Episoder
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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."
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.
KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picks’ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters. KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)—a place for every knitter.
Knitters know Manos del Uruguay for their yarns’ rich tonal colors, but the story of women’s empowerment and community benefit enriches every skein. Discover 17 yarn bases from laceweight to super bulky made and dyed at an artisan owned cooperative in Uruguay. Ask for Manos at your local retailer or visit FairmountFibers.com (https://fairmountfibers.com/).
Creating consciously crafted fibers and patterns is more than just a focus for Blue Sky Fibers, it’s their passion. Ever since they started with a small herd of alpacas in a Minnesota backyard, they’ve been committed to making yarn in the best way possible to show off its natural beauty. While their exclusive offerings have grown beyond alpaca to include wool, organic cotton, and silk, their desire for exciting makers about natural fibers hasn’t changed one bit. It all winds back to the yarn, ensuring that every precious, handmade hank is lovingly filled with endless inspiration. blueskyfibers.com (https://blueskyfibers.com/) -
Exploring the textile traditions of her Scandinavian ancestors, supporting Indigenous Andean weavers in preserving their traditions, or producing material for contemporary fiber artists, Anita finds connection between makers.
From hygge to the trendy Scandi Style, the design influence of Scandiavian countries has never been more popular. But beneath the graphic lines and bright colors, what is the fiber art and culture of Nordic countries?
Anita Osterhaug was raised in a family whose pride in their Norwegian heritage ran deeper than cuisine and home décor. As a weaver, she loved exploring her fiber-art roots and the rich traditions of Scandinavian countries. Underlying the folk art and food, she found a set of values connecting the culture: the importance of nature, community, craftsmanship, and sustainability. In her book Nordic Hands, Anita collected projects in knitting, felting, and weaving that explore those values, inviting contributors to share designs that explore their own connections with Scandinavia.
A former editor of Handwoven magazine, Anita has a particular affection for the woven textiles of Scandinavia. Weaving also connects her with another of her passions, half a world away. As a board member of Andean Textile Arts, she works to support Andean weavers in Peru and Bolivia in practicing the ancient weaving skills of their ancestors. The group raises funds to help educate young Andean weavers about their heritage and supports economic development for master weavers to continue their exquisite traditional crafts.
Although the weavers of her family tradition and Andean weavers may use different materials, motifs, and equipment, Anita sees a common bond between them. Among weavers, she says, there is always a common language.
Links
Anita Osterhaug’s website (https://nordic-hands.com/)
Nordic Hands: 25 Fiber Craft Projects to Discover Scandinavian Culture (https://schifferbooks.com/products/nordic-hands)
Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum (https://vesterheim.org/)
Andean Textile Arts (https://andeantextilearts.org/)
Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) (https://www.textilescusco.org/)
Long Thread Podcast: Laurann Gilbertson (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-laurann-gilbertson/)
Weaving with Linen with Tom Knisely (https://learn.longthreadmedia.com/courses/weaving-with-linen-with-tom-knisely)
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.
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.
Sustainability and regenerative ranching have been a way of life for the ranches of Shaniko Wool Company for decades. They are the first “farm group” in the U.S. to achieve certification to the rigorous international Responsible Wool Standard and NATIVA Regenerative. Shaniko ranches raise Merino/Rambouillet sheep in the Western United States, delivering a fully traceable wool supply that gives back to the Earth and its ecosystems. To learn more, and discover Shaniko’s yarn partners, visit ShanikoWoolCompany.com. (https://www.shanikowoolcompany.com/)
Knitters know Manos del Uruguay for their yarns’ rich tonal colors, but the story of women’s empowerment and community benefit enriches every skein. Discover 17 yarn bases from laceweight to super bulky made and dyed at an artisan owned cooperative in Uruguay. Ask for Manos at your local retailer or visit FairmountFibers.com (https://fairmountfibers.com/). -
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When you picture lace, what comes to mind: an old-fashioned once-white piece of Victorian embellishment? The elegant, possibly itchy decoration on a wedding gown? If you are a needleworker, you might picture an array of bobbins leashed to a cluster of pins and arrayed on a pillow, or a tatting shuttle, or a steel crochet hook. All of these images would be correct—but capture the tiniest slice of the world’s laces.
As a PhD student, Elena Kanagy-Loux considers lace through the lenses of history, culture, and gender. How have textile artisans around the world developed lace strutures? Who was making lace—and who was wearing it? (For what matter, what is lace, anyway?) Beyond our assumptions about lace are delightful surprises: Wearing lace previously denoted power and wealth rather than femininity. Traditional lace may include a riot of color. Although they look delicate, lace fabrics can be surprisingly durable.
Outside her academic pursuits, Elena takes a more hands-on view of lace. Having studied a variety of methods, she fell in love with bobbin lace, which seemed to click in her mind when she sat down at a lacemaking pillow. Like most of our readers, Elena generally creates lace for her own interest and enjoyment, though she has accepted several notable commissions: a collar presented to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Columbia Law School on the 25th anniversary of her investiture to the Supreme court, and a collar designed for the Threads of Power exhibit (https://www.bgc.bard.edu/exhibitions/exhibitions/118/threads-of-power) at the Bard Graduate Center. In addition to her own work, she teaches extensively, finding an audience of needleworkers eager to learn bobbin lace or improve their skills. She co-founded the Brooklyn Lace Guild, which offers classes as well as a community of lacemakers
Elena often hears from non-makers, “Isn’t that a dying art?” She replies—in her classes, her needlework, and her wardrobe (which often includes lace in her colorful, contemporary style)—“Lacemaking is a thriving art!”
Links
Elena Kanagy-Loux’s website (https://elenakanagyloux.carbonmade.com/)
Find Elena on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/erenanaomi), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@elenakanagy-loux3846), and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@erenanaomi)
Thr Brooklyn Lace Guild (https://www.brooklynlaceguild.com/), which Elena co-founded, is hosting its first exhibition, “Little Lace: The Work of Brooklyn Lace Guild,” (https://www.brooklynlaceguild.com/exhibitions) from October 10, 2024, through January 11, 2025.
See the Brooklyn Lace Guild at the Kings County Fiber Festival (https://www.brooklynlaceguild.com/new-events/2024/10/12/kings-fiber-festival) at the Old Stone House, Brooklyn, on October 12, 2024, from 10 am to 5 pm.
The International Organization of Lace, Inc. (https://main.internationalorganizationoflace.org/) hosts conventions and maintains a list of chapters and events for those interested in learning about lacemaking.
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.
KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picks’ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters. KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)—a place for every knitter.
Knitters know Manos del Uruguay for their yarns’ rich tonal colors, but the story of women’s empowerment and community benefit enriches every skein. Discover 17 yarn bases from laceweight to super bulky made and dyed at an artisan owned cooperative in Uruguay. Ask for Manos at your local retailer or visit FairmountFibers.com (https://fairmountfibers.com/).
