I could see Dave’s former associate, Marla, a Lutheran Deaconess, sitting there thinking during the conversation.  ”You know,” she said smiling, “I could really use a stole for the Advent season.”  And so it began.

I told her I’d be happy to make one for her.  It would mean a lot, since she and Dave had successfully partnered in a collaborative ministry at St. Paul’s.

It took a few weeks, just to think about the design, but I finally settled on a dyed warp in blue (those are the Protestant colors of Advent).  Over the summer, I painted the warp with three colors of dye and was struck at how much it looked like water, so I quickly named the design “Living Waters.”  While Advent was the goal, this stole could easily double for baptisms.

One of the challenges in making a deaconess stole, is that it is worn across the body and pivots on the hip downward toward the leg. It needed a dart, but it couldn’t show.  So I played around and finally settled on a dart inside the stole which would be covered over by the extra fabric.

I used one of Marla’s other stoles to make sure the dart was deep enough to pivot properly.  It ended up being about an inch.

For the symbol, I settled on a spiral I had seen on the Canadian deaconess website.  The spiral indicates outward movement and activity, something all deaconesses are known for.  They are very active in their communities.  And as the spiral moves out, it bursts forth in love, hence the symbols on the outside.

I used some pale yellow stash yarn and dyed it a deeper yellow on my stove one afternoon. Then I made a crochet chain and stitched it on. The biggest challenge was finding a proper fabric for the spiral bursts.  I wanted metallic, but it was September at the time and nothing was out for Christmas yet in the fabric store.  I wandered for a long time, and then I found it.   Pleather!  Can you believe it?  That cheesy fabric from the 70s was exactly what I needed.  I cut it in triangles and glued it with fabric glue.

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I attended worship services at St. Paul to celebrate the First Sunday in Advent.  Marla talked about the stole and even let people touch it (although she joked that she doesn’t usually encourage that sort of thing). But handwoven fabric begs to be touched and she got that.  It was a great morning to see the stole on the altar.  I know Marla will make good use of it in her abiding ministry.

This year, I spent a lot of time natural dyeing fiber and I have spun up most of it into weaving yarn; so I know what colors I’m using.  The sticking point for me was the type of bag to make.  The last thing I need is another tote!

So recently, I started coming up with ideas during a long weekend vacation in Washington D.C.  I just got a new Canon EOS T2i camera and was forced to carry it in a backpack purse of mine.  It was certainly not designed for camera carrying.  Hmmm.  I need a bag for that.

My project is now a backpack to carry my camera and lenses during my travels. Now the challenge is the design–the structure of the bag and the weave structure of the fabric.  On a visit to the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian), I had a field day taking pictures of some of the incredible weaving that inspired my vision of a backpack design.

I just love the colors and the design of the bags, basket and clay pots. Each one gave me great ideas on some of the motifs I’d like to try. Ever since I started weaving, inspiration seems to be everywhere.  I will go back to these pictures when I’m ready to start sketching out my ideas.

While organizing my sewing/weaving studio and going through all my supplies, I happened upon the last bits of a natural dye kit I bought from Carolina Homespun years ago.  There were small bags of about 4 different dried dye plants, mordants, some plastic mesh bags and a number of other goodies. In addition, a check of my freezer revealed frozen avocado dye (from the pits and skins). I started with the avocado.

I’ve heard mixed reviews of results with avocado.  After an alum mordant and a couple of days in the dyepot, now I know why.  It turned into a lovely shade of puke.

I certainly couldn’t leave it like that! So the madder root called to me. “Send me your tired, your poor fiber yearning to be free. I will give you beautiful shades of red!”

That’s more like it.  I dyed half the fiber (in plastic mesh to keep it from felting) with an alum mordant and then another round of fiber mordanted with iron (never tried that before).  Madder just gave it’s heart out for me. I soaked each round in a cool dyebath for 2-days because Wild Color by Jenny Dean says it gives the clearest shades.

