Cloth

February 8, 202110 Comments

The making of cloth is an enchanting endeavor.

Somehow…with the simplest of ability and materials…something soft is created that warms and mesmerizes.

Enchanting cloth begs to be shared. Check out all the handwoven scarves/wraps I’m sharing in my shop!

Perhaps you’ll find something enchanting there. 🙂

**Dear Reader…Happy New Year! Ha! It’s a bit late, and I can hardly believe January has already flown by. Here in North Carolina we are having some wintry weather days and I’m always eagerly anticipating whether we will actually get some accumulated snow. Hope springs eternal in my heart for SNOW! I realize that some of you may be getting way more snow than you’d like. I’d happily take some of it off your hands (or rather, from your yards/driveways :).

Anyway…I am in the process of resuming my newsletter and blogging a bit more regularly. I sincerely hope you are all enjoying many creative endeavors from playing the harp, to mosaics, to sketching and drawing, to knitting, crochet, spinning or weaving! Here’s to a year filled with making! I hope to inspire and encourage you along the way!

Artfully yours,

Jennifer

For Now

September 7, 202015 Comments

I say this quite frequently — For now, this will be fine. For now, this is good. I’m ok with it this way, for now. Two little words that carry a ton of meaning.

FOR. There is purpose wrapped up in these three letters. Intention, will, focus and offering. This is FOR you. I do this FOR others, FOR myself, FOR my children. What is all this FOR? It is FOR our community, our family, our health, our bank account, our future well-being. Hopes, wishes, goals and purposefulness are all there in this small word.

NOW. Equally small, yet holding a universe, this word brings me in sharp focus into a moment I can actually touch and rest in. NOW is a time for us to really live our lives. NOW is the present which holds all our past and future. NOW we get to fully live, but we often squander it with worry about the future or regret over the past. NOW sweeps it all clean and says, “Here…come sit a spell in this chair, with this life, just as it is.“

I got a new spinning wheel! I can’t believe I now have a beautiful Ashford Traditional Wheel! I had been wanting one for a while…the shape of it, really, is what I loved, and the idea of painting another wheel seemed to suit the lovely shape so well.

As I spin on this new-to-me wheel and get to know its excellent properties (so different from my Louet which I promptly painted when I got it four years ago:), I find myself hesitant to paint it just yet. I say to myself and to my family who asks if I’m going to paint it…Yes, probably, someday…but for now I’ll leave it as it is.

I have pulled out a ton of scrap fabrics with the idea to make a quilt. I have laundered and ironed all the oddly shaped fabrics and have begun to cut squares wondering why in the world I think I need a quilt?! To what end is all this time making a simple scrap quilt going to lead me? What will it accomplish? Catching myself getting all spun up in future-tripping concerns, I happily concede that for now, it will be good to make a quilt.

I am learning more and more the goodness of living in the present moment. An overused phrase, it is under-used in our day-to-day practice. To be content for now, with things as they are is a wonder and joy to sink into. Even if NOW is difficult or painful…living for now strips the extra baggage and burden of what if? And why did? To live for now brings a sense of resting in what has been provided, releasing the grasping of attainment and achievement, turning from past hurts and regrets to accepting where the day has landed and living full into it, feet on the ground (or the treadles) and working with the fabric of the day for its own sake.

Letting life be for now doesn’t mean I won’t paint the wheel in future. Taking a detour into fabrics for now won’t mean that I have to make this my new main artistic medium. Who knows what might come of it? That isn’t my concern today. My job is to make a space for joy, grace, and presence in all that I am given just as it is in this moment.

For Now…I am alive.

For Now…I am content.

For Now…there is grace and mercy in abundance whether the spinning wheel gets painted or a quilt gets made…or not.

**As always, I enjoy your thoughts and comments here. Feel free to dialogue about this and how it strikes you, for now. 🙂

Tomorrow

April 11, 2020April 11, 202010 Comments

More than ever before, we need to be making things. This is not merely to while-away the time or to keep our minds off of all the sad news and the what-will-happens. There is an inherent belief in creating something that says, if only in a small way, “Tomorrow will come. A new day will rise.”

We cast on a knitting project and in so doing is the stalwart belief that I desire to and will finish this sweater or hat or pair of socks in the future!

We draw in our sketchbooks to capture a small bit of something that caught our eye today so that we can remember it tomorrow.

We spin wool into yarn which is in itself a ball of possibilities either for you or for someone else to make into a thing of beauty another day.

We begin a tapestry weaving or some cloth knowing that it will require us to keep weaving tomorrow and the next day and perhaps even the next.

(Ok, so this isn’t a loaf of bread. I DID bake bread yesterday but I didn’t take a photo of it. I think this looks like a most delicious loaf, don’t you? :D)

We bake bread with the knowledge that it will be enjoyed for at least a day, maybe two or three.

Just as planting vegetables and flowers casts our net into an unforesee-able future…so too does penning a poem, molding clay, writing a song. As Julia Cameron notes in her book The Artist’s Way, creative people are like equestrians in an obstacle course. The rider must throw his or her heart over the fence in order to land on the other side. This is precisely what we are doing as we daily set our hands to making something.

Whether it is actually planting a garden, or baking bread, or beginning a large oil painting, I hope that you will make time to create something. For this will pull our hearts forward as we endure our current worldwide situation. If anxiety prevents you from that large commissioned piece, then make something small and manageable. Try a new way of creating like origami or simple watercolor doodles. You will discover your heart is a bit lighter as we leap over this huge fence.

