The Long Thread Podcast

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 couldn’t 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, Sally’s 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 what’s possible in organic agriculture. Links Vreseis website (https://www.vreseis.com/) Fiber, fabric, and yarn in the Vreseis shop (https://www.vreseis.com/shop) Vreseis’s Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/vreseis) 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 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. Brown Sheep Company 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/).

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.

There may be no other type of textile that is more art and craft at the same time than tapestry weaving. Tapestry allows the weaver to create images with simple tools, but the skills and materials in tapestry are generally hard-wearing. You might find a tapestry on the floor as a rug as often as on a wall as a piece of art. Rebecca Mezoff became a tapestry weaver after a career in occupational therapy, finding that it suited her artistically and let her use other skills she loved, such as teaching, dyeing, and spinning. She weaves very large pieces in her studio and very small pieces in outdoor spaces that she explores with a small handheld loom. In addition to teaching in person and online, she is the author of two books. Links The Art of Tapestry Weaving (https://rebeccamezoff.com/the-art-of-tapestry-weaving) Untangled: A Crafty Sheep’s Guide to Tapestry Weaving (https://rebeccamezoff.com/untangled) Online classes (https://rebeccamezoff.com/online-learning) Rebecca’s article “Weaving with Handspun: What Makes a Good Tapestry Yarn?” (https://spinoffmagazine.com/weaving-handspun-makes-good-tapestry-yarn/) appeared in Spin Off Spring 2017. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/spin-off-spring-2017-download?_pos=1&_sid=86b50d00b&_ss=r) Listen to our interview (https://spinoffmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-maggie-casey-and-judy-steinkoenig/) with Rebecca’s spinning teacher, Maggie Casey, on the Long Thread Podcast. 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/). Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector—and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (https://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today!

For Hannah Thiessen Howard, slow knitting isn’t about the speed of making stitches or finishing projects. Swift and leisurely knitters alike can embrace the purpose and experience of knitting and how it connects crafter to community. Selecting materials, choosing projects, and approaching your work with an open mind all contribute to a meaningful knitting life. Knitting can offer refuge, inspiration, and self-expression. It can also be a step, large or small, toward bringing about the kind of world that you’d like to see. From her first yarn-industry internship at a large international company, Hannah has gravitated to smaller and more independent projects, such as her work with the Hudson Valley Textile Project and consulting with small fiber-based companies. She has a new project in the works, a yarn-focused stock image website, that will provide photo resources that accurately reflect what crafts and crafters look like. Although knitting is her primary professional focus, Hannah’s fiber practice wouldn’t be complete without spinning, both for the education it offers about yarn properties and for the connection to animals and farms. Not only do spinners have a more intimate experience with a fiber source, but they often provide meaningful financial support fiber farmers. And what could be a better complement to slow knitting than the hands-on process of making yarn yourself? Hannah’s latest yarn passion is the carefully, lovingly curated collection that so many knitters mention with a hint of shame: her stash. Diving into the skeins she’s adopted over the years is an opportunity to reflect on her slow-knitting values . . . and decide what she wants to carry forward. Links Hannah Thiessen Howard’s website (https://slow-knitting.com/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/hannahbelleknits/) Slow Knitting (https://slow-knitting.com/shop/p/slow-knitting) and Seasonal Slow Knitting (https://slow-knitting.com/shop/p/seasonal-slow-knitting) books By Hand Serial (https://www.byhandserial.com/) Greater Cumberland Fibershed (https://fibershed.org/affiliate/greater-cumberland-fibershed/) Hudson Valley Textile Project’s Common Threads (https://www.hvtextileproject.org/common-threads-publication) 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. Peters Valley School of Craft logo Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector—and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (https://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today!

