://weavetogether.handwovenmagazine.com/) event February 25?29, 2024.) Deb?s love of structure isn?t limited to complex multishaft looms, or even to pick-up patterns on rigid-heddle looms. When the new Zoom Loom debuted, Deb accepted the challenge to play with the small loom and see what she could create. ?You know, never say no,? she says, and developed a line of toys and figures made solely of 4" woven squares. She explores the possibilities of texture, color, and pick-up on the little squares, too. We?re looking forward to Deb joining us in Loveland, Colorado, February 25?29, 2024, for Weave Together with Handwoven. (https://weavetogether.handwovenmagazine.com/) Her classes include Color in Weaving and two classes on weaving with pin looms. For photos of Deb?s work, check out our show notes at handwovenmagazine.com. (https://handwovenmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-deb-essen) This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links dje handwovens, (https://djehandwovens.com/) Deb?s website and line of weaving kits Color in Weaving video (https://learn.longthreadmedia.com/courses/video-only-color-in-weaving) Easy Weaving with Supplemental Warps (https://schifferbooks.com/products/easy-weaving-with-supplemental-warps-overshot-velvet-shibori-and-more) book
2023-10-07
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Allan Brown, The Nettle Dress

Most of us avoid nettles, thinking of them as weeds whose little stinging hairs can inject a painful toxin into the unexpecting walker. But strolling through the woods near his home in England, Allan Brown was captivated by the tall native plants. Knowing that textile cultures across the world have produced cloth from nettles, he wanted to learn more about cloth made with nettle fiber. Except for a few exceptions?giant Himalayan nettles and ramie, which is a non-stinging plant in the nettle family?the era of nettle textiles is over. But thousands of years ago, nettle cloth and cordage fulfilled human needs for garments and tools. Like other ancient textiles, nettle cloth has almost entirely disappeared, rotted away and returned to the soil. Allan knew that the only way to experience cloth made from nettle would be to create it himself, so he set about processing, spinning, and weaving fabric from stands of nettles that grew wild in the woods. Before he could get down to cloth-making, though, he had to learn how to extract the fiber from the plant?a process without contemporary documentation or a skilled teacher. (The stinging parts of the plant are removed during processing, so textiles made from nettle fiber feel more like cotton or linen than stinging barbs.) He learned to spin, which proved not only the most time-consuming but also the most meaningful part of the project. ?I just found spinning so therapeutic,? he says. He felt the solace of handspinning keenly when his wife, Alex, passed away over the course of his nettle exploration. In the aftermath of Alex dying, my world grew very small, my perimeters drew in, and I was just looking after the family. Sometimes my only connection to a wider world was just going out and collecting nettles, but it was within a really small geographical margin. So I think events sort of led me to, rather than looking for bigger and more, I tuned into the familiar, going in deeper and seeing what I could find and what I?d previously overlooked. And realizing, oh my goodness?all these plants, they provide dyes, these plants provide fibers, and they?re all there right on my doorstep and have been under my nose all along. So it feels like it?s really connected me to a sense of place in a much deeper way than perhaps I had been before. As he spun years? worth of yarn, Allan decided that the nettle project would culimate in a dress. A simple shape, cut efficiently from a narrow width of cloth, would be enough to create a dress for his daughter Oonagh, so he wove yards of plain-weave fabric and even spun the sewing thread to stitch the piece together. Seven years after his first experiments with nettle fiber, he slipped a handmade nettle dress over her head. Following Allan on his exploration, his film-director friend Dylan Howitt captured the stages of the process and has released a film called The Nettle Dress. (https://www.nettledress.org/) The film has been released in a number of markets, including the United Kingdom, and some audiences have been fortunate to meet the fiber artist and even touch the dress at a screening. The story of the dress and its creator remind us that the long history of foraged, handmade cloth can be ours again if we have the dedication to revive it. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links The Nettle Dress film website (https://www.nettledress.org/) The Nettle Dress on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/nettledressfilm/) Nettles for Textiles Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1648679398499874/) Nettles for Textiles web page (http://www.nettlesfortextiles.org.uk/wp/) From Sting to Spin, a History of Nettle Fibre (https://gillianedomsbook.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html) by Gillian Edom
2023-09-23
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Kristin Nicholas: Knitter, Artist, Farmer, Author

Kristin Nicholas lives in an idyllic historic New England home at the end of a dirt road, the interior handpainted in whimsical, vivid motifs. In neighboring fields, her family's hundreds of sheep graze in historic pastures. ?From the outside looking in, it looks like a very romantic life,? she says. ?But it is a ton of work. Most sane people wouldn?t do it, as far as I?m concerned.? Kristin has never had a hard time reconciling her creative and practical sides, and in fiber art, she found a home for both. When she met her husband, one of their first outings was to the sheep barns where he had just taken a class in animal science. They put their passions for animals and textiles into practice right away when they bought their first four Romney sheep. Her mother says of the purchase, ?Some people get an engagement ring. Kristin gets four sheep.? As the creative director for Classic Elite Yarns, she designed knitwear, developed yarn lines and pattern collections, and helped transform the company from a small weaving-yarn distributor to a major yarn company. In her role, she selected and predicted which yarns would be most appealing to consumers and successful for yarn stores. Her own style, though, is absolutely distinctive. With bright colors and global textile inspirations, her bold designs have a folk art quality. Through her decades in the yarn industry and as a professional artist, Kristin?s work has always drawn on her love of fiber and her showplace farm. Although their flock has grown from 4 to 400, Kristin is unsentimental about the need for the farming operation to turn a profit. ?I'm a super practical person,? she says. ?I have this whole artistic vision floating around in my head, but things have got to make sense financially for me.? This means that although she has been a spinner and knitter for decades, she does not mill the wool from her sheep into yarn. With a realistic eye on the high costs and low income from wool, she and her husband have decided to focus their efforts on raising lamb. A local yarn company, Bloom Woolen Yarns, arranges to purchase the wool clip instead. These days, Kristin?s main creative outlet is her line of handpainted ceramics. She sells her pottery as well as grassfed lamb at the weekly farmer's market in Amherst, Massachusetts. She shares dispatches from her farm on her Substack newsletter. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You?ll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway?s array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you?ll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Anson County Fiber Arts Festival The Anson County Fiber Arts Festival is the place to discover the wonderful world of cotton and hemp fibers, and so much more! You?ll find fibers from animal and plant, plus a vendor hall, workshops, used equipment sale, a engaging fiber shed, and activities for the entire family. Plus, the town?s historical society will take you on a journey of the town?s deep roots as a textile town. Join them September 22-23 at their inaugural event in historic, uptown Wadesboro, North Carolina. For more information, visit ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com (https://ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com) or follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090568583693&locale=hi_IN&paipv=0&eav=AfabFyZchm6Yvmp-etfgtk3xE3IQtUfGaU4jkfFNMuOJ0UdwJ0XqIsThH9i7mFi4NtI). Links: ?Wool Production from Small Flocks of Sheep? (https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1694120595-nicholas_wool-production-from-small-flocks-of-sheep.pdf) ?How Much Is That Knitter in the Window?? (https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1694122220-nicholas_how-much-is-that-spinner-in-the-window.pdf) Spin Off Summer 1983 (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/spin-off-summer-1983-digital-edition?_pos=2&_sid=c04d222dd&_ss=r) (available free to Spin Off subscribers; see our help center (https://help.longthreadmedia.com/help/accessing-spin-off-digital-issues-via-zinio) for directions to access) Kristin Nicholas?s website (https://www.kristinnicholas.com/) PDF Patterns (https://www.kristinnicholas.com/category/knitting-pdf-patterns) Kristin?s Substack (https://kristinnicholas.substack.com/) newsletter Kristin?s colorful house (https://www.kristinnicholas.com/fun-video-of-our-house-family-and-farm) The farm and lamb business can be found at Leyden Glen Farm (http://www.leydenglenlamb.com/). Bloom Woolen Yarns (https://www.bloomwoolenyarns.com/)
2023-09-09
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Anita Luvera Mayer, Weaver of Creative Coverings (classic)