Creating consciously crafted fibers and patterns is more than just a focus for Blue Sky Fibers, it’s their passion. Ever since they started with a small herd of alpacas in a Minnesota backyard, they’ve been committed to making yarn in the best way possible to show off its natural beauty. While their exclusive offerings have grown beyond alpaca to include wool, organic cotton, and silk, their desire for exciting makers about natural fibers hasn’t changed one bit. It all winds back to the yarn, ensuring that every precious, handmade hank is lovingly filled with endless inspiration. blueskyfibers.com (https://blueskyfibers.com/) -
Nanne Kennedy has her feet firmly planted in the soil of midcoast Maine. Growing up on a farm near the ocean, she could smell the salt air and small local factories, and she started saving in her âfuture farm fundâ when she was 12. Eminently practical, she looked for ways that her farm could make her a living. âI'm a New England Yankee, and self reliance is really important,â she says. âSo itâs always been a critical theme to me that, yes, you do the right thing, but it sure as heck has to make economic sense in a way that is good today, but good forever.â Raising sheep could offer multiple sources of income, but the available finewool sheep were poorly suited to her climate. Studying in New Zealand, she grew interested in Polwarth sheep, which combine finewool and longwool genetics. Nanne imported genetic material from New Zealand and set about establishing the breed in the United States, seeking sheep with dense, fine fleeces; long staples; excellent parasite resistance; and sound feet. After decades of careful breeding, her flock has exceeded her expectations for wool and healthy animals. To increase the value of her wool, Nanne learned to dye yarn. Once again seeking an economic and environmental solution, she developed a unique system using seawater to provide the salts and sunshine to warm the dyepaths. Seacolors Yarns are what Nanne calls bioregional, produced within 5 hours of Meadowcroft Farm. Like many farmers, Nanne works on a variety of projects at the same time. The popular Maine blankets she developed in partnership with other small textile manufacturers have hit a snag with the retirement of the napping machine used in finishing, but she partners with local knitters and crocheters to offer unique handmade sweaters. She runs a short-term farmstay and also offers educational opportunities for aspiring shepherds. She vends at farmerâs markets and hosts fiber art classes. At least, thatâs some of what she was doing when we spoke. By the time you hear this interview, who knows what Nanne Kennedy will have dreamed up to benefit her animals, ecosystem, and regional economy? LinksVisit Nanne Kennedyâs farm, yarn store, and other projects at GetWool.com (https://getwool.com/meadowcroft/sheep-doula/). Learn about the dye process for Seacolors Yarn (https://getwool.com/yarn/seacolors/) and buy it online (https://getwool.com/yarn/). Meadowcroft Farm raises Polwarth sheep (https://getwool.com/meadowcroft/animals/). Naturally colored roving is available on the Seacolors Wool website (https://getwool.com/roving/). Watch a video of Meadowcroft Farm, Polwarth sheep, and Nanne in the video The Science of Soft (https://vimeo.com/714278628). Stay in the farmâs Airbnb (https://getwool.com/cuckoos-nest-air-bnb/), or stay longer with a Small Ruminant Residency (https://getwool.com/meadowcroft/small-ruminant-residency/) or Sheep Doula Apprenticeship (https://getwool.com/meadowcroft/sheep-doula/). 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/). Youâll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenwayâs array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, youâll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Youâre ready to start a new project but donât 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.Sustainability and regenerative ranching have been a way of life for the ranches of Shaniko Wool Company for decades. They are the first âfarm groupâ in the U.S. to achieve certification to the rigorous international Responsible Wool Standard and NATIVA Regenerative. Shaniko ranches raise Merino/Rambouillet sheep in the Western United States, delivering a fully traceable wool supply that gives back to the Earth and its ecosystems. To learn more, and discover Shanikoâs yarn partners, visit ShanikoWoolCompany.com. (https://www.shanikowoolcompany.com/) The Adirondack Wool and Arts Festival is the perfect way to spend a weekend surrounded by over 150 craft vendors in Greenwich, New York. Discover a curated group of vendors featuring the best of wool and artisan crafters. Throughout the weekend enjoy workshops, free horse drawn wagon rides, free kidsâ crafts, a fiber sheep show, and a sanctioned cashmere goat show. Join us September 21 & 22, 2024, and every fall! For more information visit adkwoolandarts.com. (https://www.adkwoolandarts.com/)
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When Knit Picks was founded by husband and wife team Kelly and Bob Petkun in 2002, the company began with a mail-order catalog and soon added online purchasing. Buying yarn online seemed both strange and inevitable: knitters began choosing yarns that they could only see onscreen, in the early days of functional search engines, at a time when many people had internet only at the office if at all. But for crafters who lacked easy access to a local yarn store or even a big-box craft store, being able to order craft supplies online broadened the horizons of knitting. After carrying other companiesâ yarns for several years, the Petkuns began working directly with mills in South America to create yarn lines that were exclusive to Knit Picks. Several of their first yarns, including Wool of the Andes, Andean Treasure, and Alpaca Cloud, are still available (though the Butterfly Kisses eyelash yarn that was a staple of the early 2000âs has been discontinued). With the success of their exclusive yarns, Knit Picks began working with manufacturers to create their own tools, most significantly an extensive range of knitting needles. Sustainability-Minded YarnsBy making their yarns available directly to knitters, Knit Picks was able to keep their prices low and developed a reputation for affordability. Perhaps less well known, though, have been their efforts to offer sustainably produced yarns. In this episode, Alexis Wilson explains that the company recently completed the process to certify their warehouse to the Responsible Wool Standard, the last link in the chain that makes their 100% US-made High Desert yarn line fully RWS-certified. High Desert yarns use Shaniko Wool, sourced from ranches that meet multiple environmental and social responsibility standards and are demonstrated to capture carbon in the soil. Even before the official RWS certification, Alexis observes, Knit Picks purchased their wool, alpaca, and mohair from certified Responsible Alpaca Standard, Responsible Mohair Standard, and RWS sources. In addition to natural-fiber yarns, they have added several lines that use innovative methods of recycling or reclaiming waste fibers: Oceana (https://www.knitpicks.com/yarn/oceana/c/5420504), which features Seaqual Upcycled Marine Plastic; Salvage (https://www.knitpicks.com/yarn/salvage/c/5420505), which contains recycled cotton; and Samia (https://www.knitpicks.com/yarn/samia/c/5420462), which includes cupro, a silky fiber made from waste cotton produced in a closed-loop process. The environmental concern extends to their wooden needles, which are made from sustainably harvested forests. For Every Knitter (and Dyer and Weaver and Spinner)Although âknitâ is right in the name, Knit Picks offers products for other crafts as well (and not just through their sister brand Crochet.com (https://www.crochet.com/)). In addition to finished yarns, Knit Picks offers the Bare (https://www.knitpicks.com/yarn/bare-dye-your-own/c/300110) line of popular yarns ready to be dyed by consumers, as well as a variety of natural and synthetic dye products (https://www.knitpicks.com/accessories/yarn-dyes/c/300508). Spinners can select the wool blends used in some popular Knit Picks yarns as processed wool tops (https://www.knitpicks.com/3001/filter-products?Category=Roving) to make their own yarns. For weavers and machine knitters, the popular Dishie cotton comes on cones as well as in balls, and Alexis reveals that some weights of their staple yarns Wool of the Andes and Palette will be offered on cones soon, too. For nearly 20 years, Knit Picks produced almost every product offered on the site. In recent years, though, they have started supplementing their offerings with select yarns that they believe customers would enjoy, such as Kelbourne Woolens Germantown and Baa Ram Ewe Woodnote. Alexis looks forward to adding yarns from Berroco in upcoming months. In this Spotlight Episode, discover the sustainable side of Knit Picks.LinksKnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/) High Desert (https://www.knitpicks.com/search?q=high%20desert&filter___category%5B0%5D=Yarn) yarn is Knit Picksâs 100% made in America, fully traceable, Responsible Wool Standard-certified yarn featuring Shaniko Wool. Knit Picksâs Learning Center (https://www.knitpicks.com/learning-center) includes information about the company and its products as well as knitting instruction and links to the podcast and blog. The Freebies (https://www.knitpicks.com/freebies) page includes a delightful collection of printable tags, care instructions, cheat sheets, and other knitting information you didnât know you needed. This episode is brought to you by:KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picksâ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters. KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)âa place for every knitter.