Although she grew up in the freezing winters of New York, Keisha Cameron and her husband decided to move their young family to a peri-urban spot outside Atlanta, Georgia, to set down roots and rebuild their connection to the land. They began with raising what their family needed for food and other daily necessities, but over the past decade, High Hog Farm has developed stocks of rare-breed sheep, angora rabbits, and chickens. In their gardens, the family cultivate produce as well as medicinal and dye plants. As returning-generation farmers, they not only love what they do, they also feel an obligation as stewards of their land. Rediscovering the traditional ways of cultivating and using plants, Keisha has sampled different types of indigo, madder, marigolds, and a range of dyestuffs. The farm offers naturally dyed fibers as well as dyestuffs and classes in natural dyeing. As she grows attuned to her soil, she appreciates the multiple roles that a single plant can play. As a cultural seedkeeper, she focuses on not only preserving a diversity of plants but on reviving the knowledge of how they can serve a variety of needs. Although High Hog has been home to a variety of different farm animals, Keisha fell in love with sheep. She felt an instant affinity for Gulf Coast Natives, a rare breed that can carry color genetics and are exceptionally well suited to her location. Her insistence on participating fully in the lives of her animals has led her to explore fiber arts—but also to learn the demanding skill of shearing. As a crucial part of her animals’ health, shearing is too important to leave undone if they can’t locate a shearer when needed. For followers around the country, High Hog Farm is mainly accessible through their newly relaunched website and online store (as well as their enchanting social media accounts). For the community closer at hand, the farm has developed a variety of programs in fiber arts, photography, food preservation, and a variety of other agrarian arts. On being part of the grassroots fiber community, Keisha says, “I want to encourage everybody else, all the fiber artists and fiber and dye growers, to keep doing what you’re doing, because we are the people who are bringing color to the world.” Links High Hog Farm website (https://highhog.farm/) High Hog Farm’s Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/highhogfarm/) 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. Stewart Heritage Farm 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/). Peters Valley School of Craft Peters Valley School of Craft enriches lives through the learning, appreciation and practice of fine craft. For more than 50 years, accomplished artists and students have come together in community at our craft school for powerful creativity and joyous life-long learning in the beautiful Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We are firmly dedicated to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access through all of our programs. We value and welcome the experienced professional artist, the new learner, the collector—and everyone in between who can be touched by the power of craft. Visit petersvalley.org (https://petersvalley.org/) to start your journey today!

Justin Squizzero loves exploring the frontiers of technology, seeing how he can tune a piece of equipment to produce a complex textile. The technology that fascinates him reached its peak before the 20th century. Weaving on an old loom doesn’t mean trying to turn back time, though—it means choosing the most refined technology to create the handwoven fabrics that he envisions. If a modern tool is better than the historic one (like the laser cutter that produced the small metal rings called mails, which were needed to to convert his loom from weaving coverlets to damask), that would be one thing. For all the supposed advances in technology in the last several hundred years, though, the best tool for weaving fine linen damask is still the one invented by Joseph-Marie Jacquard more than 200 years ago. Studying with Norman Kennedy and Kate Smith at the Marshfield School of Weaving helped Justin deepen his understanding of and fascination with the tools and techniques of 18th- and 19th-century weaving. What began as a winter occupation between summers working in museums led to beginning a business as a traditional handweaver, becoming a regular teacher in School’s unique curriculum, and most recently taking on the role as its Director. In Justin’s weaving practice, discovery and ingenuity are as vital looking to the past as to the future. Visit the show notes page (https://handwovenmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-justin-squizzero/) to see a photo of Justin's Jacquard loom. 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 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. Links The Burroughs Garret (https://www.theburroughsgarret.com/) Marshfield School of Weaving (https://www.marshfieldschoolofweaving.org/)

Kaffe Fassett doesn’t play favorites in his work—he doesn’t have a favorite medium, and he definitely doesn’t have a favorite color. What he has is a powerful delight in combining the simple elements of color, line, and image, and a passion for helping other people share in that joy. For someone whose career is inextricably linked to stitching, his needlework techniques are surprisingly simple. “I’m never interested in technical acrobatics,” he says. “I think that color is what is fabulous, and you know, a beautiful image that has beautiful colors doesn’t need to go any further.” Some of his best-known work layers brightly colored cotton fabrics of his own design into patchwork quilts, which he takes to beautiful locations to photograph. Yet one of the textiles he’s excited about is a vintage patchwork quilt top worked in diamonds and squares, with striking contrasts placed next to soothing harmonies. Visit the show notes page at pieceworkmagazine.com (https://pieceworkmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-kaffe-fassett) to see a photo of the quilt. Kaffe’s work has expanded into so many formats in part because of a series of remarkable collaborations, both with companies (including Rowan, FreeSpirit Fabrics, and Peruvian Connection) and other artists. When sharing ideas or teaching, particularly with partner Brandon Mably, the enjoyment of seeing the spark of creative understanding in someone else is part of the joy. “That's what I would say to people: you know, the first thing is, get friends who are sympathetic to your dream. Try to find somebody who’s going to encourage you rather than discourage you.” As the first living textile artist to have a show at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Kaffe’s artwork is valued and renowned the world over—yet through books, patterns, and his own “paint box” of fabrics and materials, his work is accessible to every crafter. 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. Links Kaffe Fassett Studio (https://www.kaffefassett.com/) List of Kaffe Fassett books (https://www.kaffefassett.com/publications/) Find a listing of Kaffe’s events (https://www.kaffefassett.com/about/events/) Kaffe’s designs and collaborations in yarn, needlepoint, and quilting fabrics are available on his website. (https://www.kaffefassett.com/gallery/)