When she married her husband, "polyester kid" Anita Luvera Mayer received an extraordinary wedding gift from her mother-in-law: a loom and weaving lessons. A weaving store owner, Marcelle Mayer gave the same gift to each of her daughters-in-law. The others didn't take to it, but for Anita it was the beginning of a whole new life. Although she preferred making simple cloth to complex patterns, weaving opened the doors to meeting other fiber artists, teaching across North America, and learning to make her own clothes, beginning with a "pukey green dress" that she wore for years and kept as a teaching tool. Exploring new techniques and refining her approach, she championed the revolutionary idea that women?all women?should like what they see when they look in the mirror. Anita Luvera Mayer is an inspiration . . . and a delight. This episode was originally released in 2021. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Anson County Fiber Arts Festival The Anson County Fiber Arts Festival is the place to discover the wonderful world of cotton and hemp fibers, and so much more! You'll find fibers from animal and plant, plus a vendor hall, workshops, used equipment sale, a engaging fiber shed, and activities for the entire family. Plus, the town's historical society will take you on a journey of the town's deep roots as a textile town. Join them September 22-23 at their inaugural event in historic, uptown Wadesboro, North Carolina. For more information, visit ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com (https://ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com) or follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090568583693&locale=hi_IN&paipv=0&eav=AfabFyZchm6Yvmp-etfgtk3xE3IQtUfGaU4jkfFNMuOJ0UdwJ0XqIsThH9i7mFi4NtI).
2023-08-26
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Susan Druding, Straw into Gold (classic)

Susan Druding was a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley when she first learned to spin and weave. In the Bay Area of the 1960s, fiber interest and social tensions both ran high. Without a business plan but with a lease on a small storefront, Susan and a business partner opened Straw Into Gold, a store devoted mostly to spinning and dyeing. Spinning legend Bette Hochberg, author of Handspinner's Handbook and Spin Span Spun, was a regular, and legendary spinning wheel maker Alden Amos set up shop in the basement. Award-winning spinner Celia Quinn ran the old carding machine that they used to create rainbow batts. They became the first United States distributor of Ashford spinning wheels and equipment. Whether as a shop owner or storyteller, Susan Druding has yarns like nobody else. This episode was originally released in 2021. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Anson County Fiber Arts Festival The Anson County Fiber Arts Festival is the place to discover the wonderful world of cotton and hemp fibers, and so much more! You'll find fibers from animal and plant, plus a vendor hall, workshops, used equipment sale, a engaging fiber shed, and activities for the entire family. Plus, the town's historical society will take you on a journey of the town's deep roots as a textile town. Join them September 22-23 at their inaugural event in historic, uptown Wadesboro, North Carolina. For more information, visit ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com (https://ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com) or follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090568583693&locale=hi_IN&paipv=0&eav=AfabFyZchm6Yvmp-etfgtk3xE3IQtUfGaU4jkfFNMuOJ0UdwJ0XqIsThH9i7mFi4NtI).
2023-08-12
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Daryl Lancaster, Fearless Weaver

After you finish weaving fabric that you love and are proud of, cutting it up can be an unappealing thought. What if it falls apart? What if you make the wrong cut? What if the finished piece doesn't turn out like you picture it? For Daryl Lancaster, the challenges of transforming a handwoven fabric into a wearable garment are the real pleasure?and if problem-solving is the goal, then what looks like a problem is really a creative prompt. As she tells her students, "This is fiber. There's always a way to fix it. There's always a way to go to Plan B, and we have a really big alphabet." With decades of teaching sewing classes and a line of patterns specifically designed for handwoven fabric, you might expect her to have firm rules about what fabrics to use with which patterns, but she takes a relaxed approach. "When you sew garments, any pattern will work. You have to have the skill set to make it work right. But patterns are patterns. The hardest part is to get it to fit," she says. "Any pattern, once you get it to fit you, you can turn into a garment, as long as the fabric that you have is suitable for that silhouette. And if it's not, can you make it suitable, or should you try a different silhouette?" One of her long-term projects for Handwoven was a series of color and fabric forecasts that anticipated fashion trends. With an eye on world events, cultural happenings, and even sports schedules, she created a set of images designed to inspire weavers to move outside their traditional yarn choices. Today Pinterest and Etsy have joined the famed Pantone in making forecasts freely available, but seeing the large-scale trends interpreted for an audience of handweavers is an inspiring way to look at the industry models. In recent years, Daryl has stopped traveling to teach. Instead, she offers virtual lectures and has built a robust YouTube channel that covers general sewing and fitting as well as specific tips for working with her patterns. In her time at home, she's enjoying weaving on her 64 (!) looms, including a fleet of little eight-shaft metal Structo looms. Funny, bold, and innovative, Daryl is exploring new ways of sharing her ideas even as she enjoys the evolution of her weaving practice from business to hobby. "You know, I'm at this wonderful crossroads in my life where that part of my career on the road teaching is done," she says. "Now I'm trying to reprogram my brain that I don't have to be a teacher anymore. You know, there are new people coming on to do this. And if I've left them information on my experience for them to use, have at it." Episode show notes including photos at handwovenmagazine.com (https://handwovenmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-daryl-lancaster). This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Anson County Fiber Arts Festival The Anson County Fiber Arts Festival is the place to discover the wonderful world of cotton and hemp fibers, and so much more! You'll find fibers from animal and plant, plus a vendor hall, workshops, used equipment sale, a engaging fiber shed, and activities for the entire family. Plus, the town's historical society will take you on a journey of the town's deep roots as a textile town. Join them September 22-23 at their inaugural event in historic, uptown Wadesboro, North Carolina. For more information, visit ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com (https://ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com) or follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090568583693&locale=hi_IN&paipv=0&eav=AfabFyZchm6Yvmp-etfgtk3xE3IQtUfGaU4jkfFNMuOJ0UdwJ0XqIsThH9i7mFi4NtI). Links Daryl Lancaster's website (https://www.daryllancaster.com/) Daryl's YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmz2mYvnteUP11-LvK8-eNg/videos) Sewing patterns and digital monographs (https://www.weaversew.com/shop/) ?Handwoven Kitchen Aides: Where Have all the Aprons Gone?? Handwoven March/April 2002. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/handwoven-march-april-2002-digital-edition) ?Lose Weight, Reduce Stress.? Handwoven January/February 2002. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/handwoven-january-february-2002-digital-edition) Daryl's trend forecasting began with "Color Forecasting? in Handwoven September/October 2003 (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/handwoven-september-october-2003-digital-edition) and ran through January/February 2007 (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/handwoven-january-february-2008-digital-edition). "The Indestructible (tiny) Structo." Handwoven September/October 2017. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/handwoven-september-october-2017-digital-edition)
2023-07-29
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PieceWork Turns 30

"All This by Hand"?that's the promise of PieceWork magazine, which was first published in 1993 to honor the handwork created through the ages, mostly by women, mostly with little fanfare. "Handwork reflects peoples history, daily lives, and cultures. In this issue's stories, handwork means physical survival, personal hope, and cultural identity," said Veronica Patterson in the first issue. To celebrate where the magazine came from and what sustains us, we interviewed two delightful women: Veronica Patterson, who edited PieceWork from 1993 until 1997, and Pat Olski, who has held the post since 2022. In addition to her tenure as the magazine's editor, Veronica has been a book editor and is an accomplished, widely published poet. She has served as the first Poet Laureate of Loveland, Colorado. Pat has been a knitwear designer, authored several needlework books, and taught knitting and embroidery. PieceWork's 30th anniversary issue appears in newsstands and inboxes in July. Check the PieceWork website (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/) for anniversary celebrations as well as for images and show notes. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links PieceWork magazine (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/) PieceWork indexes (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/piecework-indexes/) Cannarella, Deborah. "The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire." PieceWork September/October 1993. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/piecework-september-october-1993-ep7069) Faubion, Trish. "The Amish and the Hmong: Two Cultures and One Quilt." PieceWork November/December 1993. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/piecework-november-december-1993-digtial-edition) Norris, John. "The Rare Art of Birch Bark Biting." PieceWork September/October 1993. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/piecework-september-october-1993-ep7069)
2023-07-15
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Sarah Swett, Fiber Artist & Adventurer