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Laverne Waddington discovered weaving by accidentâbike accident, to be precise. Recuperating from a mountain biking crash in Utah, she discovered a book on Navajo weaving and was immediately intrigued. A local exhibit of DinĂ© textiles enthralled her, and she set about learning to weave in the Navajo style. Returning to Patagonia, where she had been living, she built a simple loom and explored weaving on her own until it became clear that she would need to move north to satify her hunger for weaving knowledge, settling in Bolivia. Over the following decades, Laverne traveled in South and Central America, learning backstrap techniques from indigenous weavers. Her curiosity has led her to the Andean Highlands, Guatemala, and other regions to learn hand-manipulated and pick-up methods and patterns from skilled local weavers. Laverne loves to explore complex and intricate weaving styles, enjoying the way that each inch of warp and weft passes through her hands in a variety of pick-up techniques. Weaving on a backstrap loom, she sits inside each weaving project. Through videos, online classes, books, and ebooks, she teaches other weavers how to set up a backstrap loom for themselves and weave a variety of patterns. Teaching backstrap and pick-up techniques is as much a part of her practice as deepening her understanding of the weaving structures.In this episode, discover Laverne Waddingtonâs passions and processes. LinksLaverne has maintained a blog and weaving journal on her website (https://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/) since 2009. Laverneâs books (https://www.taprootvideo.com/instructorClasses.jsf?iid=3) are available from Taproot Video. Laverne offers a number of tutorials (https://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/tutorials/) of techniques she practices as well as videos (https://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/videos/) of a variety of weaving techniques and traditions. 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/). Youâll 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, youâll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picksâ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters. KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)âa place for every knitter. The Adirondack Wool and Arts Festival is the perfect way to spend a weekend surrounded by over 150 craft vendors in Greenwich, New York. Discover a curated group of vendors featuring the best of wool and artisan crafters. Throughout the weekend enjoy workshops, free horse drawn wagon rides, free kidsâ crafts, a fiber sheep show, and a sanctioned cashmere goat show. Join us September 21 & 22, 2024, and every fall! For more information visit adkwoolandarts.com. (https://www.adkwoolandarts.com/)
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Embrace the potential of your phone’s camera, choose indirect lighting (not a flash) to show texture, and get your knits off the ground—these are just a few pieces of Gale Zucker’s advice for how to take knitting photos you love. Whether she’s shooting in a studio or a barnyard, Gale uses her camera to bring her subjects to life.
Gale grew up in a family where everyone learned to knit, and the craft has been a constant since childhood. With a love for the storytelling potential of photography, she studied photojournalism, becoming a stringer for The New York Times and shooting for national publications. Her subjects ranged from intensely serious, even grim, to lighthearted and quirky.
Occasionally she found herself on the sheep beat, sent to farms to photograph stories for lifestyle publications. During the knitting-blog boom, she started a website and called it “She Shoots Sheep Shots,” all while continuing her photojournalism and commercial photography work. Invited to propose an idea for a book, she surprised her agent by suggesting a series of photos and profiles of fiber farms across the country, which became the book Shear Spirit. Her work has grown to include more knitting and fiber projects—subjects in which she shares her knowledge in this episode.
Although she still photographs a range of commercial and lifestyle projects, Gale finds her lifelong love of knitting thoroughly intertwined with her professional work. And when she’s lucky, she still gets to shoot sheep shots.
Links
Gale Zucker website (https://www.gzucker.com/)
She Shoots Sheep Shots (https://www.gzucker.com/she-shoots-sheep-shots)
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.
Shaniko Wool Company
Sustainability and regenerative ranching have been a way of life for the ranches of Shaniko Wool Company for decades. They are the first “farm group” in the U.S. to achieve certification to the rigorous international Responsible Wool Standard and NATIVA Regenerative. Shaniko ranches raise Merino/Rambouillet sheep in the Western United States, delivering a fully traceable wool supply that gives back to the Earth and its ecosystems. To learn more, and discover Shaniko’s yarn partners, visit ShanikoWoolCompany.com. (https://www.shanikowoolcompany.com/)
Adirondack Wool and Arts Festival
The Adirondack Wool and Arts Festival is the perfect way to spend a weekend surrounded by over 150 craft vendors in Greenwich, New York. Discover a curated group of vendors featuring the best of wool and artisan crafters. Throughout the weekend enjoy workshops, free horse drawn wagon rides, free kids’ crafts, a fiber sheep show, and a sanctioned cashmere goat show. Join us September 21 & 22, 2024, and every fall! For more information visit adkwoolandarts.com. (https://www.adkwoolandarts.com/) -
Have you ever opened a book or seen a photograph and thought to yourself, âI have to learn to do thatâ? When Emily Lymm first fell in love with knitting, she wondered casually if she could turn her passion for fiber arts into a profession. Not seeing many successful pathways to a career in knitting, she continued as a graphic designer. She loved the visual problem-solving of her job, but as time went by, she wished that she could do more to live her values of conservation and environmental responsibility. Then one day, she picked up a copy of Rebecca Burgessâs book Fibershed and was immediately captivated with the idea of natural dyeing. She was so certain that she had found her path that she invested in dyepots and equipment, and she set out to learn the nuanced skills to create the colors of her dreams in yarn. She initially experimented with processing her own fiber and having it milled into yarn but quickly realized that she would need to find a millspun option. Responsibly raised non-superwash wool yarns were difficult to find in the variety of weights that she would need to rely on, so she resorted to cold-calling farms in her home state of Oregon. One of her calls reached the perfect partner: Jeanne Carver, owner of Imperial Stock Ranch, produced just the kind of wool that Emily was hoping forâand her new project, Shaniko Wool Company, was beginning to produce the first fully traceable, RWS-certified yarn in the United States. Emily could base her business on yarn that is demonstrated to sequester carbon in the soil, milled within the United States. The path to developing her color range has led her to develop colors using with extracts, home-grown dyestuffs, and a variety of other dye materials. She has found old methods for creating richly saturated colors that coax unexpected colors out of familiar dye materials. She has learned to use time and temperature in her dye chemistry. In this episode, learn how one woman has creates a hand-dyed yarn businessâsustainably.LinksWool & Paletteâs website (https://woolandpalette.com/) and online shop (https://woolandpalette.com/collections/all-weights) Emily sources her non-superwash Merino/Rambouillet wool from Shaniko Wool. (https://www.shanikowoolcompany.com/) Learn more about the company from founder Jeanne Carver in her episode of the Long Thread Podcast (https://spinoffmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-jeanne-carver-shaniko-wool/). Aurora Silk (https://aurorasilk.com/wp/product-category/natural-dyes/) offers natural dye supplies. Jenny Balfour-Paul, Dominique Cardon, and Anita Quye wrote about the Crutchfield Archive, a collection of natural-dye manuals dating to the 18th century, in Nature's Colorways. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/natures-colorways?_pos=1&_psq=natures+colorway&_ss=e&_v=1.0) Rebecca Burgessâs books [Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy], (https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/fibershed/) and Harvesting Color: How to Find Plants and Make Natural Dyes (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/rebecca-burgess/harvesting-color/9781579654252/)Color: A Natural History of the Palette (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/49699/color-by-victoria-finlay/) by Victoria Finlay (Random House, 2004) 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/). Youâll 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, youâll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picksâ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters. KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)âa place for every knitter. The Adirondack Wool and Arts Festival is the perfect way to spend a weekend surrounded by over 150 craft vendors in Greenwich, New York. Discover a curated group of vendors featuring the best of wool and artisan crafters. Throughout the weekend enjoy workshops, free horse drawn wagon rides, free kidsâ crafts, a fiber sheep show, and a sanctioned cashmere goat show. Join us September 21 & 22, 2024, and every fall! For more information visit adkwoolandarts.com. (https://www.adkwoolandarts.com/)
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Tommye McClure Scanlin had a choice. To make the images she wanted to create with weaving, she could either pursue complex forms of weaving that rely on dobby, jacquard, and draw-loom technology—or she could go the other way and place every color and pick by hand using tapestry techniques and a very simple loom. Preferring a drawing pencil to a calculator, she made the choice that now seems inevitable and dove headlong into tapestry.
