WeaveCast: Backstage

At home, outside on my deck, I was fighting with tripod and wantonly moving sunlight to photograph items for the upcoming WeaveCast auction. I was trying to channel my inner Joe Coca and find the perfect way to drape Laura Fry’s linen tea towels around a glass tea cup.

The doorbell rang. Thinking it must be the UPS guy, I leaned the tripod against a table and opened the door to find: Laura Fry.

It was a surreal moment.

Like listening to a Jimmy Hendrix CD and then having him knock on your door (okay, without the creepy guitarist-risen-from-the-dead thing.)

To put this in context. Laura was down from Canada, and we had talked about the possibility of her staying with me for a day or two while she was in town. Those plans had changed, and I had put it out of my mind. But here she was, as if summoned by my need for her to tell me how best to photograph her work. I explained what I was doing and asked for her advice. With a few practiced crumples she turned my flat and uninspiring tableau into something Handwoven-worthy.

Then she said, “How about I show you how I warp a loom?”

Make that: listening to a Jimmy Hendrix CD and then he shows up at your door (minus creepy dead guy stuff) and says, “how about we jam for a while, and I’ll show you how to do my favorite riffs?”

I was gob-smacked. There were at least three occasions during the day when I found myself literally slack-jawed and had to remember to close my mouth. (Apologizes to Laura, I must have seemed rather witless that day.)

This was four days before my surgery, and I had pulled out a few pre-wound warps to consider. I’d had this dream of putting a beautiful warp on the loom to weave off during my convalescence. But with all the “things that must get done before surgery” it was one of those things there wasn’t going to be time for.

And then fate sent me a Laura Fry.

She looked at the warps I’d pulled out: painted rayon chenille, soysilk, and a random-striped wool. She advised me to do the wool. It would be easiest on my body, with pressing instead of beating the weft into place.

Turns out Laura Fry was the perfect person to help me set up my loom. The thing about being a production weaver, and supporting your family at the loom, is: you don’t get sick days. If you’re in a traffic accident or throw out your back, you need to find ways to keep weaving.

She showed me how to warp my loom back-to-front, using a rough-sleyed reed as a raddle. This was something I’d never done before, and solved the question “how can I find a raddle fine enough to BTF-warp find threads.) Aside from that, there was nothing revolutionary—except—all the little tweaks and refinements that she’d learned over 30+ years of weaving. It’s hard to describe how turning your hand from this way to that way makes a huge difference in how easily and fast something goes on. But when you experience it, it’s like a revelation.

This is why weaving teachers are so important. Weaving books don’t give you the essential minutia of weaving. Videos can’t look at you and provide feedback: “try doing it this way.”

Important things I took away from this lesson:

• Rough-sleying a reed makes a great raddle
• How to hold the shuttle while beating to minimize draw-in
• Tie-up the treadles so you use two feet to raise the shafts (half on one foot, half on the other) to make it easier on your body
• My chair was waaay too short. I needed a higher seat for good ergonomics and comfort at the loom.
• Weavers are an amazingly generous bunch, and sometimes give you so much support and care that it leaves you speechless.

Most of these lessons are demonstrated in Laura Fry’s CD weaver. The last, you’ll have to meet her in person to know.

It took me a week after surgery to feel up to the loom. But when I was ready, there it was, waiting for me. A warp of beautiful blues and greens. The sett was 8 epi, and my beat varied from 6-8 ppi, depending on how I was feeling. It took three days to weave off, and acted as a barometer of how I was feeling: six inches the first day, a yard the second, seven-and-a-half yards the third.

I cut it off the loom, seamed it up the middle, fulled it in the washing machine with some jeans, then brushed it with an old back scrub brush. It is the most soft, lovely, cozy throw ever. (It was supposed to be a Queen-sized blanket. It ended up as a lap blanket and lots of extra cloth. Measure twice, cut once. That’s all I’m gonna say…)



If you’ve ever looked at Harrisville Highland or Shetland wool on the cone and thought: “Ew, that’s so prickly. Yuck!” Let me just tell you that it weaves up cushy-soft. What you’re feeling on the cone is processed so it’ll be strong on the loom. When you wash it it blooms and is delightful. I have delicate Irish skin (baby alpaca makes me itch) and I luurv this blanket.

Now here’s the question. See the oh-so-refined yellow serged edge? I want to cover that with a binding. After reveling in the handcrafted glory of this blanket, I don’t want to slap a machine-made binding on there. I want to weave my own.



My current thoughts (after a quick stash consultation) are: either 6/2 cotton in a blue that matches exactly one of the threads in the blanket or a 140/2 silk in a mint green that I thought I’d never have a use for.

Weave structures I’m considering: plain weave (simple, strong, goodness), 2/2 twill (for a flexible, bias-like binding) or a diamond-twill (because I love diamonds in weaving.)