Don't try to put Sarah Swett in a box?if you do, she might just weave a bag on it. (https://handwovenmagazine.com/inspiration-everywhere-handspun-yarn-tapestry-weaving/) Growing up on the East Coast, Sarah found herself more enchanted with knitting sweaters from farm yarn than the traditional college track. She spent her young adulthood as a ranch hand and cook in Montana and Idaho, where she brought her yarn in by pack mule. She fell in love with the Palouse region of western Idaho for its rolling hills and agricultural bounty, settled there, and began to explore the possibilities of home. She is as inspired by the sweeping landscape as by the tiny discoveries of making cordage from milkweed and dandelion she finds in her garden. When Melanie Falick featured Sarah in her 1996 book Knitting in America, she was equally enchanted with knitting, spinning, and weaving; she also pursues stitching and dyeing. Aside from a few years when injury kept her from knitting, it has been a constant companion, and she handspins nearly all of the yarn she uses for both knitting and weaving. But Sarah's most important craft is fiber play: weaving grocery lists into monumental tapestries, weaving iris-leaf cordage into tiny fringeless tapestry book covers, creating balanced plain-weave strips on backstrap looms, and sketching comics of a squirrel and crow weaving those bags around cardboard boxes. Sarah's tapestries have appeared in dozens of exhibitions, but she prefers not to stray far from home herself. Her Substack newsletter gives readers a weekly peek into her intriguing imagined and real worlds. What she most hopes to share, though, is not her playful approach to her life and art, but permission for others to explore their own. "I would like everyone to be enchanted by their life," she says, "and I would like them to be enchanted by what they're enchanted by?not what I'm enchanted by." It hardly seems possible not to be enchanted by Sarah's work, even if it ultimately inspires us just to get out and play. Visit the Long Thread Podcast website (https://longthreadmedia.com/podcast). Find the show notes with photos on the Little Looms website (https://littlelooms.com/long-thread-podcast-sarah-swett). This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Peters Valley School of Craft Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector?and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (http://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today! Links Sarah Swett's website (https://www.afieldguidetoneedlework.com/) The Gusset (https://sarahcswett.substack.com/) is Sarah's weekly Substack newsletter Fringeless: Four Selvedge Warping (https://rebeccamezoff.com/fringeless), Sarah's class with Rebecca Mezoff Wild Textiles by Alice Fox (https://www.alicefox.co.uk/) Lurie-Larochette Tapestries (http://www.lurie-larochettetapestries.com/) Velma Bolyard (https://www.velmabolyard.com/aboutme), paper textile artist Susan Martin Maffei (https://susanmartinmaffei.com), tapestry artist Michael Rohde (https://www.michaelrohde.com), tapestry artist Archie Brennan: Tapestry as Modern Art (https://schifferbooks.com/products/archie-brennan) Melanie Falick discusses Kids Weaving and Knitting in America in Season 6 of the Long Thread Podcast (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-melanie-falick/) Sarah's fully illustrated guides (https://www.afieldguidetoneedlework.com/store/c2/Guides.html) range from storytelling to practical design direction
2023-07-01
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Clara Parkes, Bestselling Author and Wool Promoter

Clara Parkes became many knitters' guiding light and best friend when she launched Knitter's Review in 2000. One of the early standouts in the early online knitting landscape, the site developed a devoted following for its in-depth, objective yarn reviews and lively forums. Several years after the site's inception, she began writing books, starting with The Knitter's Book of Yarn, which was followed by The Knitter's Book of Wool and The Knitter's Book of Socks. As she explored the yarn industry, Clara carefully maintained a journalist's independence, taking readers along with her as she learned how the yarns we love come to be. After her first three books, which were large-format, full-color, and featured a number of designs, her following works have been memoirs of her literal and metaphorical travels or in-depth narratives reporting about the yarn world. In 2012, she launched the Great White Bale, a combination small-batch yarn experiment and behind-the-scenes tour of the remaining American wool industry, for which she purchased a very special bale of wool and reported on its progress through the process of becoming yarn. In recent years, she has created several online communities: The Wool Channel, which is devoted to celebrating wool, and The Daily Respite, which offers a moment of wonder and calm each morning. Clara invites knitters and readers to join her in exploring the ways in which wool is a force for good in the world, and how crafters can join in its support. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Peters Valley School of Craft Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector?and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (http://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today! Links Visit Clara Parkes's website (https://claraparkes.com/) for her books, events, and latest projects. Follow Clara on Instagram @claraparkes (https://www.instagram.com/claraparkes/) The Wool Channel (https://www.thewoolchannel.com/) is a community, publication, and platform devoted to promoting and educating about the benefits of wool. The Daily Respite (https://dailyrespite.substack.com/) is Clara's Substack offering a moment of wonder and reflection each morning.
2023-06-17
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Lisa Mitchell Lives a Fiber Life?with Guanacos

After decades as an art therapist in suburban Sacramento, Lisa Mitchell and her husband, Greg Hudson, were ready for a radical life change. In her rewarding but exhausting career, Lisa spent her days harnessing the power of art and handwork to heal others, but she had little time to do it herself. Their concrete-jungle surroundings felt stifling. It was time for a radical, meaningful life change, one that would bring them more in touch with real materials, real experiences, real presence. They found a farm property in Whidbey Island, Washington, a fiber nexus for weavers, spinners, small mills, and small farms. And they set out in search of the right animals for their fiber farm. At the Lambtown Festival in Dixon, Greg found them: a mother guanaco and chulengo (baby). Guanacos are probably the least known camelid, the wild ancestor of llamas domesticated in the Andes thousands of years ago. Llamas are not uncommon in North America as pack, fiber, and guard animals, and although not cuddly, they have been bred for generations to be handled and interact with humans. Guanacos have not. Even the descendants of guanacos brought to United States zoos in the 1960s retain the wild nature of their Andean relatives. And unlike their cousins the vicuñas, who have similar huge dark eyes and coat distribution, guanacos are big. Greg and Lisa found themselves with a herd of animals tall enough to look them straight in the eye... but who really don't want to, thank you very much. Raising guanacos has challenged the couple in more ways than they could have expected, but the lessons learned in the barn and on the farm have brought Greg and Lisa the very real and present life they had hoped to create. Besides the guanacos, they raise pygora goats and angora rabbits on the farm, and a friend raises a small flock of colored Merinos on their behalf. "So, now we raise animals for their fiber and make things with what they grow," Lisa says. "And I write about the discoveries we make along the way." Find photos and show notes at the Spin Off Magazine website (https://spinoffmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-lisa-mitchell). This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Peters Valley School of Craft Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector?and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (http://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today! Links Lisa and Greg's Whidbey Island farm is called Aliento Farm (https://afiberlife.com/about/). Lisa shares lessons she's learned from her flock at A Fiber Life Podcast. (https://afiberlife.com/podcast/) Aliento Farm will hold their second Guanaco Spinning Experience (https://afiberlife.com/spinning-experience-workshop/) farm retreat workshop on August 26, 2023. Shop for spinning fiber, yarn, and finished guanaco items at the farm's online shop. (https://afiberlife.com/spinning-experience-workshop/). Follow the farm on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/afiberlife/) for visits with the animals, yarns, natural dyes, and to watch for new chulengos (baby guanacos).
2023-06-03
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Rangina Hamidi, Kandahar Treasure

Wanting to help the women in her native country called Rangina Hamidi back to Afghanistan. Through the khamak embroidery they have practiced for generations, Kandahar Treasure supports women making a living with their needles. Rangina Hamidi's parents and sisters left Afghanistan whe she was a child in the early 1980s, during the war with the Soviet Union, eventually settling in Virginia. She had recently finished her bachelor's degree in religious studies and women's studies when the attacks of September 11, 2001, suddenly turned the world's attention to the country where she was born. As images of covered Afghan women and calls to liberate the country focused the attention of military and political leaders, Rangina felt the pull to do what the whole world said must be done: help the women of Afghanistan. And so 20 years after her family left the country, she found herself drawn back to the city where she still had relatives, in the middle of another war. Although she has pursued crafts and fiber arts for pleasure, Rangina mostly knew about khamak embroidery from seeing it embellishing her mother's clothes. Khamak involves tiny satin stitches in intricate geometric designs that echo the tile work of traditional Islamic architecture. It is the traditional art form of women in Kandahar, a counted thread technique worked freehand over fine plain-weave cloth. A set of khamak linens is an absolute requirement for a bridal trousseau and baby garments, and women often embroider wraps and tunics for men in their families, home textiles, and special occasion outfits. Khamak is one of the few ways that women have been able to earn money in this conservative region, whether restricted by laws or cultural norms. So when Rangina was looking for a development opportunity to help the women of Kandahar, khamak was the natural fit. In 2008, Rangina founded Kandahar Treasure, a social enterprise run by and for the benefit of women in the Kandahar region. Kandahar Treasure not only helps women find markets for their work, it also helps raise the quality of the pieces and pays on completion--especially important when transportation and financial structures can be slow. After founding Kandahar Treasure, and with a young daughter, Rangina was one of the founders of an international school in Kabul. She was serving as the school's principal when President Ashraf Ghani appointed her the country's Minister of Education, a post she held until the fall of the Republic in August 2021. When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021, it seemed that Kandahar Treasure might be one of the casualties. Remarkably, the organization continues to operate, providing work and payment for women artisans. You can purchase their khamak pieces from several web stores and at the 2023 International Folk Art Market. Rangina currently lives with her family in Arizona, where she teaches at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. To see photos of Rangina and khamak embroidery, visit the PieceWork Magazine website. (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-rangina-hamidi/). This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Kandahar Treasure (https://kandahartreasure.com/) Embroidering Within Boundaries: Afghan Women Creating a Future (https://schifferbooks.com/products/embroidering-within-boundaries) by Rangina Hamidi and Mary Littrell Kandahar Treasure products at Ibu Movement (https://ibumovement.com/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage%2Ccollection&q=afghanistan) Kandahar Treasure products at Global Goods Partners (https://globalgoodspartners.org/collections/kandahar-treasure-afghanistan) Kandahar Treasure will take part in the International Folk Art Market (https://folkartmarket.org/) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from July 6?9, 2023.
2023-05-20
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Josefin Waltin: Swedish Spinning Revival