Between the sheep in the field and the lovely yarn in your hands lies the complex network of the wool industry. Fiber must be scoured, spun, and maybe dyed, and it all starts with shearing. Attending a Fibershed symposium in 2012, Stephany Wilkes was surprised to learn that one of the barriers to local fiber production was a lack of trained shearers. A knitter and software developer, she had no hands-on livestock experience when she signed up for a shearing class through an extension center and found herself up to her elbows in wool. Despite the grueling labor and intensely specialized learning process, she relished the work and the way it pushed her squarely into the world of American fiber production. Ten years into her career as a sheep shearer and wool classer, Stephany has supported small flocks, a small mill, and her fibershed. Her 2018 book, Raw Material: Working Wool in the West, is a riveting chronicle of her immersion in the world of sheep and wool. As a shearing instructor and catalyst for transformation in the fiber community, she has made it her business to improve the conditions and the market for quality wool. 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. Links Stephany Wilkes website (https://stephanywilkes.com/) Raw Material book (https://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/raw-material) Fibershed (https://fibershed.org/) Mendocino Wool & Fiber (https://www.mendowool.com/) mill Lani’s Lana (https://lanislana.com/) Stephany’s article “Lani’s Lana: Sheep, Landscape, and Western Wool” appeared in Spin Off Winter 2023. (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/spin-off-winter-2023) Wild Oat Hollow (https://www.wildoathollow.com/) Happy Goat (https://www.visithappygoat.com/) cashmere and contract grazing project Kaos Sheep Outfit (https://fibershed.org/producers/kaos-sheep-outfit/) Shave 'em to Save 'em (https://livestockconservancy.org/get-involved/shave-em-to-save-em/)

What do you get when a crafter who loves colorful hand-dyed yarns (and hates stalking shop updates) crosses paths with a fresh, new yarn producer? Like many of her knitter friends in 2013, Lisa Chamoff was enchanted by the artful and expressive work of the independent dyers whose skeins were cropping up around the yarn world. Shoppers found new favorites by word of mouth, hearing about a new colorway or restock here and there. At the same time, talented dyers with fledgling businesses relied on that word of mouth to sell a few skeins at a time. Lisa saw an opportunity for a new kind of website: a marketplace where shoppers and dyers could come together to share new work. Indie Untangled opened for discovery. After a few months of the online marketplace, Lisa realized that the hand-dyed-yarn fans who visit her site wanted more than just two days at the annual New York Sheep and Wool Festival (“Rhinebeck”). Gathering on the Friday before the larger festival, a group of crafters were interested in extending the weekend’s shopping and social opportunities. There was also an opportunity for smaller and newer yarn companies, who didn’t have booths at the larger show, to introduce themselves to an audience eager for the next new thing. Beginning with just a few booths, the Indie Untangled event is now an anchor of the New York Sheep and Wool Festival weekend, drawing a few dozen vendors and offering timed shopping opportunities. Although most of Indie Untangled’s offerings connect shoppers and dyers directly, Lisa also collaborates with dyers and yarn producers for Indie Untangled-exclusive projects, beginning with the Knitting Our National Parks Collection. The latest project is the yearlong subscription Heritage Wool Collective, which pairs dyers with unique yarns from small farms and mills, beginning in 2024. 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. Links Heritage Wool Collective Subscription (https://shop.indieuntangled.com/collections/subscriptions/products/heritage-wool-collective) Indie Untangled (https://indieuntangled.com/) Rhinebeck Indie Untangled Event (https://indieuntangled.com/rhinebeck/) Indie Untangled Marketplace (https://indieuntangled.com/marketplace/) Knitting Our National Parks Series (https://shop.indieuntangled.com/collections/knitting-our-national-parks)