Fiber arts are a refuge for me. A calm harbor for the fears and frustrations of life. So, for example, when I go to the doctor’s office to discuss distressing things, I take a sock to knit. My oral surgeon has seen several socks grace his office. One day I saw him looking at the sock I was furiously knitting while reclining in the big scary dentistry chair and I said, “I knit because it keeps me calm.” He said, “Yeah I’ve noticed that—keep knitting.”

So, I was not going to the hospital for an overnight stay without some kind of fiber arts. As much as I would have loved to take a floor loom—not so much with the portable. So knitting, it would be.

I don’t do medication as a rule. When have a cold I take tea and chicken soup, not Comtrex. Instead of aspirin, I take hot baths. So I figured that morphine and the remnants of general anesthesia would leave me pretty well looped. I figured tiny sock needles would be too much for me, and yet I wanted something easy and portable.

About a year ago, I was at the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat. At the end of their charity knitting talk, a yarn manufacturer gave away skeins of free yarn for folks to use to knit hats. I resisted: I rarely knit worsted, I didn’t know any cool hat patterns, the yarn was acrylic, and I wasn’t sure I’d find time in my busy schedule to knit for charity.

But the free yarn got me. I have a hard time passing up free yarn.

So here were two skeins of squeaky acrylic languishing in my stash. It couldn’t be given away. It was yarn with a mission, strings firmly attached.

It was also the perfect project to take to the hospital.

They warned me not to bring anything valuable. What is more humble than Red Heart Acrylic yarn knit on cheap bamboo needles? I wanted something easy, something portable. Knitting a hat is the round in worsted-weight yarn. Check on both counts. I figured the good karma of knitting for charity could only be a bonus to the healing process.

The yarn was a cheerful blend of autumn colors: reds, golds, and oranges. Cheerful colors I can’t wear. I knit a 2x2 rib in the round. Didn’t need to swatch. I had no idea who the hat was going to, as long as it was of human proportions, I was in business.

I knit at 5am on the dark car ride over. I knit in the waiting room while they signed me into the hospital, watching the ubiquitous salt-water fish that every waiting room feels is necessary. I knit in the prep room, where they stripped me of clothes and inserted an IV. (I refused to give up my needles until I was sedated.) Because the hospital has a one patient, one gurney policy, my clothes (and knitting) were tucked into a chamber underneath my gurney and actually accompanied me into surgery and the recovery room. My knitting was one of the first things I pulled out when I was settled into my hospital room. With my iPod around my neck playing a new Terry Pratchett book on tape, my husband sleeping on the couch next to me, and my knitting wadded into a nest on my chest like a protective pet, I drifted off into post-operative sleep.

The hat didn’t get finished until I was settled at home, propped by pillows and watching endless DVDs that a considerate husband had stockpiled for me. And there it was. The first finished object of my new life. And there was yarn left over in the skein. So I knit another hat. And another. I played with stripes, and rolled brims instead of ribbing. I found more acrylic yarn in my stash and vowed to knit it all up for charity.

There was something endearing about these humble hats. They didn’t have to be perfect, or lovely, or made of high-falutin’ materials. And yet they could do good in the world. They were good enough, just as they were.

After surgery, I was humble, and dehumanized. I was not lovely. I felt broken and made of imperfect materials. But like those acrylic-yarn hats, I could do good in the world.



Each hat taught me something. As I healed, each one got a little more complex in terms of color work or pattern. The last hat (so far) I added a lace pattern to, and liked the results so much that I knit a copy for myself in wool. I’m wearing it as I write this. It is the first hat I’ve knit for myself that turned out perfectly: no swatching, no mistakes in the lace pattern, a perfect fit. It feels like a gift.

When I finished the sixth hat and picked up a project I’d started before the surgery, my husband smiled, looking at the six-color mitered-diamond camisole in progress, and said, “You must be feeling better.” It amused me that he was judging my recovery by the complexity of my knitting. So very apt.

This year winter came early for me.

I had jaw surgery on October 2nd. A week before surgery I found out that I’d be more disabled than I’d imagined. For example, I wouldn’t be able to lift anything heavier than five pounds, which includes things like cartons of milk and children.

So my “winterize” to-do list--that I’d expected to have two months to do--turned into a one-week list. This was a list that included little items like “refinish deck furniture,” “stack two cords of firewood,” and “build hay loft.”

I kept talking about “getting ready for winter” but it was really code for “getting ready for surgery” something I wasn’t ready to face.

It was a crazy week of too much to do, and late, late nights. I had to turn a few last-minute work requests away. But most everything that needed to get done, got done. The one thing I regret was not spending more time with my family, especially Kai.

The surgery has been hard on all my family: Eric’s having to do the work of two parents, I’m straining meals through my teeth, but Kai’s probably been hit the hardest. He went from having super-mommy to having invalid mommy. He was a kangaroo baby, one that spent the first two years of his life attached to my body in one way or another. He’s a lot more independent now, but he’s still used to rough-housing and getting “uppies” when he’s hurt or sad. Not getting that has been a huge change. For both of us.

The good news about winter is that when it comes, the hard work is over. You’re as prepared as you’re going to be. All that’s left is the quiet and rest.