She speaks of herself modestly as a “picture-maker,” but Tommye’s imagery reveals the richness of her surroundings. She has lived most of her life in the Southern Appalachian region of North Georgia, and her artwork delves deeply into the natural world that surrounds her. Her woven work comprises many leaves and plants as well as feathers, seeds, and stones. The restrained subject matter is all the better to play with a variety of styles and perspectives.
In addition to her main artistic works, Tommye explores creativity through formal restrictions: using the roll of a die to direct her next color, or challenging herself to add an installment each day in a woven diary. The woven diary project has developed into not only a series of beautiful records spanning more than a decade but also her latest book. Marking Time with Fabric and Thread : Calendars, Diaries, and Journals within Your Fiber Craft describes the daily textile practice of not only weavers but also quilters, embroiderers, and other fiber artists.
Tommye’s first steps in fiber art came as an art teacher, and she went on to establish the fiber arts program at the University of North Georgia. Now retired from her academic career, she has taught at programs such as the John C. Campbell Folk School, Arrowmont, and Penland. Besides teaching in person, she writes articles and books on tapestry techniques and design principles.
Links
Tommye McClure Scanlin’s website (https://www.scanlintapestry.com/)
Gallery of Tommye’s daily tapestry diaries (https://www.scanlintapestry.com/tapestrydiary)
The Nature of Things: Essays of a Tapestry Weaver (https://www.scanlintapestry.com/new-page)
Tapestry Design Basics and Beyond (https://www.scanlintapestry.com/new-page-3)
Tommye’s latest book is Marking Time with Fabric and Thread : Calendars, Diaries, and Journals within Your Fiber Craft (https://schifferbooks.com/products/marking-time-with-fabric-and-thread?_pos=2&_sid=ce1eb2a0e&_ss=r), available October 2024
Read Tommye’s articles for Little Looms (https://littlelooms.com/author/tommye-mcclure-scanlin) and Handwoven (https://handwovenmagazine.com/author/tommye-mcclure-scanlin)
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.
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.
Sustainability and regenerative ranching have been a way of life for the ranches of Shaniko Wool Company for decades. They are the first “farm group” in the U.S. to achieve certification to the rigorous international Responsible Wool Standard and NATIVA Regenerative. Shaniko ranches raise Merino/Rambouillet sheep in the Western United States, delivering a fully traceable wool supply that gives back to the Earth and its ecosystems. To learn more, and discover Shaniko’s yarn partners, visit ShanikoWoolCompany.com. (https://www.shanikowoolcompany.com/) -
Indigo is a unique dyestuff, no less so for being found in so many different plants. Coaxing the blue hue out of green leaves and onto yarn or cloth requires a combination of chemistry and skill that has arisen across the globe. Rowland and Chinami Ricketts each found their own way to indigo in Tokushima, Japan: Rowland was looking for a sustainable artistic medium after learning that the darkroom chemicals in his photography were making their way into local streams where he was teaching English. Chinami was seeking a colorful lifelong practice working with her hands, and it made sense to pursue the specialty of her region. Tokushima is celebrated as one of the leading centers for indigo cultivation, and both Rowland and Chinami took on an apprenticeship in traditional Japanese methods of working with indigo. Rowland and Chinami are now located in Bloomington, Indiana, where Rowland is a Professor in Indiana Universityâs Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. Though thousands of miles from where they first learned to grow indigo, Indiana also has a temperate climate that suits Persecaria tinctoria plants. Following the cycles of planting, harvesting, and processing, they cultivate a crop of indigo for their own work and to support other artists each year. Rowlandâs earlier indigo works included noren, a form of decorative home textile that often screens a door, and geometric paste-resist wall hangings. In recent years, he has taken on more large-scale installations that play with light, volume, and even sound; these works have occupied interior and exterior spaces on several continents.Chinami chose to pursue the difficult kasuri technique, a bind-dye-weave method akin to ikat. Chinami creates warp and weft kasuri in patterns that require great skill and precision to dye and weave. Her primary format is narrow-width woven cloth intended for kimono and obi, though recently she has transformed that cloth into wall-mounted artwork. In addition to their separate work, Rowland and Chinami collaborated on Zurashi/Slipped, a large yarn-based work created for the Seattle Art Museum exhibition Ikat. We also spoke about Rowlandâs explorations of the traditional American coverlet in a few multicolored works. Whether youâre drawn to fiber art, traditional textile methods, or the magic of indigo, youâll love this interview.This episode is available in two formats, a full version that includes portions in Japanese and English (available in the Handwoven Library (https://handwovenmagazine.com/library/ESyBfuxJRaCn6bLimw1SXw)) and a voice-over version in English only (available through the regular podcast feed). LinksRicketts Indigo (https://rickettsindigo.com/) Watch Rowland discuss the recent piece Bow as part of Project Atrium (https://youtu.be/NOgNt1XhRvM) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Jacksonville, Florida. See photos of Chinami (https://rickettsindigo.com/kasuri/) as she plans, dyes, and completes a project in kasuri.See Zurashi/Slipped on exhibit at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art (https://fwmoa.org/exhibition/rowlandricketts/) until September 1, 2024. The Fort Wayne Museum of Art exhibit also includes a number of pieces from Rowlandâs series Unbound (https://rickettsindigo.com/unbound/), which uses historical American coverlet patterns in a meditation on the colonial globalism of the triangle trade. 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/). Youâll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenwayâs array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, youâll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. 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/).The Adirondack Wool and Arts Festival is the perfect way to spend a weekend surrounded by over 150 craft vendors in Greenwich, New York. Discover a curated group of vendors featuring the best of wool and artisan crafters. Throughout the weekend enjoy workshops, free horse drawn wagon rides, free kidsâ crafts, a fiber sheep show, and a sanctioned cashmere goat show. Join us September 21 & 22, 2024, and every fall! For more information visit adkwoolandarts.com.
