Dear readers, I have just left a fiber arts retreat and am now going to visit with family. I will probably not be posting next week, but will return to write the following week unless something else unexpected happens. For now, I thought I’d just share a few photos from my retreat to give you a taste of some of the fiber arts I’m exploring.
The retreat was the annual SOAR (Spin Off Autumn Retreat) in Loveland, Colorado for four days of catching up with friends and making new ones while trying out new skills. It’s a wonderful community of people and an inspiring retreat. I took a workshop on weaving on rigid heddle looms - a two day intensive during which we wove a scarf. Mine in progress is in this photo. Please forgive the orange carpet of the convention center that makes the photos a bit hard to look at.
I had a very inspiring half day course on spinning on a Navajo spindle with TahNibaa NaaTaanii, a Navajo weaver, spinner, and shepherd who is a kind and generous teacher. She taught me that all tools are sacred and alive. They can choose to work with us or reject us if we treat them poorly. I found that to be a very potent way to think and intend to consider more deeply my relationship with “things”. I feel that if I treated my “possessions” as entities with whom I was building a relationship, this would radically alter my absent-minded and sometimes irritable way of treating my things. What a remedy this could be for materialism! Below is a photo of the Navajo spindle I am building a relationship with, hand made by a Navajo artist.
The photo at the top of the page shows the mess I made as I was learning to make Dorset buttons. I was surprised how much I loved making them and I will certainly continue. I would not be surprised to learn that some of my English ancestors made because I was so thoroughly engaged. Making Dorset buttons was something women did as piecework to make income for their families. Because the buttons are small, one could work on them in spare moments while tending children, doing the hard work of feeding, cleaning, and clothing a family. I couldn’t make them without my glasses, but maybe one gets good enough to do it by feel in time. Below are examples made by our instructor, Kate Larson. At the top of the page are the ones I made.
I am on my way now to visit my son and soak in some sun before returning to Montana for winter. I’ll be back week after next. Best wishes!
Best of weather to you, and now I'm going to have to look into these fabulous Dorset buttons!