Venturing to a frozen lake in mid-winter, Josefin Waltin does something remarkable: She breaks the ice with a hatchet and climbs into the frigid water. And unlike an ice-bucket-challenge or polar bear dip, she does this every morning. With her head, feet, and hands covered in handspun wool knitwear, she looks pretty happy doing it, too. Although not everyone will take a dip in subzero temperatures, anyone who does should definitely wear wool for the adventure. Josefin is a spinner, knitter, and fiber artist who has made the decision to primarily use heritage breeds of Swedish sheep. Although these 10 heritage breeds are unique to Sweden, the story of local sheep disappearing in favor of softer, uniform imported wool is shared across the fiber world. Using these breeds not only preserves her cultural heritage but also helps her craft more sustainably. Besides using heritage breeds of wool, she practices traditional (almost endangered) Swedish crafts such as twined or two-end knitting (tvåändsstickning) and nålbinding. They are slow processes. As Josefin says, "That's a superpower." But drawing on the fiber world around her doesn't mean her interests are provincial. In one recent project, she combined the fleece of a Gestrike-breed ewe with a traditional knitting pattern from the High Atlas Mountains of Morroco. Using a Navajo-style spindle, she spun two colors of yarn and knitted them into a pair of warm snow-shoveling pants. Josefin is exploring fiber traditions besides spinning, knitting, and looping. Her annual wool traveling club is starting a two-year exploration of fulling, planning to visit a water-powered fulling mill and process their own handspun, handwoven fabric. Last year's traveling club exploration took them to the small village of Dala-Floda to learn påsöm embroidery, a rich and even bombastic embellishment tradition. (A wool traveling club sounds like a very good thing to have.) Through her online classes and explorations of the world of wool, Josefin inspires me to learn globally and spin locally. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Josefin Waltin's website (https://waltin.se/josefinwaltinspinner/) Josefin's Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/josefinwaltin/) Knit Spin Sweden (https://store.bookbaby.com/book/knit-spin-sweden) by Sara Wolf and Josefin Waltin Keepers of the Sheep: Knitting in Morocco?s High Atlas and Beyond (https://106metersfromtheroad.com/2021/05/08/keepers-of-the-sheep-knitting-in-moroccos-high-atlas-and-beyond-2/) by Irene Waggener
2023-05-06
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Mary Zicafoose, Ikat Fiber Artist

The resist-dye technique known as ikat involves wrapping individual threads in careful patterns, dyeing them, and then using the dyed threads as warp, weft, or both. With care and what Mary Zicafoose describes as a lot of fussing, the woven fabric displays a pre-planned design?geometric or figurative, crisp or feathery, multicolored or two-tone. This technique is time-consuming and labor-intensive, but the results are beautiful in ways unique to each of the textile traditions that practice it. Mary Zicafoose first encountered ikat as a child, when her favorite aunt brought her a souvenir scrap of the fabric and told her it contained magic. Even when you know the painstaking and nonmagical process that weavers use to create ikat fabrics, her aunt's comment rings true: there is something charmed about the patterns that emerge in ikat, jaspe, pochampally, and other resist-dye-weave fabrics. Mary made her way toward ikat tapestry through her studies in other visual arts. Despite initially being insulted when a college professor suggested she consider working in fibers, she eventually found her passion in weaving and dyeing. She taught herself to weave ikat through a pamphlet and gradually pushed the limits of the technique, creating more complex and intricate designs. In her studio practice, Mary creates stunning large-format weft-ikat tapestries, some requiring years of planning and weaving (and tens of thousands of knots). Beginning the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, she conceived a project in a new style: a huge landscape of the Sandhill Crane bird migration near her home on the Platte River in Nebraska. In addition to her studio practice, Mary also loves to teach weavers the fundamentals of ikat. Her teaching approach involves breaking down the process into manageable steps?some very different from standard weaving practice! Her first book, Ikat: The Essential Handbook to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth, was written for a broad audience of weavers, with the aim of teaching a technique and encouraging people to apply it to their own signature style of weaving. Focusing on warp ikat, the book presents a step-by-step approach to a technique that she learned through trial and error. She is currently working on a companion book to go deeper into many different types of projects and build on skill sets. The Seattle Art Museum's major exhibit of historic and contemporary ikat textiles that will be open through May 29, 2023. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Mary Zicafoose's website (https://www.maryzicafoose.com/) Mary's first book, Ikat: The Essential Handbook to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth (https://www.maryzicafoose.com/book.html) Mary's class offerings (https://www.maryzicafoose.com/workshops.html) Ikat: A World of Compelling Cloth (https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/exhibitions/ikat) runs through May 29 at the Seattle Art Museum. (https://www.seattleartmuseum.org/)
2023-04-22
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Melanie Falick, Making a Life

The treasure in a handmade life isn?t just mastering skills and making goods, Melanie Falick says?it?s the power in creation, connection, and expression along the way. When Melanie Falick started to knit as a young adult, she fell in love with everything about it: the creative potential of yarn and color, the meditative process, the useful finished product, the community of fellow makers, and the stories it can tell us about lives past and present. She has spent the years since then sharing her passion for knitting, and handwork generally, through roles as an author, editor, and creative director. Her books and creative collaborations all reflect her belief that craft is a pathway to wellness for all of us?as individuals, community members, and citizens of this planet. Melanie would like us to celebrate what we make with our hands with pride. Through the process of craft, she says, we can connect to our ancestors, our environment, the people around us, and our inner selves. And when we share our skills and enthusiasm, we can help to bring more beauty, contentment, and empathy into the world. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.
2023-04-08
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Kerstin Neumüller Carves, Weaves, Spins, and Mends

Admiring the simplicity of traditional bandweaving, Kerstin Neumüller took her love of weaving a step further and learned to carve small, sweet rigid heddles. She was startled to find a big demand for her handmade, handpainted heddles, which sell out as soon as she posts a new batch. With formal training as an apprentice in menswear tailoring, Kerstin's love for textiles is a lifelong passion. As owner of a denim store that offered repair services, her creative approach to mending clothing provided a way to blend her craft with her business. Her first two books, Indigo ? Cultivate, Dye, Create and Mend & Patch, grew from this overlapping interest. But although she has a longstanding love of weaving, her heddles came from the urge to literally take matters into her own hands. Growing up in Sweden as the granddaughter of craftspeople fed Kerstin's strong value of self-sufficiency. Using a simple, traditional woodworking knife with a piece of natural wood, could she fashion the weaving tool she needed to make a band? But if that sounds too earnest to be fun, Kerstin's heddles have a thorough and delightful dose of whimsy to keep them from being too serious. Recent heddle designs have included horses, houses, pomegranates, and women. Although she receives more inquiries about buying heddles than she ever expected, Kerstin resists the idea of taking orders or commissions. She announces when a batch will be ready through her store, and when they're gone, they're gone. Working at her own pace lets her keep experimenting and following the direction of her creativity. Her new book, Simple Weave, offers instructions on how to make a variety of tools in addition to weaving project directions for bands, household goods, and desk accessories. The appendix includes diagrams and materials lists for a carved heddle, a cardboard heddle, a homemade temple (stretcher), a backstrap loom, and a frame loom. Visit the Long Thread Podcast website (https://longthreadmedia.com/podcast). Links Kerstin Neumüller's website (https://www.kerstinneumuller.com/) Kerstin's books, Simple Weave, Mend & Patch, and Indigo, are all available in the United States from the Vesterheim Museum (https://store.vesterheim.org/search?type=product&q=kerstin+neumuller) Kerstin posts about her carving, weaving, and available heddles on her Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/kerstin.neumuller/) This episode is brought to you by: You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.
2023-03-25
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Peggy Orenstein, author, Unraveling