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Andrew Wells is the third generation of the iconic American yarn manufacturer Brown Sheep Company. Living near the family business outside Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, he grew up giving tours and sweeping the floors when his parents, Peggy and Robert Wells, ran the business. His grandfather, Harlan Brown, had been a sheep and lamb farmer before deciding to begin processing wool yarns, a business he eventually passed along to his daughter and son-in-law. (The company is named not for the color of the sheep but for the Brown family.) In 1980, the following ad appeared in Spin Off magazine: Sheep Company Starts Mill The Brown Sheep Co. of Mitchell, Nebraska, has started a spinning mill. They have wools in gray, black and white and knitting and weaving yarns for sale. For more information write: The Brown Sheep Co., Rt. 1, Mitchell, NE 69357. Send $1 for samples. The risk that Harlan Brown took in 1980 put the family on a course to become an important resource for American crafters. Decades later, Andrew and his family are pushing their commitment to ABuilding on TraditionThe first five decades of Brown Sheep Company have been times of decline for both natural fibers and American manufacturing, but the Wells family continues producing wool yarn. Mantaining consistent quality in the face of such seismic shifts has called on the familyâs creativity and perseverance. Instead of straying from their core values by moving production overseas or reducing quality, they continue purchasing wool from the American West and creating yarn in their small-town facility. Brown Sheep Company performs as much of the processing as they can do themselves, from spinning through dyeing and packaging. Finding a dye house has become a challenge for many yarn manufacturers, and Western Nebraska has a dry climate with scant water resources. Brown Sheep Company keeps the process within their own hands by doing all their own dyeing. Their dye facility conserves water and energy by filtering waste water to use for the next dye bath (even if itâs a different color). The company stores a sample length of each dye lot for years, just to make sure that each skein of Lambâs Pride or Nature Spun will match the same colorway that you bought years ago. The choice of fiber reflects Brown Sheep Companyâs philosophy, too. Instead of chasing ultrafine fibers that prove less durable in finished goods, Andrew travels to the Center of the Nation Wool Warehouse in South Dakota to choose soft wool in grades appropriate for hats, mittens, scarves, and sweaters. Lambâs Pride blends in some mohair for luster, drape, and durability. The easy-care classics Cotton Fleece and Cotton Fine include enough wool to stay light and elastic, which makes them popular for summer and baby items as well as weaving. Their newest yarn, Harborside Aran, is composed of four plies for a substantial yarn inspired by Irish sweaters; the palette of 17 colors has a rich, slightly heathered look.On the Needles and BeyondThese days, Brown Sheep yarns may be most popular for knitting and crochet, but the company has always served a variety of fiber crafts. Lambâs Pride and other non-superwash wool yarns are go-to essentials for fulling (knitted or crocheted feltmaking). The company offers a number of their yarns wound on cones to make them accessible to weavers from pin loom to rigid heddle to multi-shaft. Brown Sheep Companyâs yarns have been used in weaving since the very beginning, when Harlan Brown sold his yarns to DinĂ© (Navajo) weavers out of his car on his first sales trip. DinĂ© weavers continue to use Brown Sheep yarns in their handwoven textiles, and they are an important partner for the company. Closer to home, the companyâs Director of Merchandisingâand Andrewâs wifeâBrittany Wells has fallen in love with weaving and design. In addition to designing for magazines such as Handwoven and Little Looms, she created an officially registered pattern for Scotts Bluff County Tartan. Andrew and Brittanyâs young sons are the fourth generation of the Brown-Wells family to work in the family businessâso far, as models.In this spotlight episode, Andrew and Brittany talk about the process of making high-quality wool yarns, the impact that Brown Sheep Company has in the American craft landscape, and what makes them more excited than ever to carry on the family tradition.To see photos of Brown Sheep Companyâs yarns, the Wells family, and the projects discussed in the episode, visit the show notes at Handwoven magazine. (https://handwovenmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-spotlight-episode-brown-sheep-company/)LinksBrown Sheep Company website (https://brownsheep.com/) Visit the Brown Sheep Company blog (https://brownsheep.com/blog/) for knit-alongs, yarn spotlights, and craft tips Subscribe to the Newsletter (https://brownsheep.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=490f4e087335e469026bf3291&id=33e52716c0) Find Brown Sheep Company on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BrownSheepCompany) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/brownsheepco/) Find Brittanyâs âQuick Guide to Weaving with Brown Sheep Yarnsâ (https://brownsheep.com/a-quick-guide-to-weaving-with-brown-sheep-yarns/), with advice for multishaft, rigid-heddle, and tapestry looms Watch Peggy and Andrew Wells share the history and values of Brown Sheep Company in their About Us video (https://brownsheep.com/about-us/) See the âNebraska Storiesâ (https://youtu.be/IKx7oyJvqtU) feature from Nebraska Public Television Take a class in person at the Brown Sheep Schoolhouse (https://www.brownsheepschool.com/) near Scotts Bluff, NebraskaThis episode is brought to you by:Brown Sheep Company is a four-generation family business bringing you high quality wool and natural fiber yarns. We spin and dye U.S.-grown wool into hundreds of vibrant colors at our mill in western Nebraska. Our mill has something to offer for every craft, from our well-known knitting and crochet yarns to wool roving for spinning and felting. We offer U.S-made needlepoint yarn as well as yarn on cones for weaving. Learn more about our company and products at BrownSheep.com (https://brownsheep.com/).