[Sponsored Content] If you’ve been weaving, knitting, or playing with fiber for long—or if you’ve passed some fiber animals in a field—you probably think you know what an alpaca looks like: a fluffy creature with a long neck and spade-shaped ears. But you may not know that there’s a different kind of alpaca, one whose coat grows in long, silky ringlets instead of an allover fluffy halo. Suri alpacas make up a small fraction of the alpacas, both worldwide and in the United States, but their special fiber is worth checking out. The number of Suri alpacas isn’t specifically known, but they’re estimated to make up as little as 5–10% of the population, with the remainder being Huacaya alpacas. But although Huacayas dominate in numbers, Suris are gaining recognition, in part thanks to a group of farmers who formed an association to promote the breed. The Suri Network strives to “protect, preserve, and promote the Suri alpaca” by educating fiber artists and farmers about this special fiber. What makes Suri alpacas different is the exceptionally long, lustrous, silky locks of fiber that they produce. Growing as much as 7" per year on a young animal, Suri fiber is far longer than almost any other animal-based fiber. When spun into yarn, it is strong and feels even softer than its micron count would suggest. The smooth fiber is a treat to work with on its own, and it also brings strength and softness to fiber blends. In recognition of the unique properties of the fiber, Suri Network has taken the unusual step of developing a trademark program, an indication to consumers that the producers have met the breed standards in a number of areas, including animal husbandry and suiting the fiber to its best purpose. In this episode, Suri Network members and Suri producers Liz Vahlkamp of Salt River Alpacas and Laurel Shouvlin of Bluebird Hills Farm describe what makes Suri alpacas special, what fiber artists can expect from working with Suri fiber, and how the Suri breed is taking its place in the world of yarn and fiber. This episode is brought to you by: Suri Network The Suri Network (https://surinetwork.org/) was established in 1997 to assist its members to protect, preserve, and promote the Suri alpaca. Since its beginnings, the Suri Network has been at the forefront of the alpaca industry promoting both the Suri alpaca and the use of its wondrous fleece. Links Suri Network (https://surinetwork.org/) Suri Simply Stunning (https://surinetwork.org/Suri-Simply-Stunning) Sip and Share (https://www.surinetwork.org/Sip-and-Share) about a variety of Suri subjects Suri Network Video (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYE1L1HvB2IaITJFIgX_agGUAej4MpHt1) series about spinning, knitting, felting, and weaving with Suri fiber

The scale of Sarah Neubert’s work varies from miniature to monumental, from small pieces such as earrings to room-sized installations. She dreams of creating entire woven environments that are sensory and tactile, like cocoons or sanctuaries of fiber. Working on a large scale allows her to explore new techniques and push the boundaries of her art. However, she also appreciates the sense of accomplishment that comes from creating small, wearable pieces. Her classes at the upcoming Weave Together with Handwoven (https://weavetogether.handwovenmagazine.com/) event in February 2024 will let students work on a small tapestry loom to explore some of her favorite subjects. When Sarah teaches tapestry weaving with nontraditional wefts, she often brings found and foraged materials and invites students to bring their own elements to incorporate. Although these may be nontraditional (and even sometimes non-yarn), the weaving skills to incorporate and stabilize them strengthen the student’s grasp of weaving fundamentals. A class in textural weaving includes hand-manipulated techniques, traditional skills that she employs in very nontraditional ways. One of her recent projects, a Woven Upholstery Mending tutorial (https://www.sarahneubert.com/woven-mending), started with a refusal to just dispose of the couch that her cats had clawed. Using her weaving skills in a different application, she repaired her couch with rope and sturdy tools. When she shared her project and results on social media, the interest and enthusiasm were overwhelming. Sarah found herself designing and filming a course on how to create your own woven mends on furniture. Instead of charging to view the class, Sarah has posted it on YouTube on a donation-based model in hopes of keeping other couches out of landfills. “I think having an energetic exchange is important in a lot of spaces, and I was really grateful for the people that donated,” she says. Weaving isn’t just a form of art for Sarah, it’s also therapeutic. At first accidentally and now deliberately, she has found relief from anxiety and an opportunity to process her emotions while working at the loom. She experiences this as a flow state, an opportunity to heal. Although her early experiences as a weaver were fraught with perfectionism, she now explores how to make a piece the best she can . . . and then make room for the next project. 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. Links Sarah Neubert’s website (https://www.sarahneubert.com/) Woven Upholstery Mending (https://www.sarahneubert.com/woven-mending) online class How to fix furniture with visible mending (How to fix furniture with visible mending) tutorial on YouTube Tapestry Cuff Bracelet (https://littlelooms.com/free-project-tapestry-cuff-bracelet/), a pattern for a woven cuff, available on the Little Looms website (https://littlelooms.com/) “Woven Flow: Weaving as Meditation.” (https://handwovenmagazine.com/woven-flow-weaving-as-meditation/) Sarah Neubert, Handwoven website (https://handwovenmagazine.com/) “Fiber art is finally being taken seriously.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/t-magazine/fiber-art-textiles.html) Julia Halperin, The New York Times Style Magazine (accessed online), September 11, 2023. Maya Angelou interview (https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2279/the-art-of-fiction-no-119-maya-angelou) in the Paris Review, 1990.