Life lessons are where you find them. Peggy Orenstein found them in her quest to build a sweater from scratch. When I say that Peggy created a sweater from scratch, I mean wrestling a sheep to the ground and relieving it of its wool. Carding said wool by hand while Zooming with her father, who sometimes knew who she was. Spinning that lovely fluff, with all the typical push-pull-stop-go of a beginning spinner. Dyeing the yarn with colors from her backyard and beyond. After that, knitting the sweater was a breeze, sort of. (And despite the title of her book, Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater, it?s definitely not the world?s ugliest.) But there were more lessons to be taken from this year-long odyssey. Lessons about fast fashion, regenerative agriculture, ancient goddesses, a planet at risk. The list goes on. The handmade thread, metaphorical or physical, ties together our human history, not neatly but with complicated and important entanglements. Unraveling is not a how-to book. If you know much about any of the steps in the process of turning wool into wardrobe, you will smile or sometimes wince at the author?s fearless approach. But so much to think about! She gives us so much to think about! Visit the Long Thread Podcast website (https://longthreadmedia.com/podcast). Links Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World's Ugliest Sweater (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/unraveling-peggy-orenstein?variant=40967065075746) "The Revolutionary Power of a Skein of Yarn" (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/opinion/sunday/knitting-fabric-michelle-obama.html) , New York Times, January 27, 2023 peggyorenstein.com (https://www.peggyorenstein.com/) This episode is brought to you by: You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.
2023-03-11
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Lynda Teller Pete, Navajo Weaver

In 2010, Lynda Teller Pete was living in Denver with her husband Belvin, working full-time in a demanding government job in the Department of Labor, living the life on a modern urban Indian, doing a little weaving in her spare time. Then she pivoted. Quit the job and sat down at her loom and made the commitment to return to her roots. With her older sister, Barbara Teller Ornelas, Lynda began teaching weaving classes and producing award-winning tapestries. In 2017, the two of them wrote Spider Woman?s Children: Navajo Weavers Today. They followed this with How to Weave a Navajo Rug and Other Lessons from Spider Woman, both published by Thrums Books/Schiffer Publications. And at the same time, Lynda collaborated on another book for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and she curated exhibits and lectured across the country. She and Barbara were featured in a segment of the PBS series Craft in America. She keeps a full teaching schedule, including classes for Navajos only as well as more culturally focused classes for non-indigenous students. In 2022 she was elected to the board position for Equity and Inclusion by the prestigious Textile Society of America, and in the same year she was recipient of a Luce Foundation fellowship for Indigenous Knowledge, which will result in the translation of How to Weave a Navajo Rug into her native language. Her list of accomplishments and responsibilities goes on and on. And yet most any night, late into the night, you would find Lynda at her loom, rhythmically beating the pattern wefts into place in yet another tapestry. For after all, night is when the spider does its work. Visit the Long Thread Podcast website (https://longthreadmedia.com/podcast). This episode is brought to you by: You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas's website (https://navajorugweavers.com) How to Weave a Navajo Rug (https://schifferbooks.com/products/how-to-weavenavajo-rug) by Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas Spider Woman's Children (https://schifferbooks.com/products/spider-womans-children) by Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas The Tellers on Craft in America (https://www.craftinamerica.org/artist/lynda-teller-pete) Textile Society of America (https://textilesocietyofamerica.org/) Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellowships 2022 (https://www.firstnations.org/2022-luce-indigenous-knowledge-fellows/)
2023-02-25
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Meg Swansen, Knitting Maven

In Meg Swansen?s world, knitting is so much more than knit and purl. It links music, mathematics, deep history, and world-wide communities. It is a platform for creativity, invention, and technical mastery. Music, you say? That?s how Meg proceeds merrily along a pattern round of several hundred stitches. She sings the repeat. Or at least chants it. And those long, long pattern rounds comprise her favorite kind of knitting: color-stranded Fair Isle designs. The interplay of color and motif and deep tradition are of endless interest to her. Mathematics are integral to the craft, too, in Meg?s world. Her mother?s famous EPS, Elizabeth?s Percentage System, has empowered generations of knitters to devise their own patterns to suit their own gauges and their own body measurements. Now Meg?s son Cully has taken the concept to a new level, riffing off the famous Baby Surprise Jacket with new formulae to suit almost infinite sizes, shapes, and styles. It seems to be a family thing. Impeccable technique matters to Meg, not just for its own sake but for the stories it tells of knitters in far-flung countries and cultures. She?s introduced the knitting world to the traditions of Latvia, Armenia, Estonia, Iceland, the Scandinavian countries, the list goes on and on. And it?s not just the motifs and styles of these cultures, but the ways of working, the ways of tending to details, that have been refined over many generations, even centuries. Meg has added her own tricks, too, and takes great pleasure in all the difference a simple slip of a needle-tip makes in her signature increase. From her cozy, iconic Red Schoolhouse in the Wisconsin woods, Meg reflects on the hundreds of individual knitters who have come to the annual knitting camp that her mother started in 1974. So much sharing, learning, and teaching have come from these gatherings, and Meg is careful to credit the individuals that have made special contributions. While the camp happens only in the summer, it provides the spirit for a vast community that connects through her semi-annual newsletters, occasional book launches, teaching forays, and social media posts. So much more than knit and purl. This episode is brought to you by: Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Schoolhouse Press (https://www.schoolhousepress.com/) "The Long Thread" article featuring Meg Swansen can be found in PieceWork Spring 2023 (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/piecework-spring-2023)
2023-02-11
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Emily Nicolaides, Amazing Circular Weaving

When you think about circular weaving, you may flashback to weaving on a paper plate or cardboard using simple materials and methods. But artist and weaver Emily Nicolaides has taken circular weaving by storm, opening up the technique to include a new world of richness, beauty, and complexity. In 2016, Emily began exploring shaped tapestry weaving and the possibilities and limitations of weaving in the round. She started with a simple arch and then developed more complex shapes, such as ovals, eventually finding herself back to weaving circles. In the years that followed, she tested many weaving methods to see how they could apply to circular weaving. She often discovered what worked (and did not) through trial and error. Her years of research and teaching her techniques landed her a book deal. Her book, Amazing Circular Weaving, came out in September 2022. In this episode, Emily shares how weaving grounded her; how warp and weft coming together to create fabric mirrors how she brings herself and her knowledge together to make unique pieces. Host Anne Merrow connected with her at her home on the island of Cyprus and talked about her love of books, research, and the lineage and history we all take part in while weaving. This episode is brought to you by: You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links See Emily Nicolaides? website (https://www.emilynicolaides.com/) for information on her, and her book, Amazing Circular Weaving. You can find the tapestry weaving series, ?Tapestry Talk,? by Tommye Scanlin in the Summer 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2022, and Spring 2023 issues of Easy Weaving with Little Looms. Emily mentions The Handweaver?s Pattern Directory by Anne Dixon, and Shaped Tapestry by Kathe Todd-Hooker, as two of her favorite resources. Learn more about fythkiotiko (the famous colorful patterns from the village of Fyti) at https://heartlandoflegends.com/fythkiotika/ (https://heartlandoflegends.com/fythkiotika/).
2023-01-28
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Linda Ligon, Publisher

More than spinning, weaving, stitching, or any of the other crafts she's written and published about, Linda Ligon is fascinated by the people who make traditional textiles. From Peruvian spinners to Miao embroiderers to Navajo weavers, the people who make cloth the way their ancestors did have a special interest for her. Many of the people who know Linda Ligon's work don't know her by name (which is just fine with her). Linda founded Interweave in 1975, and it went on to become a craft juggernaut. After selling the company, she founded Thrums Books, which published highly illustrated, immersive books about traditional textiles around the world. She cofounded Long Thread Media in 2019, bringing three of her original publications (Spin Off, Handwoven, and PieceWork) home. Bringing together textiles, stories, words, and images is Linda's life work?but she never loses her fascination for one person in particular: the reader. This episode is brought to you by: You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Thrums Books (https://www.schiffercraft.com/search?type=product&q=thrums+product_type:Craft) Long Thread Media (https://longthreadmedia.com/)
2023-01-14
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Liz Sytsma & Theresa Hill, Wild Hand

Most stores don't invite passersby to walk up to their shop, open a door, and help themselves?no obligation, no purchase required. But not long after opening new new yarn store in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, Liz Sytsma hung a box on the side of the store labeled "Little Free Fiber Library." Inspired by the give a book, take a book model of the Little Free Library, Wild Hand wanted to create a place where anyone who wanted or needed yarn could obtain it freely. Instead of viewing the fiber library as competing with the shop's sales, the Wild Hand team views it as an opportunity to bring new crafters into the fold, make yarn accessible to all, and participate in their community. Liz left the nonprofit world to open Wild Hand in 2019, wanting to build a a yarn store that would promote the kind of community she wanted to see: inclusive, diverse, thoughtful, kind. She gathered a team to work together as managers, teaching artists, and colleagues who share a dedication to building the kind of yarn shop where everyone who comes through the door can feel welcome and valued. One of the first projects of Wild Hand was the Community Commitment, a list of 11 principles that guide everything from purchasing decisions to customer service. One of Liz's first collaborators was Theresa Hill, a spinner, teacher, independent dyer, and nurse. Theresa serves as one of the managers of Wild Hand, where she enjoys feeding the creativity and skills of the shop's customers. She appreciates the way Wild Hand encourages customers and staff members alike to be fully themselves in the space, free to be silly, make mistakes, and feel welcome. In addition to a storefront in Philadelphia, Wild Hand has included an online store since early days, too. When COVID-19 closed the shop's physical doors and the operation shifted entirely online for a time, the Community Commitment kept right up: Liz prioritized accessibility on the website, too, and even the Little Free Fiber Library is available to online customers (who cover the cost of shipping). Although neighborhood roots are important, Wild Hand invites everyone to be part of their fiber community. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links: Wild Hand website (https://wild-hand.com/) Ewe-Nited States of Fiber (https://www.ewe-nitedstatesoffiber.com/)
2022-12-10
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Marcia Young, Schiffer Craft

