Shepherding the Full Experience: The Story of Sheep to Kits on my Farm
Shepherding the Full Experience The Story of Sheep to Kits on my Farm Each week as I package and prep fiber arts kits to send to my students, I can’t help but feel a bit like Santa Claus, arranging and wrapping the adult version of stockings full of treasures for the learning adventures that will […]
Making Liberation
If you’ve noticed a quietness to my blog and social media lately, it’s because I’ve been nose-down in my studio, finishing a massive project. The scale of this project goes beyond just the physical finished piece, which received its last punch, stitch, and steam this week. When I signed up to take the Oxford punch […]
Wise and Foolish Virgins Tapestry Webinar
This past winter, I was asked by Vesterheim Folk Arts School to develop a tapestry course inspired by their Wise and Foolish Virgins-themed pieces in their collection. It was a delightful challenge that also made me curious to learn more about these iconic, historic Norwegian tapestries, the women that wove and used them, and the […]
Return of the Yarn
It feels like an age ago that it was spring shearing time. Like now, the mornings were chilly but the sun was bright. The sheep were poofy fluff balls, ready to take off their winter coats in preparation for summer. For days, I’d worked through the mountains of raw, sticky wool, sorting and pulling out […]
Introducing Tapestry Prompts
I have many great memories over writing prompts with my wordy friends. We’d all gather up prompts (as simple as a single word like “red” or as nuanced as “the way the light comes in through the window”) and tuck them all into a basket. Then we’d pull one out and, without overthinking the […]
Building a Tapestry Pedagogy
It was late summer of 1998, and I was just about to turn 13, when my mom asked me if an enrichment course through the Madison Area Technical College on Navajo tapestry weaving might be of interest. We had just begun our homeschooling adventures together, transitioning from Montessori schools to our own version of Montessori-infused […]
A Mountain of Wool
Chris’ telltale greenish-gray truck pulls into the barnyard early in the morning as we’re doing chores. Shearing season once again has arrived on the farm, and the 120-odd sheep are ready. As the temperatures tentatively climb out of the deep freeze, their heavy wool coats will soon be too intense for their comfort. In the […]
Creativity Vs. Productivity–Yin and Yang
I was a bright-eyed fourth grader the summer we stopped by the gift shop in Wisconsin Dells where my mom’s younger brother had a summer job. I had a tiny bit of spending money, and I picked out a necklace for myself—a silvery yin yang pendant embedded with shell inlay dyed maroon and a bluish […]
Inheritor of Stashes
The stash. I wish there was a prettier word for it, maybe something that sounds a bit more French? Even horde sounds at least medieval or fantasy oriented to describe an assemblage of art or craft supplies, but “stash” seems to have become the term of choice. On the other hand, I don’t want to […]
Facing Your Project UFOs
For many of us, the term UFO conjures images of disk-shaped alien space craft with blinking lights and eerie music, but for creative makers, we have a different use for this acronym—Un-Finished Object. A creative UFO is a different critter from the other acronym WIPs, or Works In Progress. A WIP is something you’re actively […]