The picture of a flock of primitive-breed sheep, the last of their kind, living on an island off the northeast coast of Scotland, has a certain romance to it. Plenty of knitters, spinners, fiber artists, and citizens of the modern world might idly dream of living on such an island and tending such a flock. With no background as a farmer and only a few years as a shepherd, Jane Cooper decided to bring that dream to life. Enchanted by the fiber of the Boreray sheep, and with her life transformed by a class on knitting with rare breeds, Jane decided to buy a small parcel of land and start a spinner’s flock by adopting a few wethers from another farmer. In a short time, however, she found herself with more land—and more sheep—than she planned for. And so began her adventure as the shepherd of the “lost flock,” a group of sheep whose ancestors had escaped the official registry. Since obtaining her first sheep in 2013, Jane not only developed her own breeding program but established several other breeding flocks in the Orkneys. She has explored the recent and ancient history of her sheep, from the Vikings who used dual-coated wool in their sails to the breed registries established in the 20th century (and traced how her own sheep came to be called “the lost flock.”) 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. Links Orkney Boreray website (https://orkneyboreray.com/) The Lost Flock book by Jane Cooper US edition (https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/the-lost-flock/) and UK edition (https://chelseagreen.co.uk/book/the-lost-flock/) Blacker and Beyond (https://www.ravelry.com/groups/blacker--beyond-with-ffsb) Ravelry group Blacker Yarns (https://www.blackeryarns.co.uk/) and The Natural Fibre Company (https://www.thenaturalfibre.co.uk/) Woolsack (https://woolsack.org/) British wool website

Felicia Lo spent most of her college years wearing a lot of black. The bright, happy color combinations that she loved as a child—lime green and hot pink, pink and yellow—didn’t fit other people’s idea of what colors went together, so she avoided wearing colors altogether. It took years to begin introducing color into her wardrobe again. As handdyeing began its groundswell in the early 2000s, Felicia began experimenting with dyeing fiber and then yarn. As it turned out, fiber artists across the world thought that her color sense was not only acceptable but irresistible. What began as a casual project in 2005 has grown into a company with a dozen staff members, hundreds of colorways, and a roster of yarn and fiber bases. Yet despite the company’s larger scale, each skein or braid of fiber is still prepared, colored, rinsed, and packaged by hand. Maintaining consistency in their very handmade product has meant transforming SweetGeorgia from her initial solo project into a team effort, with staff members collaborating on new colors and initiatives. Felicia published her book Dyeing to Spin & Knit in 2017, with techniques for fiber artists to choose colors, apply them effectively, and use their handdyed creations. That same year, she founded the School of SweetGeorgia to offer online classes and community, first in handdyeing and later in knitting, spinning, weaving, and other fiber arts. Although her fiber-arts practices stretch from spinning to crochet, tapestry, machine knitting, and weaving, Felicia always has a knitting project on the needles . . . and these days, it’s almost certainly not black. More of our conversation with Felicia, including what's on her needles and her suggestions on how to choose yarn colors for a knitting project how to choose the right yarn structure for a knitted project, is available in the library (https://farmfiberknits.com/library/CxLIBUXRRtOoXdNqgvPh_Q) for subscribers to Farm & Fiber Knits. 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. Links SweetGeorgia (https://sweetgeorgiayarns.com/) School of SweetGeorgia (https://www.schoolofsweetgeorgia.com/) Dyeing to Spin & Knit (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/629139/dyeing-to-spin-and-knit-by-felicia-lo/)