Marcia Young started her craft publishing journey by accident, with a newsletter and website for her local quilt guild. With small children at home, she fit in writing around the edges, until almost overnight she saw an opportunity for a new magazine devoted to fiber arts. Fiber Art Now and the Fiber Art Network began at Marcia?s kitchen table, and she published it quarterly for nearly a decade. Eventually Marcia was ready for a new challenge, and she realized that Fiber Art Now was ready for a new direction, too. The publication joined with Quiltfolk, a quarterly magazine devoted to the rich community of American quilting. With her first publishing love in a good new home, Marcia found herself exploring a new medium of her own: book publishing. Schiffer Publishing is an independent publishing company whose craft list includes weaving and fiber arts titles (including Thrums Books, a group of titles about international textile traditions founded by Linda Ligon). As the Imprint Lead for Schiffer Craft, Marcia?s charges include a range of traditional arts such as leather, clay, and paper. Schiffer?s goal, Marcia says, is to be a valued partner in the lives of makers. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Schiffer Craft (https://www.schiffercraft.com/) In Search of Wild Silk (https://www.schiffercraft.com/products/in-search-of-wild-silk-exploring-a-village-industry-in-the-jungles-of-india) by Karen Selk Deep Color (https://schifferbooks.com/products/deep-color-the-shades-that-shape-our-souls) by Keith Recker Create Naturally (https://www.schiffercraft.com/products/create-naturally-go-outside-and-rediscover-nature-with-15-makers) by Marcia Young Thrums Books (https://www.schiffercraft.com/search?type=product&q=thrums+product_type:Craft) Fiber Art Now (https://www.fiberartnow.net/) "Spinning Paper Thread" (https://spinoffmagazine.com/spinning-paper-thread-in-ghana/) by Mary Hark explores papermaking in Ghana. "Redefining the Paper Towel" (https://handwovenmagazine.com/notes-from-the-fell-redefining-the-paper-towel/) by Tom Knisely approaches paper and weaving from a new angle.
2022-11-26
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Jeanne Carver, Shaniko Wool Company

More than 100 years have passed since Shaniko, Oregon, went from "Wool Capital of the World" to forgotten spur of the Union Pacific Railway. A dozen miles from Shaniko, R.R. Hinton was the area's largest producer of sheep and wool at his Imperial Stock Ranch, raising Columbia sheep for meat and wool. When Dan and Jeanne Carver bought the Imperial Stock Ranch in the 1980's, they established a conservation plan?not something many working farms did at the time, but something that Dan saw as vitally important. To preserve the water and soil of their thousands of acres, the Carvers turned to unexpected partners: the cattle and sheep who grazed their high desert land. Sheep have a reputation for damaging the ecosystem by overgrazing, but Dan and Jeanne believed that careful stewardship through intensive rotational grazing, humane predator management, and water conservation could bring grazing animals back in balance with the landscape. In 2017, the Carvers accepted a challenge to become the first ranch certified under the Responsible Wool Standard, which establishes criteria for the welfare of sheep, ecosystem, and working conditions used to produce the wool. As consumer demand for sustainably produced wool grew, the Carvers founded Shaniko Wool Company to join with other family ranches in obtaining RWS certification and delivering ethically and ecologically sound wool. Shaniko Wool comprises ten ranches whose practices are independently audited. Based on the environmental benefits she witnessed, Jeanne was certain that the sheep and their agricultural practices were a net benefit to the natural world, but over the past several years, she has taken steps to prove it. Through measurements of the soil and audits of their emissions, Shaniko Wool Company has documented that their ranching operations offset tons of greenhouse gas emissions by capturing tons of carbon in the soil. Listening to Jeanne Carver talk about her family's goals and results for their ranch offers an inspiring message for those of us who love wool and ecosystem conservation: with careful management, sheep can be an undeniable force for good. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Shaniko Wool Company (https://shanikowoolcompany.com/) Responsible Wool Standard (https://textileexchange.org/responsible-wool-standard/) Textile Exchange (https://textileexchange.org/) Stories of Stories of Fashion, Textiles, and Place (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/stories-of-fashion-textiles-and-place-9781350136335/) by Leslie Davis Burns and Jeanne Carver Imperial Stock Ranch website (https://imperialstockranch.com/) Pacific Northwest Fibershed: Imperial Stock Ranch (video) (https://imperialstockranch.com/2018/02/1004/) Nativa Precious Fiber/Chargeurs (https://www.chargeurs.com/les-metiers/luxury-materials/nativa-precious-fiber/?lang=en)
2022-11-12
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Catharine Ellis, Woven Shibori & Natural Dye

Catharine Ellis loved planning weaving projects, but once the warp was on the loom and the design decisions made, much of the discovery was over: with decades of experience, she knew pretty well what the finished project would be. She wasn't bored, exactly, but ready for a new direction in her weaving. Taking a class with shibori master Yoshiko Wada, she was intrigued by the way carefully placed stitches could be drawn up into pleats that became a dye resist. The traditional method does require a lot of stitching, though. Was there a way to combine the techniques and tools of handweaving with the concepts of shibori? That question became the basis for decades of sampling, exploration, and collaboration. Exactly what a woven shibori project will look like is only revealed when the gathering threads are removed, so there is an element of suspense until the entire process of weaving, crimping, and dyeing are complete. With a retirement from her longtime teaching position pending, Catharine began to consider her dye practice. The school's dye facilities?and waste water infrastructure?would be inaccessible, so her dye process would need to take a rural water supply and septic tank system into account. In classes with natural dye master Michel Garcia and collaborations with Joy Boutrup, she honed her skills in creating a range of natural colors on cellulose fabrics, especially cotton, which are considered especially difficult to dye. Her second book, The Art and Sciece of Natural Dyes with Joy Boutrup, has become the essential resource for predictable, safe, colorfast natural dyeing. Catharine Ellis's artistic practice and teaching link traditional textile practices with contemporary innovation. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1659137902-handweaving-net-logo-large-300dpi.jpg Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! TreenwaySilks logo //www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1656653452-treenwaysilks_logo.png You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links: [The Art and Sciece of Natural Dyes](https://schifferbooks.com/products/art-science-of-natural-dyes) Woven Shibori (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/629067/the-weavers-studio---woven-shibori-by-catharine-ellis/). The Studio Formulas Set for The Art and Science of Natural Dyes : 84 Cards with Recipes and Color Swatches (https://schifferbooks.com/products/the-art-and-science-of-natural-dyes) (publishing in 2023) Catharine Ellis website (https://www.ellistextiles.com/) The Dyer's Handbook: Memoirs of an 18th-Century Master Colourist (https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-dyer-s-handbook.html) Yoshiko Wada (https://yoshikowada.com/)
2022-10-29
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Avani Varia, Cultural Heritage Entrepreneur

The charkha is so important in the traditions of India that Mohandas K. Gandhi proposed placing it at the center of the national flag. The wheel can signify economic independence, mindful practice, and national identity, yet the number of practicing handspinners and even people who know how to spin has dwindled. Born into a family of traditional potters, Avani Varia's work has always involved the preservation of traditional crafts in India. Yet she carried around a box charkha for years before learning to spin on it. She was surprised to learn that her mother had learned charkha spinning as an essential part of her school curriculum. Wanting to make charkha spinning a joyful, approachable pursuit, she began organizing events under the name "Chalo Charkha Ramiye," which translates roughly to "Let's have fun with charkha spinning." She wrote a book by the same name that teaches techniques of charkha spinning, box charkha maintenance, and the historical importance of the tool. Avani has found a receptive audience for her easygoiong charkha lessons, even making a splash at birthday parties. Behind the fun, though, are serious pursuits. To keep handspinning growing, handspinning teachers need to be trained?and find paying work. On the production side, the handful of traditional spinners throughout the country might be able to find an eager market for their handcrafted, sustainable yarns if they had the business infrastructure (or even mobile phones) to connect them with buyers. With Yarn Spinners Guild India, Avani is working to establish connections between handspinners and buyers in India and abroad. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Avani Varia (http://avnivaria.com/) Chalo Charkha Ramiye (http://avnivaria.com/projects/chalo-charkho-ramiye/) Yarn Makers Guild India (http://avnivaria.com/projects/yarn-makers-guild-india/) Devin Helmen, "Book review: Chalo Charkha Ramiye, A Contemporary Charkha Movement" (https://spinoffmagazine.com/chalo-charkho-ramiye-a-contemporary-charkha-movement/) Avani Varia, "Spinning Arts, Education and Economy in India" (https://spinoffmagazine.com/spinning-arts-education-and-economy-in-india/) Anne Merrow, Mahatma Gandhi's Charkha in Michigan (https://spinoffmagazine.com/mahatma-gandhi-s-charkha-in-michigan/)
2022-10-15
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Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, Thangka Appliqué Artist