Grace and peace to you all this Easter weekend and beyond!❤️

Not Much & Everything

August 14, 2018August 15, 20184 Comments

I’m popping in to say…well…not much. I just want to post. To touch base here on my blog, to any and all who might be visiting. To say life is grand when making things is heading in directions you love. To say that even when life isn’t so grand, making things makes it more tolerable, adds joy, soothes the rough edges. I’d like to blog more often… just to make it a habit, to touch base, to be present here as I am ever so full in my heart with many things I am making, many things I want to make, and many things I may never have the time or resources to make.

On the other hand, I feel I have so much to say. Not today perhaps. But so much is bubbling and brewing, percolating and stewing. It may not come to any sort of viable, sellable product. This bothers me. I wish it didn’t. I hold at bay a nagging thought that plagues me nearly daily – “What is all of this for Jen?” To what end are you spinning fiber with drop spindles? Isn’t this a kind of fool’s errand? To what end are you weaving segments of cloth, one after the other? Will you sell them? Will selling them make it all feel “worth it”? Is there some other creativity, some other medium, some other thing that will give you that sense that Ahhhh THIS! THIS is the thing! With everything I set my hands to, I have a sense that it is indeed the THING! And with everything I make, I have a nagging sense that it isn’t. How can that be?

In every creative act there exists simultaneously a sense of fulfillment and futility. I’m learning to let this be. To just go with it, make space for them both to exist in the atmosphere of my making world. I’m learning to ride the waves of creativity wherever they take me, whether it is to shores of selling or islands of learning new things or into deeper waters of what I already love to make.

‘Til tomorrow then…

Jennifer

A Making “Retreat”

January 11, 2014Leave a comment

Hold onto your hat and grab a cup of tea…this post is long. Not in words so much as in pictures! Lots of photos documenting last week, the week in-between Christmas week and back-to-school week. I decided to declare it a Making Retreat Week. Well, the retreat part was really just imaginary. I wanted to imagine that I was off on a retreat somewhere to work on several unfinished projects. Some of them began many years ago. Some I started in December. My oldest daughter joined in the fun to start an amazing quilt, her first attempt at quilting! We had such a great week together, holed up in Genevieve’s Workshop, making things. We chatted and listened to music as the sewing machine whirred, the needles clicked, and the iron hissed. Wonderful memories were made, along with so many crafty projects:

**New Year Bunting! I had begun this crocheted star bunting back in December to try to have in time for Christmas. Good thing the colors are for anytime, as it did not get finished until this Making Retreat Week. I also added lights all around the room! This is something I have wanted for several years in my sunroom studio!! So cheery and inviting in the wee hours of morning and during the evening darkness. With the added light to the room, Catherine and I could stay up working until late hours, which is unusual for me. But during Retreat Week, we stayed up until midnight a couple of times, working away on our projects!

**Her quilt. Oh my does she have the natural knack for quilting or what?? Crazy beautiful color combinations, attention to corners and details…wow. I loved watching these quilt blocks unfold. She now has 11 of them. She also finished knitting a scarf and making two bow ties (not pictured here)! She’s a making wonder!

**And with the bunting idea, I also made a little star garland for our mantel. I was so sad to have Christmas decorations gone, that I think I was trying to make things look as festive, just without the red and green stuff. 🙂 [BTW…that cute stuffed cat was made by Maddie last year as a gift for me! I love it so!] {And another BTW…these little stars are another Lucy of Attic 24 pattern. I love all her tutorials!}

**I finished Snowflake Sweater. If you missed the post on that, you can read about it here. I’ve been loving wearing it as we have had really cold temps around here! And I’ve enjoyed wearing these amazing boots my mom gave me at Christmas, with my knitted socks! Winter is a knitter’s favorite season!

**I put finishing touches on a shawl I had worked on all fall. Though I had finished the knitting earlier, I took time this week to add the little details and weave in the ends. I’ve been calling it Cream Confection. There is no pattern for this (except in my head:). It’s just a rectangle of various knitted stitches and yarns I had accumulated in the white/cream family of colors. I love all the textures!

**My. Twiggy. Tree. I have been dreaming of making a Twig Tree for at least two years now. Finally. I did it! Using a lovely planter a friend gave me, I shaped a block of styrofoam to fit down in it. My husband had trimmed a branch or two off of our plum tree out front, so I cut off a limb, spray painted it white, and stuck it down in the styrofoam. Then I made little ornaments for winter: snowflakes (another Lucy of Attic 24 tutorial that I tweaked a bit), a few birds (my own pattern I’ll share with you someday!), and some other little baubles. This sits in our dining room, adding a festive touch there as well!! My plans are to change out the ornaments for each season/holiday as it comes along this year! Should be fun!

**And finally, my own bit of quilting. This lovely quilt was made by my mom many years ago from fabrics she had used to sew my dresses when I was a little girl. I absolutely LOVE the colors!! She had hand-quilted 3 of the blocks and stopped. So it needed to be bound around the edges and for the remaining blocks to be quilted. At week’s end, I had bound the edges, quilted the long perpendicular strips of fabric, and one of the remaining squares, but it has a lot to go yet! I’m determined not to stick it back into the bag I’ve stored it in all these years!! I want it for our bed, and so I will try to finish it soon!! Or…maybe just enjoy it as is!! That’s likely what I’ll do! (Note: my friend Ellen told me that this is called the Churn Dash pattern. Very cool!)

On the last day of our Making Retreat Week, I woke early to come downstairs and begin to work. When I got there, Catherine was already working! I wondered if we were going to need some intervention to peel us away from our cozy crafty room. But no…life is intervention enough! What an amazing week it was to devote as much time to making as we could! Even though I still had laundry, dinner making, errand running, etc, it was lovely to set aside times each day for making things. And I think Lucy loved us being in there also, especially when we sat down so she could curl up in our laps with a quilt or some yarn.

Thanks for hanging in there with me for this post! I truly should’ve made several individual posts about each thing! I’m sure it would’ve been easier on your eyes and time!!