My sister Selma sent me some of my favorite gifts ever. Beautiful plants, cute figurines, rice cookers, and great shirts all arrived on my doorstep sent by my sister. Two years ago, I tried to get back into weaving, but it didn’t go all that well. I used a table loom and even that was too much for my sad little hands. I had to use oxygen. I was feeling pretty down about the whole thing. Selma, forever unwilling to surrender to the hardships sent her way by life, sent me this tee-shirt. I packed it away.
This is a beautiful shirt, very comfortable and in my favorite color. It was a kind of a flop, however, because… scleroderma. I have a great floor loom that hasn’t been used for almost a decade. I can’t remember when I last produced something useful on a loom. I had kind of accepted that my days of weaving were over.
Then Selma died last summer.
Time to channel the indominable Selma, right?!! This Christmas I bought myself a little rigid heddle loom that I thought I might be able to manage while sitting in bed. Good plan, right? I used the practice yarn sent with the loom to learn how to warp and use it, and then I warped it up again with superwash merino sock yarn. Guess what? I can weave like crazy propped up in bed binge watching Netflex. Yay!
I finished the scarf this week and it is great! I am really happy with the feel and the drape. I bought a little fringe maker tool so I can make even twisted fringes with beads. Did I do this propped up in bed? Of course. I’m feeling pretty successful and I have already warped up the little rigid heddle again. Do I have visions of finished scarfs dancing in my head. Yep. Watch out yarn stash, I am coming for you!!
I also, in a moment of determined optimism, signed up for an overshot weaving class that would require me to warp up and use the floor loom. Oh, boy. Getting the loom warped and correctly threaded was… a lot. Just exhausting, actually, both mentally and physically. Eventually the warp was on and I could begin weaving. Yikes. This was a lot of work. There were problems with oxygen levels and sore muscles. I persevered, took a day or two off between weaving sessions, and slowly I became stronger and my breathing improved. I worked my way through the lessons online, clearly behind the rest of the class, and struggled to master the equipment and technical details involved in weaving overshot, a technique that involved weaving two fabrics interlaced with each other at once to create the type of designs in the pictures below.
Today I have finished weaving two of the major projects associated with the class, and I couldn’t be more pleased. These two placemats look different, but they are actually made from the same threading on the loom. The two looks (the left is called “star” and the right is called “rose” in weaving language) are created by changing the treadling sequence. Cool, right? My next assignment is to create a table runner that combines these two patterns together in a creative way. Yeppers! I am so excited to do that and have already half-way figured out how it will happen on the loom. I have new yarn picked out and everything. I am gaining energy and I can weave much longer at a time, and I’m not experiencing too many joint problems. Am I wearing my shuttle pilot shirt? Why yes, yes I am!
Selma would be so pleased to know that I am once again a shuttle pilot!!
After thoughts:
- Selma sent me Swedish gingersnap cookies last year for Christmas. I bought another can and I’m now eating those cookies while I work at the loom.
- Grief is a tricky thing. So is stress management. I have discovered that working at the loom, creating something beautiful and useful over time using repetitive movements, helps with both.
- I’m thinking of joining the local weavers’ guild.
- I have a really lush, healthy looking African violet plant that Selma sent to me one year. Is this plant blooming? Nope. This is kind of on point for my sister. When the time is right, I anticipate that it will produce blooms better than any other plant that I own.
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Yippee! Very happy for you! The placemats are beautiful. Keep going!
I started the table runner last night and it is going to look great!!
But this is MARVELLOUS, Marilyn !! – I do believe the weaving is working some magic !
Not only does this (to me) distressingly challenging occupation give every sign of improving your health, but you are deriving immense enjoyment from it and producing beautiful things. I’m almost without words. But not quite. [grin]
There’s no such thing as a stupid weaver: anyone who masters this beautiful craft has A Serious Brain That Is Fully Functional – like yours. That scarf – oh, that scarf !!! I want it. Give it to me NOW.
So you now know beyond any doubt that your “spoiling” yourself by buying the little heddle loom was a brilliant thing, leading to your determination to get into overshot weaving as well – and guess what ? … SUCCESS !!! Which is to say, another success !!
You do know, I trust, that yours is a life full of purpose, creativity and satisfaction. I will admit that it also contains pain, frustration and exhaustion, but those are things that pass. Basically, your life is better – in terms of its planning:completion ratio – than many. MANY. Mine, just for starters.
It’d be something really good to read about. [grin]
You continue to be my biggest cheerleader… thank you so much!! My thoughts about weaving would be that it is very taxing in a mental way (there is a lot of math and logical problem solving involved) and will help me exercise in a way that spares my bad boy hip while helping me deplete the yarn stash. The meditative aspect is another plus since I need to back off the knitting a little to protect my hands. I really can feel the stress drop away as I weave.
I started a new scarf last night that will be a navy marled one in the softest yarn ever. Wait until you see the new one!! I wonder what the postage to Australia is?