In 2009, Mary Jeanne Packer founded Battenkill Fibers Carding & Spinning Mill to work with small farms, yarn companies, and even individual handspinners who wanted great yarn. The partnerships built around the mill are helping revitalize the regional wool economy and sustain shepherds and shops alike. We are far from the days when 13 water-powered mills lined the Battenkill River in Greenwich, New York, all processing American wool, but through collaborations across the textile industry, the prospects for high-quality yarn look bright. For a farm with a few dozen sheep, a local yarn store wanting to make a special line of yarn, or even a handspinner with a prize fleece from the wool festival and no means to wash it, creating roving or yarn comes from a partnership with a mill built on expertise and trust. How should the fiber be washed, spun, and plied? What will bring out the best in the wool? The mill transforms and adds value to a year’s fiber crop, the results of the feed, care, and shearing that farmers condult year-round. Mary Jeanne relishes the opportunity to support members of the yarn community and make connections among them, so that a niche yarn company can source a special kind fiber or shepherds can keep their farms going with an additional source of revenue. Seeing gaps in the regional textile industry and opportunities for sustainable growth, Mary Jeanne and yarn shop owner Gail Parrinello brought together a group of farmers, dyers, millers, designers, makers, distributors, and retailers in a network called the Hudson Valley Textile Project. One of the initiatives of the project is Clean Fleece New York, a medium-scale scouring facility that processes batches of fiber too large for a small mill but below the minimum for an industrial-scale scouring facility, which has just opened in fall of 2023. More of our conversation with Mary Jeanne, including how to choose the right yarn structure for a knitted project, what surprising yarns you might be overlooking, and how to find the most wonderful yarns at a fiber festival, is available in the library (https://farmfiberknits.com/library/209474243) for subscribers to Farm & Fiber Knits. 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. Links Battenkill Fibers (https://www.battenkillfibers.com/) Hudson Valley Textile Project (https://www.hvtextileproject.org/) Clean Fleece New York (https://www.cleanfleece.com/) Mountain Meadow Wool (https://mountainmeadowwool.com/) Shaniko Wool Company (https://www.shanikowoolcompany.com/) Green Mountain Spinnery (https://www.spinnery.com/) Laxtons Wooltrace DK (https://www.bylaxtons.co.uk/products/wooltrace-dk) Foster Sheep Farm (https://www.fostersheepfarm.com/) Bare Naked Wools/Knitspot (https://www.barenakedwools.com/) The Woolly Thistle (https://thewoollythistle.com/) Brooklyn General Store (https://brooklyngeneral.com/) Kingdom Fleece and Fiberworks (https://www.kingdomfleeceandfiberworks.net/)

Many weavers find their inspiration by asking, “What if...” Since she first sat down at a loom, Deb Essen has pushed the limits of her weaving by asking, “Why can’t I?” Deb has followed that question since childhood, right through her career as a weaving teacher and author. Since she first neglected her table-clearing duties to watch a weaving demonstration at the age of 9, the craft of weaving has held her fascinated. And despite the disciplines of teaching, designing, and writing, that childlike spirit of exploration still gets free rein in her weaving studio. “I play with everything. I mean, that’s the beauty of weaving,” she says. “There’s something to play with all the time.” When Deb talks about her favorite classes, the word “play” comes up often, and her approach is as lighthearted as it is methodical. “There’s always an amazing surprise for everybody in the class,” she says of her class on color in weaving. “You kind of have to throw color theory for artists out the window” and sample different color combinations. (Deb will be teaching color in weaving at the first Weave Together with Handwoven (https://weavetogether.handwovenmagazine.com/) event February 25–29, 2024.) Deb’s love of structure isn’t limited to complex multishaft looms, or even to pick-up patterns on rigid-heddle looms. When the new Zoom Loom debuted, Deb accepted the challenge to play with the small loom and see what she could create. “You know, never say no,” she says, and developed a line of toys and figures made solely of 4" woven squares. She explores the possibilities of texture, color, and pick-up on the little squares, too. We’re looking forward to Deb joining us in Loveland, Colorado, February 25–29, 2024, for Weave Together with Handwoven. (https://weavetogether.handwovenmagazine.com/) Her classes include Color in Weaving and two classes on weaving with pin looms. For photos of Deb’s work, check out our show notes at handwovenmagazine.com. (https://handwovenmagazine.com/long-thread-podcast-deb-essen) 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. Links dje handwovens, (https://djehandwovens.com/) Deb’s website and line of weaving kits Color in Weaving video (https://learn.longthreadmedia.com/courses/video-only-color-in-weaving) Easy Weaving with Supplemental Warps (https://schifferbooks.com/products/easy-weaving-with-supplemental-warps-overshot-velvet-shibori-and-more) book