Planning to spend a few months traveling around South Asia, Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo unexpectedly found herself in search of a teacher and workshop where she could learn the process of making stitched thangka. On a tour of Tibetan businesses as part of her work for the Tibetan Central Authority (also called the Tibetan Government-in-exile), she saw artisans using silk fabric, horsehair, and silk thread to stich images of divine or inspiring figures. In Tibetan tradition, fabric artworks often depict the embodiment of Buddhist ideals in a form linked with meditation and reverence. Painted silk thangka are easier to find, both as finished pieces and in workshops, but the stitched form known as göchen thangka is rare even in the city where the Dalai Lama lives. Thangka are both textile tradition and spiritual objects, with roots stretching back a thousand years. Leslie's apprenticeship was a deep immersion into Tibetan culture. With serious commitment to learning the art as well as participating in the Tibetan community, she found a place in a working atelier, first making small pieces and later collaborating on larger elements of the large silk pieces. As they worked, she could sometimes hear the bells or traffic that marked the Dalai Lama's travels from and returns to his home temple. Often called appliqué, göchen thangka are not composed of pieces of fabric laid over a ground cloth. Instead, the elements of the design are cut individually and pieced together, with silk-wrapped horsehair forming outlines between pieces. The result is a supple, subtlely textured image. Leslie writes about her journey and her artwork in her new book, Threads of Awakening, (https://threadsofawakening.com/book/) which was published in 2022. An excerpt from the book will appear in PieceWork Spring 2023. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links: Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo's website (https://threadsofawakening.com/) _Editor?s note: _In an earlier version of this episode, I made a statement that ignored the complexity, richness, and variety of spiritual practice through handcraft. Several readers were kind enough to point out the oversights, and we have edited the episode to remove the comment. Long Thread Media strives to represent and celebrate cultural diversity, now and in the past. I am grateful for the opportunity to account for and attempt repair for my error.
2022-10-01
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Kris Bruland, Handweaving.net

When you think of weaving tools, you probably picture shuttles, sleying hooks, a raddle, and a warping board. Just as important for many weavers is the software that displays and manipulates weaving drafts. Even if you don't use a computer-controlled loom, weaving software helps you visualize your project, check it for errors, and envision variations, among other functions. It seems like a far cry from handwritten drafts or Industrial Revolution-era books of weaving instructions. When Kris Bruland became interested in weaving in 2003, he came across some of those old drafts and manually entered them into weaving software to create WIFs. Not content with entering them one by one, he developed a method to read a printed draft and convert it to a WIF (akin to optical character recognition, which turns a page of printed text into a digital file). With that digital tool, a whole library of historic patterns became available for contemporary weavers to use and experiment with. Kris began Handweaving.net with 200 drafts, but the site's offerings have grown to 75,000 WIFs. The site offers a number of weaving tools through a browser, so members can save their works in progress and access them from any device. Handweaving.net also includes a digital archive of documents related to all kinds of textiles?from alpaca to zigzag. Kris is proud that the site's visitors weave with everything from rigid-heddle to 60-shaft looms. Kris Bruland makes weaving tools for the internet age, with a site that connects weavers across the world. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1659137902-handweaving-net-logo-large-300dpi.jpg Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! TreenwaySilks logo https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1656653452-treenwaysilks_logo.png You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.
2022-09-10
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Brooke Sinnes, Sincere Sheep

No matter where in the country, stepping into the Sincere Sheep booth at a fiber festival is a breath of fresh air. With naturally dyed yarns, wool that is processed fleece by fleece, and a selection of favorite Northern California sourced products, the space is full of rich color. No watery pastels or muted hues here?Brooke Sinnes's colorways are vivid, bright, and contemporary. After 20 years as a natural dyer in the Bay Area, Brooke draws inspiration from her environment and her fiber community network. From sourcing local wool to developing a new yarn line, the work of a natural dyer involves constant problem-solving and trouble-shooting, through the physical demands of the work and the vagaries of water chemistry and dye materials. The opportunity to connect with local partners, yarn industry colleagues, and customers is the inspiration that Brooke finds in Sincere Sheep. The good news, she says, is that through community and connection, every knitter, spinner, shopper, and fan can make a big difference in the fate of a small fiber business. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1659137902-handweaving-net-logo-large-300dpi.jpg Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! TreenwaySilks logo //www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1656653452-treenwaysilks_logo.png You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Links Sincere Sheep (https://sinceresheep.com/) Elemental Affects (https://www.elementalaffects.com/) Mendocino Wool and Fiber (https://www.mendowool.com/) Meridian Mill House (https://meridianmillhouse.com/) Valley Oak Wool Mill (https://www.valleyoakwoolmill.com/)
2022-08-26
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Michael Cook, Wormspit

If you want to learn about silk?raising it, processing it, or using it?sooner or later you will find yourself on Michael Cook's site devoted to silk and sericulture, wormspit.com (http://www.wormspit.com). Raising silkworms and weaving with silk bring together two of Michael Cook's fascinations: textiles and bugs. He has tried, mastered, and teaches about every stage in the life cycle and production of silkmoths, silkworms, and silk fabric. The tongue-in-cheek title of his website, Wormspit, refers to the process that silkmoth caterpillars use to build their cocoons. The gland that produces of fibroin and sericin isn't actually salivary, but silkworms work their jaws to create a filament nearly a mile long. When their cocoons are complete, they may break the cocoon to emerge as moths, or in the case of most silk production, the cocoons are stifled so that the silk can be unwound in a single unbroken strand. Most of the silk used in textiles is from the ultradomesticated domesticated Bombyx mori silkworm, which may also be called mulberry silk or China silk. Some people are aware of a few types of wild silk, such as tussah or tasar, which are raised specifically for textile production. But the silk varieties we commonly think of represent only a tiny fraction of the moths worldwide who make some kind of silk in the wild. Michael has explored techniques from the Stone Age through contemporary tools to reel silk and create a variety of thread structures, which he uses in weaving and embroidery. Through demonstrations, classes, and his website, he makes sericulture accessible?whether you're more interested in insects or threads.
2022-08-13
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Nikyle Begay, Rainbow Fiber Co-op

Navajo-Churro sheep have a centuries-old history and an even greater meaning to the Diné, but the commercial market set a low price for their wool. A group of shepherds have come together to find strength?and value?in solidarity. "Take care of the sheep, and the sheep will take care of you." Nikyle Begay remembers their grandmother saying those words as they watched her flock. Nikyle grew up to raise Navajo-Churro sheep of their own, loving the lustrous fleece and beautiful sheep along with the connection to their ancestors. Despite the breed's cultural and spiritual value, Navajo shepherds received a very low price and even less respect for their wool. Shepherds were encouraged to breed with finewool sheep to make the fleece more commercially saleable. But doing that would breed out the strength, luster, and color variation that make Navajo-Churro sheep the perfect wool for weaving traditional weft-faced tapestries. Remembering their grandmother's advice, Nikyle and a fellow Navajo-Churro shepherd, Kelli Dunaj, developed a plan for a wool co-op that would support shepherds with shearing, buy their wool at a fair price, process it into yarn, and sell it?then devote the proceeds to repeating the process next year. The project's first year was 2021, when they took wool to the mill and saw their online shop sold out within days. In 2022, word of mouth brought even more shepherds to sell to the co-op, and the group has plans to grow again next year. This episode is brought to you by: Handweaving.net Handweaving.net (https://handweaving.net/) is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today! Treenway Silks You?ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com (https://www.treenwaysilks.com/). Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks?where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.
2022-07-30
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Lydia Christiansen, Abundant Earth Fiber