My cardiologist talked to me about grief. It takes deliberate effort to keep moving forward when so much comes crashing down, and picking up the weaving is part of that effort. He is a pulmonary hypertension specialist, which means he has many patients who are dealing with a life ending condition. I am pretty much beating the odds here and I told him that all of this, even my diagnosis, has been grief management. Maybe some of what we talked about will ripple out to other patients.
Still thinking about the book.
Knew I was right about weaving ! – it’s only for clever people, like teachers. 🙂
But what’s better, according to me, is that meditative positive (like it ?): in your position, a woman living on her own and suffering poor health as well as great grief – in other words, being almost under – to rediscover her own kind of joy in such an occupation is almost miraculous. Truly wonderful !!
I believe your cardio glories in having you as a patient: the fact of his dealing with so many e-o-l patients is of course unavoidable, so having you would lift his spirits immeasurably ! And as it was here with Chic, as he did come to the end of life, the intelligence quotient is always viewed with great pleasure. As well, you’re right (again) about the ripples: Chic’s cardio did utilise some of the things they talked about – and ALL the funny bits ! 🙂
Quite often I think you’re your own best medico.
I think that it keeps coming back to being resilient. I know that I blogged about this before, and I’m pretty sure that we have commented back and forth about it, but resilience is a huge factor in how people progress clinically in the context of challenging medical situations and life ones too. One of the members of my support community just died of the same heart and lung complications that I have. She was very resistant to taking medications and refused to use oxygen; I think that is a type of failure resilience as it was linked to facing down the monster while simultaneously wailing that her doctors weren’t helping her. What she meant was… they weren’t able to return her to the life she used to have. Our ability to accept, adapt, and then flourish within the context of changing conditions must be a hallmark of resiliency.
My cardio doc mentioned that he saw patients who were not able to move past the moment of the diagnosis, and that their outcomes reflected that. I think that along with home nurse visits we need life hack workshops (and maybe some weaving on the side!!)
WOW. Your sister would be so proud. What gorgeous items you are making! While tinged with sadness, hopefully lots of joy and happy memories as well. What a wonderful way to keep your sister alive.
My sister would be taking all the credit for the weaving! She was one of those people who was extremely practical and would send me things from Amazon to fix all my little problems. Struggling to cut up boxes? A super-duper box cutter would arrive on my doorstep. The cat pulled the drapes down? New wall anchors would show up. Who knew that weaving would turn out to be an excellent grief management strategy?
Such a fine tribute to Selma
How fabulous that you are weaving again. Its a little bit spooky as I warped up my 10″ sampleit loom this week and have been trying some 3 heddle twill patterns and it seems years since I last used it. Its a great tribute to your sister and how nice that whenever you weave she will come to mind because of the gifted t-shirt.
That is spooky! I’m trying to get my head around three heddle twill patterns… That is a lot of equipment manipulation!! I just figured out how to use a pickup stick!! I can do twill on the floor loom (it is 8 heddle) but it is sooo much trouble to warp up and there is significant loom waste. One of the things that drew me to the rigid heddle was that I could weave my expensive yarns with little loom waste.
I think that I need a sampleit loom because where I am going with the weaving is coming up with projects that will use up my handspun yarn. I have lots of beautiful skeins in one-ounce amounts that I need to plan well before I cut them up for warp. I have also been thinking about colorblock sweaters that could be created on the circular knitting machines.
Selma would love the weaving!
You’ve produced some gems from your loom. I love the pink color on the scarf/runner, but particularly like the place mat patterns because they remind me of the linsey woolsey coverlets that colonial women in the colonies made for their families’ beds. The patterns are similar, as is the navy and white/off-white color scheme, which was common. Well done!
The tributes to your sister were touching because you incorporated elements of your associations with her into your everyday life. I particularly like the tee’s caption.
The overshot patterns are historical, and exactly the in the way you said. They were coverlet patterns, and the threading patterns were passed around and preserved. Once a person was technically proficient, they could “read” the pattern and determine how to create the cloth. Modern weavers like myself look for all the information and a diagram showing what the final woven cloth looks like, and some people (not me, however… baby steps here) use digital tools to make colored diagrams to work off of. I really admire the competency of those colonial weavers! I bet they also spun and dyed their own yarn too.
From now on when I see or hear “shuttle” I’ll think of you instead of astronauts! Love the weaving, partly because I understand it better than knitting, and especially that gorgeous scarf! I want one! I predict you’ll be getting a lot of requests for those.
I’m happy for you, Marilyn. You are literally weaving memories along with things of beauty. I’m glad your hands are feeling better. I’m amazed that you can weave in bed, but im impressed with your tenacity.
It really does pay off to keep hacking life when problems arise. Weaving in bed turned out to be much easier than I expected, mostly because of the way the rigid heddle is constructed. I can even brace it on a chonky cat it I need to.
Hannah: Hey. Knock it off. Can I have more tuna now?
LOL ah yes, life with cats. They rule the place.