Most of us avoid nettles, thinking of them as weeds whose little stinging hairs can inject a painful toxin into the unexpecting walker. But strolling through the woods near his home in England, Allan Brown was captivated by the tall native plants. Knowing that textile cultures across the world have produced cloth from nettles, he wanted to learn more about cloth made with nettle fiber. Except for a few exceptions—giant Himalayan nettles and ramie, which is a non-stinging plant in the nettle family—the era of nettle textiles is over. But thousands of years ago, nettle cloth and cordage fulfilled human needs for garments and tools. Like other ancient textiles, nettle cloth has almost entirely disappeared, rotted away and returned to the soil. Allan knew that the only way to experience cloth made from nettle would be to create it himself, so he set about processing, spinning, and weaving fabric from stands of nettles that grew wild in the woods. Before he could get down to cloth-making, though, he had to learn how to extract the fiber from the plant—a process without contemporary documentation or a skilled teacher. (The stinging parts of the plant are removed during processing, so textiles made from nettle fiber feel more like cotton or linen than stinging barbs.) He learned to spin, which proved not only the most time-consuming but also the most meaningful part of the project. “I just found spinning so therapeutic,” he says. He felt the solace of handspinning keenly when his wife, Alex, passed away over the course of his nettle exploration. In the aftermath of Alex dying, my world grew very small, my perimeters drew in, and I was just looking after the family. Sometimes my only connection to a wider world was just going out and collecting nettles, but it was within a really small geographical margin. So I think events sort of led me to, rather than looking for bigger and more, I tuned into the familiar, going in deeper and seeing what I could find and what I’d previously overlooked. And realizing, oh my goodness—all these plants, they provide dyes, these plants provide fibers, and they’re all there right on my doorstep and have been under my nose all along. So it feels like it’s really connected me to a sense of place in a much deeper way than perhaps I had been before. As he spun years’ worth of yarn, Allan decided that the nettle project would culimate in a dress. A simple shape, cut efficiently from a narrow width of cloth, would be enough to create a dress for his daughter Oonagh, so he wove yards of plain-weave fabric and even spun the sewing thread to stitch the piece together. Seven years after his first experiments with nettle fiber, he slipped a handmade nettle dress over her head. Following Allan on his exploration, his film-director friend Dylan Howitt captured the stages of the process and has released a film called The Nettle Dress. (https://www.nettledress.org/) The film has been released in a number of markets, including the United Kingdom, and some audiences have been fortunate to meet the fiber artist and even touch the dress at a screening. The story of the dress and its creator remind us that the long history of foraged, handmade cloth can be ours again if we have the dedication to revive it. 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. Links The Nettle Dress film website (https://www.nettledress.org/) The Nettle Dress on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/nettledressfilm/) Nettles for Textiles Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1648679398499874/) Nettles for Textiles web page (http://www.nettlesfortextiles.org.uk/wp/) From Sting to Spin, a History of Nettle Fibre (https://gillianedomsbook.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html) by Gillian Edom