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Working together in a Philadelphia yarn store, Kate Gagnon Osborn and Courtney Kelley learned how to help customers choose the right yarn for a project, welcome in timid new knitters, and create samples to help move yarn out the door. They learned what didnât work (donut-shaped balls of yarn that hopped off the shelves and tangled, patterns that used a few yards of a 100-gram skein) and what did (unfussy classic yarns, wearable sweaters, and lots of fun-to-knit hats). They founded Kelbourne Woolens in 2008 to offer yarns and patterns to local yarn shops like the one where they met. Their academic and artistic backgrounds gave them a love of fibersâboth studied weaving and dyeingâbut much of what theyâve learned in business has been gleaned through trial and error, common sense, and their extraordinarily collaborative partnership. They have developed a slightly eclectic grouping of yarns based on natural fibers: a range of colorwork-friendly 100% wools, a trio of heathered and tweed yarns milled in the Donegal tradition, some lightweight summer cottons, a mohair blend, and several other projects at various stages of development. Their Germantown yarn, named for the Philadephia neighborhood and the centuries-old American wool yarn tradition, was fueled by Courtneyâs love of history and Kelbourneâs desire to offer a domestically grown and spun yarn that welcomes knitters at all levels. In addition to developing yarns for the Kelbourne Woolens label, they distribute a small number of other yarn companies, bringing their yarns to American yarn stores. That includes Faroese company Navia, which preserves the knitting and agricultural heritage of a tiny group of North Atlantic islands, and Misha & Puff, a knitwear company that offers a RWS-certified line of yarns and patterns. Having recently opened a retail space attached to their warehouse in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadephia, Kate and Courtney now have their own space to welcome knitters in person, experience the currents of the knitting world, and learn to suppport other yarn shops. LinksKelbourne Woolensâs website (https://kelbournewoolens.com/) and store locator (https://kelbournewoolens.com/pages/store-locator) Read more about the history of Germantown yarns in âYarn with a History as Old as Americaâ in PieceWork Winter 2022. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/piecework-winter-2022) The Wool Islands, (https://www.thewoolislands.com/) a short documentary about Faroese wool and yarn 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/). Youâll 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, youâll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picksâ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters. KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)âa place for every knitter.
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If you knit, spin, sew, weave, or follow any crafty pursuit, you will not be surprised that many of our most common metaphors come from textiles. They are interwoven in our vocabulary, and whether you like to spin a yarn from words or fibers, you will recognize many of them.
But then there are the words whose textile roots are less obvious: Rocket. Bombastic. And we’ve forgotten the regional roots of some kinds of fabric, where the skill and creativity refined in a particular place produced an exceptional kind of cloth. You might know what fiber comes from Kashmir, but can you identify the sources of muslin, gauze, damask, or calico? You might know that the pejorative term “shoddy” comes from the fabric trade, but can you identify the roots of tawdry, sleazy, and chintzy?
In this episode, Jess Zafarris and I trace the threads of textiles in our vocabulary. Jess is co-host of Words Unravelled (one of my favorite podcasts) and author of several books, most recently Words from Hell: Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology (https://bookshop.org/p/books/words-from-hell-unearthing-the-darkest-secrets-of-english-etymology-jess-zafarris/19652293).
Links
Useless Etymology website (https://uselessetymology.com/)
Words Unravelled with RobWords and Jess Zafarris podcast audio (https://audioboom.com/channels/5128892-words-unravelled-with-robwords-and-jess-zafarris) and video (https://youtu.be/ThxUBOUnRLM)
Useless Etymology Instagram @uselessetymology (https://www.instagram.com/uselessetymology/)
Rigmaroles & Ragamuffins: Unpicking Words We Derive from Textiles and Ruffians and Loose Women: More Words Derived from Textiles by Elinor Kapp are available from the author. (https://shewhoembroidersthetruth.com/books/)
Dhaka muslin (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210316-the-legendary-fabric-that-no-one-knows-how-to-make)
“Drizzling: A Regency Rainy-Day Hobby” (https://handwovenmagazine.com/drizzling-regency-hobby/)
Shoddy From Devil’s Dust to the Renaissance of Rags (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo24045083.html) by Hannah Rose Shell
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.
Yan 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. -
When Jen Simonic and Masey Kaplan’s friend lost her mother, she had the challenge of going through her mother’s things while grieving her loss. Among her posessions was something almost every crafter has at least one of: a work in progress. Jen and Masey had each finished projects for bereaved family members before, but neither of them could take on this one, a pair of crocheted blankets for two very tall sons.
If the two of them were happy to finish a loved one’s unfinished craft project, they thought, other fiber artists would be willing to do it, too—fiber artists with a variety of craft skills. And there must be families of deceased crafters who weren’t lucky to know someone personally who could take on the task but would treasure having a finished item that their loved one began for them. So began Loose Ends (https://looseends.org/), an organization that Jen and Masey think of as matchmakers for heirs and finishers of uncompleted works,
Loose Ends, which was established in May 2023 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, set out to build a network that connects volunteer crafters with local families to complete projects that were left unfinished by death or disability. Hanging flyers near their homes, Jen and Masey quickly found finishers and projects in crochet, knitting, and quilting. Loose Ends currently seeks finishers in any textile handcraft and matches finishers with projects across the world. Projects under way include weaving, embroidery, and beading, as far afield as Alaska, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Their informational flyer is now available in 12 languages.
You may be surprised to learn that for about 2,000 projects in process, 25,000 volunteers have signed up as finishers—so crafters far outnumber craft projects at this time. But Loose Ends is always looking for more volunteer finishers, both to cover a variety of crafts and to match families with nearby finishers when possible.
Any of us who love making things with our hands hate to think of our work in progress going to waste, languishing in boxes or (worse) winding up in the trash if we’re not able to finish them ourselves. By matching finishers and unfinished works, Loose Ends brings solace to families of deceased crafters and honors the work of their loved ones.
Links:
Loose Ends Project website (https://looseends.org/)
Sign up as a finisher or request help with a loved one’s project on the web forms (https://app.looseendsproject.org/).
Help families and finishers find Loose Ends by hanging flyers (https://looseends.org/flyers), which are available in several languages.
Visit the website to make a donation (https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/65186b43-546a-4077-a1d2-a7998a7ef83f).
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.
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/).
Brown Sheep Company is a four-generation family business bringing you high quality wool and natural fiber yarns. We spin and dye U.S.-grown wool into hundreds of vibrant colors at our mill in western Nebraska. Our mill has something to offer for every craft, from our well-known knitting and crochet yarns to wool roving for spinning and felting. We offer U.S-made needlepoint yarn as well as yarn on cones for weaving. Learn more about our company and products at BrownSheep.com (https://brownsheep.com/).
KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picks’ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters.
KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)—a place for every knitter. -
A career professional at Levi Strauss & Company, Eileen Lee learned about dyeing, weaving, and sewing on an international scale: giant factories full of loud looms weaving 2/2 twill, pattern pieces cut out of four-foot-high stacks of cloth, and no possibility of adding a tuck here or a dart there without retooling. During her years in the industry, Eileen saw major shifts in the market for the company's signature product, as their target customer began to look elsewhere and their manufacturing shifted overseas. A century ago, Eileen's grandmother saw a tradition on the cusp of changing, even disappearing. Hawaiian quilting grew from the basic stitches taught by Christian missionaries into a distinct cultural tradition, with large appliquĂ© motifs and echo quilting lines. But the quilters who made these quilts didn't share them outside their families; some quilts were burned to keep their designs a secret. Hannah KuÂŽumililani Cummings Baker threw open her cache of quilt designs and taught the skill to anyone who cared to learn, creating both a wider market and a fresh generation of quilters. One of her students was her granddaughter Eileen, who wrote about her grandmother in PieceWork Summer 2021. From her grandmother's tutelage to a career in mass-market textiles to her current studio and teaching practice, Eileen Lee's story is woven and stitched together.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.Youâre ready to start a new project but donât 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.Brown Sheep Company is a four-generation family business bringing you high quality wool and natural fiber yarns. We spin and dye U.S.-grown wool into hundreds of vibrant colors at our mill in western Nebraska. Our mill has something to offer for every craft, from our well-known knitting and crochet yarns to wool roving for spinning and felting. We offer U.S-made needlepoint yarn as well as yarn on cones for weaving. Learn more about our company and products at BrownSheep.com (https://brownsheep.com/).