What would you do if your sheep's wool lost half its value practically overnight? That's what happened to shepherds in 1990, when the end of a longstanding subsidy upended small and large wool flocks around the United States. In the decades that followed, American farmers and textiles rode a roller coaster, searching for value in a once essential fiber. But things look very different on the small scale, where wool is measured in dozens of sheep and pounds per week rather than thousands of heads and millions of pounds per year. In their quest to start a meaningful family business, Lydia Christiansen and her husband have set up their mill at the intersection of sustainable land use, local farms, an authentic experience for handcrafters, and the resurgent interest in domestic non-superwash wool. Abundant Earth Fiber transforms American fiber through its commitment to small-batch wool, creating lively yarns and roving. For Abundant Earth Fiber, Lydia says, ?Wool craft is more than just yarn, it?s our connection with the natural world and the satisfaction of meaningful work.? Yarn, roving and dyes?made thoughtfully, in small batches?forms the bridge between sustainable farm and wool craft. Until August 15, Abundant Earth Fiber is partnering with Long Thread Media to offer 25% off storewide for All Access subscribers. Visit LT.Media/perk (https://LT.Media/perk) for details.
2022-05-27
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Sheri Berger, ColoradoCrossStitcher

Sheri Berger vowed that cross stitch would be the hobby that she kept just for herself. After turning her scrapbooking hobby into a business, then launching the online yarn store The Loopy Ewe in 2006, she was just looking for a way to relax in the evenings, renew her creativity, and enjoy the sheer pleasure of passing needle and thread through cloth. The Colorado Cross Stitcher was her craft escape. But the more she became absorbed in cross stitch, the more Sheri wanted to participate in the community. She posted a video to YouTube, and before she knew it, she had launched a new business and a community. In this episode, Sheri talks about how cross stitching has changed, why it's drawing so many new stitchers now, what it's like to pass The Loopy Ewe to a new owner, and her new hopes for the needlework industry.
2022-05-13
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Stephenie Gaustad Makes the Cloth of her Dreams

In the early 1970s, a lively community and spirit of fearless exploration sprang up in Northern California that sent ripples around the country and shaped the world as we know it today. The fiber world, of course. As a child, Stephenie remembers seeing clouds and imagining them as wispy shawls overhead. She uses her fine artist's training and eye when stirring a dyepot, designing clothing, and developing her textile plans, but she is drawn to well made tools and straightforward cloth. When she chose her first sewing machine at age 8, she preferred the straightforward practicality of her treadle machine to her mother's modern bells-and-whistles machine, because she could understand and work with every part of it. (She still has it.) For decades, Stephenie worked in partnership with Alden Amos, the wheelmaker and teacher whose legendary technical expertise fill the pages of The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning. Her illustrations are on nearly every page of the book, bringing abstract concepts and technical directions and a bit of whimsy to the 500 pages. In illustration as in all her work, Stephenie does serious work with a gleeful sense of humor. In her spinning classes, Stephenie loves listening to the challenges her students bring in, offering suggestions for the wheels and spindles that are giving them fits?suggestions that can be as gentle as a bit more oil or as direct as a quick tap of a hammer and anvil. Join us for a delightful conversation, with a dose of inspiration and empowerment. This episode is sponsored by Treenway Silks. Find the show notes (https://spinoffmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-stephenie-gaustad) for this episode.
2022-04-29
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Kate Larson: Shepherd, Teacher, Editor

Kate Larson's first childhood memory is of meeting a lamb on her family's farm in rural Indiana. That connection with sheep and the land forms the anchor of her life's work, even as it draws her to stories and communities a world away. After a careful search, Kate chose her "forever sheep," a flock of Border Leicesters who not only provide her with wool she adores but revitalize the soil of her homestead. Through every thoughtful decision?grazing, breeding, shearing, and the thousand other choices that make up a shepherd's work?she is using her sheep to create the home and the world she wants to be part of. That devotion to fiber and wool are a natural affinity for the editor of Spin Off, a position Kate has held since 2016, and the author of The Practical Spinner's Guide: Wool. But with a love for literature and admiration for traditional handwork, she also selects and edits the wide-ranging textile stories of PieceWork magazine.
2022-04-15
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Amy Norris, Weaving Community Organizer

Since Amy Norris learned to weave in the late 1980s, the digital age has swept through weaving in two ways: by linking the global community of weavers to each other, and by using computers to manipulate and execute weaving drafts. Weaving is ancient, but many weavers have been early adopters and digital enthusiasts. As founder and list administrator for WeaveTech, Amy has helped weavers everywhere share information (and play nice) with fellow curious weavers. The internet has connected all kinds of groups, but the digital revolution offers breakthroughs in what weavers can do. As Amy points out, weaving is a binary system, with each shaft or thread in the up or down position?just the kind of bits and bytes that computers process. Weaving software lets you see how any change in the draft will affect your weaving with just a click?a far cry from the hours with pencils, graph paper, and erasers needed for charting a design before the programs became available. Taking the technology boost a step further, computer-assisted looms use the weaving software to physically control which shafts rise and fall. These explorations are the stuff of Amy Norris's dreams, so much that a particular, popular effect takes its name partly from her. (Amy and Marg Coe have been working on an approach to designing with parallel threading that has been dubbed the "Corris Effect.") But although computers have changed so much in the weaving world, Amy still believes in and dedicates her time to organizing and supporting programs of her local and regional guilds. Serving on a variety of boards and committees throughout the years, she has played a vital role in maintaining the traditional infrastructure of the weaving community.
2022-04-01
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Jennifer Moore: Doubleweave Beyond Borders

What does it mean to revive a skill that's been lost for centuries? In Inca and pre-Inca cultures, weavers in the Andes practiced a form of doubleweave that disappeared sometime after contact with Europeans. Museum collections include pre-Columbian pieces made in doubleweave, but the skilled artisans who wielded backstrap looms at the beginning of this millennium didn't know the technique. Jennifer Moore was a doubleweave expert when she first went to Peru, with experience teaching the technique to weavers on 4+ shafts. She practiced doubleweave in her studio, working with the interplay of colors and geometric designs. She spoke a little Spanish, no Quechua (the local language), and had tried basic weaving on a backstrap loom a few times. How did a weaver working with a compu-dobby loom teach expert Andean weavers a technique from their own heritage? She started by teaching herself first, then planting the seeds of an art that has taken root again its native culture. Join Jennifer Moore as she describes her journey in doubleweave and the thread that joins weavers across time.
2022-03-18
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Melvenea Hodges, Traditions in Cloth

Melvenea Hodges nurtures a small crop of cotton in her back yard in South Bend, Indiana. Besides beautiful foliage and some of her favorite fiber to spin, she tends her plants to celebrate what she can create with her own hands?not just beautiful textiles but a connection to her heritage and a source of peace. As a primary school teacher, her working days are hectic, but she and a friend have a pact to save some creativity for themselves. Although her spinning and weaving projects are ambitious, she doesn't confuse creativity with productivity. The magic happens, she says, "once we take away the element of creating for some kind of purpose and just accept that creating is a natural part of being and that it is inherent in us." That creativity takes the form of exploring Scandinavian weaving, spinning to weave a traditional overshot coverlet, or painting whimsical wooden jewelry. No matter what, though, she grounds each day by spinning cotton, seated on the floor with her back to a wall, losing her thoughts as her spindle turns. "If your life's whirlwind is whirling too fast," she advises, "get yourself a spindle."
2022-03-04
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Natalie Dupuis, Goldwork Embroidery Artist

When you imagine goldwork embroidery, do you picture something flashy, glinting, and formal? You might be surprised to discover that goldwork or metalwork embroidery can be subtle and colorful. As Natalie Dupuis practices it, goldwork embroidery is as much about covering the gold or silver thread with silk couching stitches as placing the precious metal front and center. With centuries-old traditions across Europe and Asia, goldwork embroidery thrived in guilds and workshops, where it turned heads in ecclesiastical and royal commissions. Using traditional materials, Natalie designs modern needlework for contemporary fiber artists?and teaches embroidery artists around the globe. This episode is sponsored by Treenway Silks.
2022-02-18
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John Marshall, Katazome Artist

Working in the studio of a Japanese dollmaker, seventeen-year-old John Marshall learned skills for every step of the process from making glass eyes to shaping the body to creating intricately designed clothing. He developed a love for natural dyes on natural fibers, especially katazome (a paste-resist technique using stencils), as he studied dyeing and garment design for five years. Over five decades, his work in Japanese fiber techniques has followed two paths: creating traditionally inspired art-to-wear and sharing what he has learned through extensive writing and teaching. In our lively and wide-ranging discussion, John shares stories of how lac insects are "herded" in the Himalayas, what a suit made from bagworm silk feels like, and what he plans to do with his collection of the Emperor's old clothing. This episode is sponsored by Treenway Silks.
2022-02-04
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