Kristin Nicholas lives in an idyllic historic New England home at the end of a dirt road, the interior handpainted in whimsical, vivid motifs. In neighboring fields, her family's hundreds of sheep graze in historic pastures. “From the outside looking in, it looks like a very romantic life,” she says. “But it is a ton of work. Most sane people wouldn’t do it, as far as I’m concerned.” Kristin has never had a hard time reconciling her creative and practical sides, and in fiber art, she found a home for both. When she met her husband, one of their first outings was to the sheep barns where he had just taken a class in animal science. They put their passions for animals and textiles into practice right away when they bought their first four Romney sheep. Her mother says of the purchase, “Some people get an engagement ring. Kristin gets four sheep.” As the creative director for Classic Elite Yarns, she designed knitwear, developed yarn lines and pattern collections, and helped transform the company from a small weaving-yarn distributor to a major yarn company. In her role, she selected and predicted which yarns would be most appealing to consumers and successful for yarn stores. Her own style, though, is absolutely distinctive. With bright colors and global textile inspirations, her bold designs have a folk art quality. Through her decades in the yarn industry and as a professional artist, Kristin’s work has always drawn on her love of fiber and her showplace farm. Although their flock has grown from 4 to 400, Kristin is unsentimental about the need for the farming operation to turn a profit. “I'm a super practical person,” she says. “I have this whole artistic vision floating around in my head, but things have got to make sense financially for me.” This means that although she has been a spinner and knitter for decades, she does not mill the wool from her sheep into yarn. With a realistic eye on the high costs and low income from wool, she and her husband have decided to focus their efforts on raising lamb. A local yarn company, Bloom Woolen Yarns, arranges to purchase the wool clip instead. These days, Kristin’s main creative outlet is her line of handpainted ceramics. She sells her pottery as well as grassfed lamb at the weekly farmer's market in Amherst, Massachusetts. She shares dispatches from her farm on her Substack newsletter. 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. Anson County Fiber Arts Festival The Anson County Fiber Arts Festival is the place to discover the wonderful world of cotton and hemp fibers, and so much more! You’ll find fibers from animal and plant, plus a vendor hall, workshops, used equipment sale, a engaging fiber shed, and activities for the entire family. Plus, the town’s historical society will take you on a journey of the town’s deep roots as a textile town. Join them September 22-23 at their inaugural event in historic, uptown Wadesboro, North Carolina. For more information, visit ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com (https://ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com) or follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090568583693&locale=hi_IN&paipv=0&eav=AfabFyZchm6Yvmp-etfgtk3xE3IQtUfGaU4jkfFNMuOJ0UdwJ0XqIsThH9i7mFi4NtI). Links: “Wool Production from Small Flocks of Sheep” (https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1694120595-nicholas_wool-production-from-small-flocks-of-sheep.pdf) “How Much Is That Knitter in the Window?” (https://www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1694122220-nicholas_how-much-is-that-spinner-in-the-window.pdf) Spin Off Summer 1983 (https://shop.longthreadmedia.com/products/spin-off-summer-1983-digital-edition?_pos=2&_sid=c04d222dd&_ss=r) (available free to Spin Off subscribers; see our help center (https://help.longthreadmedia.com/help/accessing-spin-off-digital-issues-via-zinio) for directions to access) Kristin Nicholas’s website (https://www.kristinnicholas.com/) PDF Patterns (https://www.kristinnicholas.com/category/knitting-pdf-patterns) Kristin’s Substack (https://kristinnicholas.substack.com/) newsletter Kristin’s colorful house (https://www.kristinnicholas.com/fun-video-of-our-house-family-and-farm) The farm and lamb business can be found at Leyden Glen Farm (http://www.leydenglenlamb.com/). Bloom Woolen Yarns (https://www.bloomwoolenyarns.com/)

When she married her husband, "polyester kid" Anita Luvera Mayer received an extraordinary wedding gift from her mother-in-law: a loom and weaving lessons. A weaving store owner, Marcelle Mayer gave the same gift to each of her daughters-in-law. The others didn't take to it, but for Anita it was the beginning of a whole new life. Although she preferred making simple cloth to complex patterns, weaving opened the doors to meeting other fiber artists, teaching across North America, and learning to make her own clothes, beginning with a "pukey green dress" that she wore for years and kept as a teaching tool. Exploring new techniques and refining her approach, she championed the revolutionary idea that women—all women—should like what they see when they look in the mirror. Anita Luvera Mayer is an inspiration . . . and a delight. This episode was originally released in 2021. 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. Anson County Fiber Arts Festival The Anson County Fiber Arts Festival is the place to discover the wonderful world of cotton and hemp fibers, and so much more! You'll find fibers from animal and plant, plus a vendor hall, workshops, used equipment sale, a engaging fiber shed, and activities for the entire family. Plus, the town's historical society will take you on a journey of the town's deep roots as a textile town. Join them September 22-23 at their inaugural event in historic, uptown Wadesboro, North Carolina. For more information, visit ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com (https://ansoncountyfiberartsfestival.com) or follow them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090568583693&locale=hi_IN&paipv=0&eav=AfabFyZchm6Yvmp-etfgtk3xE3IQtUfGaU4jkfFNMuOJ0UdwJ0XqIsThH9i7mFi4NtI).