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Lilly Marsh creates blankets, shawls, and other cloth, almost exclusively from local wool. Working closely with farmers and the nearby Battenkill Fiber Mill, she gets to know not only her neighbors but the fibers they grow: the surprisingly lovely wool from East Friesian sheep raised to produce milk, the springy Dorset crosses that are popular in the region, and other fibers of the Hudson Valley Textile Network. Formerly a shepherd herself, Lilly knows how important and unique this wool is to the families who raise it.
She is a full-time professional custom weaver. “I weave primarily with all local wool,” she says. “That’s what I do full time, day after day after day.” The cloth that she weaves helps farms and small businesses transform their fibers into finished products that shoppers at a farmers’ market can take home and enjoy. She sees her role as weaver not as the sole artistic voice directing textile production but as one link in the chain between farm and consumer.
Lilly appreciates her complex, powerful looms and their ability to create dynamic cloth, but the designs that make her heart sing are the ones that bring out the best in her materials. Where many weavers gravitate toward cotton, silk, and lyocell, she finds wool yarns fascinating and nuanced.
At earlier points in her textile journey, Lilly was a shepherd herself, raising a flock of Corriedales in Indiana. She earned a PhD in America Studies, focusing on the work of knitter Elizabeth Zimmermann. As she expands her studio and deepens her work with the Hudson Valley Textile Project, she says, "What else would I do with my time? This is what I want to do. If you ask me what I want to do tomorrow, I want to show up at my studio and see what else we can make. Wow, that’s what I want to do."
Links
Lilly March Studios (https://lillymarshstudios.com/)
Hudson Valley Textile Project (https://www.hvtextileproject.org/)
Long Thread Podcast interview with Mary Jeanne Packer (https://farmfiberknits.com/long-thread-podcast-mary-jeanne-packer-battenkill-fibers-carding-spinning-mill/)
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.
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/).
Brown Sheep Company is a four-generation family business bringing you high quality wool and natural fiber yarns. We spin and dye U.S.-grown wool into hundreds of vibrant colors at our mill in western Nebraska. Our mill has something to offer for every craft, from our well-known knitting and crochet yarns to wool roving for spinning and felting. We offer U.S-made needlepoint yarn as well as yarn on cones for weaving. Learn more about our company and products at BrownSheep.com (https://brownsheep.com/).
KnitPicks.com has been serving the knitting community for over 20 years and believes knitting is for everyone, which is why they work hard to make knitting accessible, affordable, and approachable. Knit Picks responsibly sources its fiber to create an extensive selection of affordable yarns like High Desert from Shaniko Wool Company in Oregon. Are you looking for an ethical, eco-friendly yarn to try? Look no further than Knit Picks’ Eco yarn line. Need needles? Knit Picks makes a selection for knitters right at their Vancouver, Washington headquarters.
KnitPicks.com (https://www.knitpicks.com/)—a place for every knitter. -
The call of complexity draws some weavers to more shafts, more structures, more hand-manipulated techniques. For Annie MacHale, refining the techniques and celebrating the artistry of very simple bands has been a lifelong fascination. Starting when she first picked up a shuttle and inkle loom in her teens, Annie has worked in wool, cotton, and hemp, creating practical cloth that’s just a few inches wide.
Any bandweaver has heard the question more times than they can count: “But what can you do with it?” Annie replies, “The uses are limited only by your imagination.” Her work has found an avid audience and market among guitarists and reenactors. The simplicity of an inkle band is its key to versatility as a strap or ribbon. “A woven band can be so many things to so many people, and in the world of weaving, it’s very simple, but it’s also very useful,” she says. “That’s what attracted me to inkle weaving.” (She has a list of uses on her website for anyone who weaves more bands than they currently have a use for.)
Although Annie describes her own approach to design as spontaneous, her first book contains an extensive directory of patterns and palettes for weaving inkle bands. In Celebration of Plain Weave can be read as a response to the idea that making plain bands isn’t real weaving. “It seemed to me there was this general sense that plain weave wasn’t all that interesting, that if you wanted to do something cool, you either had to learn some pickup technique or do card weaving. And I disagree with that,” she says.
Plain weave holds plenty to keep her engaged and exploring, but Annie also plays with pick-up in her work. Her second book focuses on an unusual and complex Baltic technique using three warp colors. She also loves finding connections between her bandweaving and traditional weaving techniques from around the world, from banded Chimayo designs to Scandinavian backstrap bands to Andean pickup.
Besides weaving miles of inkle bands on her own, Annie enjoys teaching inkle weaving, including basic skills, color and design, and several methods of pickup. “Have loom, will travel,” she says, referring to her upcoming classes across the country (listed on her website).
Links
Annie MacHale’s website (http://aspinnerweaver.blogspot.com/)
Upcoming class schedule (https://aspinnerweaver.blogspot.com/p/classes.html)
In Celebration of Plain Weave (https://taprootvideo.com/preview_class.jsf?iid=12&cid=1)
Three-Color Pickup for Inkle Weavers (https://taprootvideo.com/preview_class.jsf?iid=12&cid=2)
“Inkle Weaving Basics” (https://taprootvideo.com/preview_class.jsf?iid=12&cid=3) (free class on Taproot Video)
“Uses for a Woven Band” (https://aspinnerweaver.blogspot.com/p/uses-for-woven-band.html)
Annie’s Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/aspinnerweaver/)
Annie’s woven guitar straps (https://weaverguitarstraps.com/)
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.
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.
Brown Sheep Company is a four-generation family business bringing you high quality wool and natural fiber yarns. We spin and dye U.S.-grown wool into hundreds of vibrant colors at our mill in western Nebraska. Our mill has something to offer for every craft, from our well-known knitting and crochet yarns to wool roving for spinning and felting. We offer U.S-made needlepoint yarn as well as yarn on cones for weaving. Learn more about our company and products at BrownSheep.com (https://brownsheep.com/). -
“Rule number one: Never drink the dye bath.”
Indigo and cochineal may be the most widely recognized natural dyes for many fiber artists, and there’s little temptation of sampling an indigo vat or pot of ground insects. But a simmering kettle of dye mushrooms or lichens? That might smell delicious, but if you’re in a class with Alissa Allen, it’s not soup you’re making—it’s an amazing range of colors. Depending on the species you find and the methods of extraction, you may get not only earthy browns and yellows but vivid purple, magenta, green, and more.
“Mycopigments,” the term that Alissa coined to talk about her work, draws from the word “mycology,” or the study of fungi. From her background as an ecologist with an interest in foraging, she has become an expert and sought-after teacher on the art of extracting pigments from mushrooms and lichens. As interest in mushroom dyeing has grown, the Facebook group she founded on the subject has become a popular international resource for aspiring color foragers.
One of the most intriguing elements of mushroom dyeing is the regional variation, not only in the mushrooms and lichens available but what influences come from the local biology. To make sure that her students have a good experience in a particular region, Alissa gathers and dries samples in preparation for classes. Having taught from coast to coast, and with a series of classes in Oaxaca, Mexico this fall, her library of mushroom samples is substantial. She sometimes ventures out mushroom-hunting with a small kit to test potential dye sources in the field.
Essential to Alissa’s work is careful and respectful foraging practice—not, as you might think, to avoid toxic mushrooms but to leave enough fungi and lichens to fulfill their roles in the ecosystem. Collecting only a portion of the specimens she finds and never purchasing dyestuffs gives her enough to dye and teach.
And the whole process is a source of wonder: What do these chemical compounds do for the mushrooms and fungi that they’re found in? Why did the first person decide to try extracting color from them in the first place? Why do the dyed products so often come out different colors from the original mushrooms? Listen as Alissa Allen shares some of the natural delights that she finds in unexpected places.
Links
Mycopigments website (https://www.mycopigments.com/)
Mushroom and Lichen Dyers United Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/mycopigments/)
Mycopigments Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/mycopigments/)
Schedule of Alissa’s classes (https://www.mycopigments.com/collections/classes)
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.
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/).
Brown Sheep Company is a four-generation family business bringing you high quality wool and natural fiber yarns. We spin and dye U.S.-grown wool into hundreds of vibrant colors at our mill in western Nebraska. Our mill has something to offer for every craft, from our well-known knitting and crochet yarns to wool roving for spinning and felting. We offer U.S-made needlepoint yarn as well as yarn on cones for weaving. Learn more about our company and products at BrownSheep.com (https://brownsheep.com/). -
In a period when agriculture moved toward chemicals, genetic engineering, and monoculture, Sally Fox decided to explore what could happen if she collaborated with nature instead of fighting it. With an academic background in entomology, she studied ways to minimize the amount of pesticides needed to grow crops, and the more she saw the effects of those chemicals, the more she wanted to steer clear. Looking to avoid synthetic dyes, she was intrigued when she came across a few seeds of naturally colored brown cotton, which is naturally pest-resistant. According to conventional wisdom, brown cotton couldnât be bred to have a staple long enough for textile mills to process it commercially. Only easily dyed, longer stapled white cotton was suitable for large-scale use, the thinking went. But Sally decided to try anyway, breeding a few plants on the side as she continued working in agricultural research. Over time, she saw interesting results, including a range of green and brown hues; more washfast and lightfast color; longer staples; memory; even improved flame resistance. As a spinner and weaver, Sally had a unique advantage as she developed her cotton lines: the help of skilled spinners who tried her samples and put them through a variety of tests. It was the handspinners who introduced the idea of boiling the cotton yarn, which weakened some colors and strengthened others that she brought forward. The support of handspinners and weavers helped sustain Sally through challenging decades when conventional agriculture threatened her work and her livelihood. Her cotton proved naysayers wrong: organic and naturally colored cotton could be spun at industrial scale and provide similar or better results to conventional cotton. Today, Sallyâs textile work is recognized not only for creating beautiful fiber and minimizing avoiding chemical pesticides and dyes but also fixing carbon in the soil. On her farm, she raises naturally colored finewool sheep and heirloom wheat in rotation with cotton. Like the fibers she has cultivated, her farm expands our ideas of whatâs possible in organic agriculture. LinksVreseis website (https://www.vreseis.com/)Fiber, fabric, and yarn in the Vreseis shop (https://www.vreseis.com/shop)Vreseisâs Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/vreseis)This episode is brought to you by:Treenway SilksTreenway 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/). Youâll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenwayâs array of wild silks provide choices beyond white. If you love silk, youâll love Treenway Silks, where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed. Yarn Barn of KansasYouâre ready to start a new project but donât 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.Brown Sheep CompanyBrown Sheep Company is a four-generation family business bringing you high quality wool and natural fiber yarns. We spin and dye U.S.-grown wool into hundreds of vibrant colors at our mill in western Nebraska. Our mill has something to offer for every craft, from our well-known knitting and crochet yarns to wool roving for spinning and felting. We offer U.S-made needlepoint yarn as well as yarn on cones for weaving. Learn more about our company and products at BrownSheep.com (https://brownsheep.com/).
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When Susan Bateman first opened Yarn Barn of Kansas in 1971, a woman starting a small business couldn’t get a credit card in her own name. Weavers like her had a hard time finding yarns, tools, and other supplies, some of which were only available from overseas, and she thought there must be an opportunity to bring fiber artists more of what they needed.
Susan and her husband, Jim, have spent decades building the kind of store she wanted to see when she was learning to weave and hoping to grow her fiber skills: one with a wide selection of yarns, a lively education program, and lots and lots of books. Yarn Barn of Kansas occupies thousands of square feet with a storefront, classroom, and a massive warehouse stacked with boxes of yarn. (Jim says that he can easily prove that they have ten tons of inventory, and the stock room has a directory to help staff find just the right box.)
Although the shop has Kansas right in the name, many of the store’s customers never set foot in the Lawrence, Kansas storefront. Susan and Jim make regular trips to fiber arts conferences from coast to coast, some years as many as one per month, always with that extensive (and heavy) selection of books that are difficult to find elsewhere. But many customers will never meet them or their staff in person anywhere. Beginning with printed catalogs and continuing with their website, Yarn Barn of Kansas meets many fiber artists where they are—literally, shipping to nearly all of the 50 United States every month.
That doesn’t mean they’re strangers, though. Customers across the country call the shop for advice, troubleshooting, and some quick how-to in addition to placing orders. The shop has a full roster of classes in a variety of crafts, but much of the teaching that the staff does every day is unscheduled help by phone or in person. Between answering customers’ questions and taking orders, Susan and other staff design projects and create samples to help customers use the yarns and techniques on offer.
Although they have offered classes and supplies for crafts from basketry to needlepoint to lacemaking in the past, Yarn Barn of Kansas currently focuses on weaving, spinning, knitting, and crochet. The store may be best known nationally as a weaving supplier, but closer to home, most of their local customers come for knitting. Susan and Jim had that range of customers in mind when thinking of their newest venture, a 100% organic cotton yarn from fiber sourced in Texas and spun and dyed in North Carolina. The unmercerized 4/2 yarn in 45 colors is a versatile size for crochet, rigid-heddle and multishaft weaving, and knitting. They’ve called the yarn Ad Astra, in recognition of Kansas’s state motto).
Links
Yarn Barn of Kansas website (https://www.yarnbarn-ks.com/)
Discover Ad Astra (https://www.yarnbarn-ks.com/Ad-Astra-4_2-Cotton/productinfo/WY%2DADAS42%2D/), the new organic cotton yarn
Read about Classes (https://www.yarnbarn-ks.com/Classes/departments/410/)
Subscribe to the Newsletter (https://yarnbarn-ks.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=899d1417b1baaa14275593bfe&id=845ac91a43)
Find Yarn Barn of Kansas on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/yarnbarnks/)
Read Susan Bateman and Melissa Parson’s series on weaving best practices for beginners and beyond at Handwoven (https://handwovenmagazine.com/best-practices-beginning-weaving-series/)
This episode is brought to you by:
Yarn Barn of Kansas
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. - Se mer