I saved the final batch of fiber for a plant I had heard about in my guild.  It’s a weed around here called Queen Anne’s Lace or wild carrot.  When my husband and I were working out at our local fitness center, we spotted a patch of it out the window.  The director gave us some scissors and a bag and we gathered about a pound of the stuff.  She thought we were crazy. I cooked it up the next day and plunged the fiber into a hot bath for a couple of hours.

It turned a crazy wonderful greenish yellow color. I was thrilled.

All this natural dyeing doesn’t take very long and it’s pretty relaxing too.  I sit by the dyepot reading or get along with my other work while it sits happily turning colors.  Here’s the results.

From left to right: iron mordant-madder dye; alum mordant-madder dye; alum mordant-Queen Anne’s Lace.

So now I need to spin it up for a weaving project and I think I’ll use some yarn from the Indigo workshop to go along with it.  Plus, since the job market is still looking pretty bad, I’m sure I’ll have time to use the last of the dyes from the kit- brazilwood, osage, and the roots of an old barberry plant we dug up and dried years ago.  I’ll keep you posted.

First she brought samples of indigo dyed textiles.

Then we got to work creating our vats. Nancy inspected Karen and Betsy’s vat to make sure it had the proper pH, temperature, and low oxidation.

My partner Amanda, a biology professor (lucky me) and I had a great time working together at the workshop. She was very adept at using pH paper and understanding the reading.

Before the workshop, I took some cotton gauze fabric and shibori stitched it all over.  I got some great results after I dyed it in indigo and then after removing the stitching, dipped it in a woad vat (another blue dye we got to play with).  I was pleased.

Indigo was magic.  I came home with enough of a vat to reinvigorate it and dye some more.  In the meantime, I spent this last weekend experimenting with the lovely yellow dyes of Queen Anne’s lace.  More about that in the next post.

I’m trying to put my time to good use.  So between job hunting and cleaning up my weaving studio, I’ve put together some nice meals for my family.  One afternoon, my husband and I were on our own. One of the dishes I thought about for dinner suddenly became a perfect summer lunch.

Mozzarella, Strawberry and Tomato salad is one of the recipes from the French Fridays with Dorie website I’ve been following as I cook out of Dorie Greenspan’s “Around My French Table” cookbook. I threw caution to the wind and even included wine. It transported me away from my unemployment blues and off to dreams of France.  C’est bon!

The most heartbreaking was the death in late March of my older brother Dave, a vibrant 55-year old Lutheran pastor who was taken very suddenly by an aortic aneurysm. It’s hard to explain how devastating this has been to the entire Smith family. He was deeply loved.

If you’ve been following this blog, you might remember that about a year ago, I posted some pictures of my preliminary work in making a worship stole for Dave based on the season of Pentecost.  It was some woven shibori work I decided to tackle.

I finished the stole last Fall, but Dave was between calls, meaning he was not serving a permanent congregation at the time. He was an interim for a short time and he wanted to wait to receive it when he found a new church home. I kept the stole in my drawer waiting for that day.

It never came.  When he died, we placed it near him at the visitation; then the Bishop brought it up to the altar during her funeral sermon. That was in April. 

When we neared Pentecost, I decided it would be a shame for the stole to go unused.  I called the church he served for most of his ministry and last Sunday we dedicated it to St. Paul, Sharon Center, Oh.  I presented a powerpoint of slides similar to those in last year’s blog post.

Pastor Judy McGuire took off her own stole and put on Dave’s.

 Then we said a prayer and wiped away some tears.  It was a wonderful tribute on a beautiful June Day.

I’m in the second week of a 5-week session and it’s been a blast.  Not only is Glennis a wonderful teacher, the class of people from all over the world has been enthusiastic and very creative.  Glennis designed the on-line class to be a weekly uploaded teaching pdf document with embedded videos and a blog where we all share ideas.

The first class was about using clamped resists on silk samples using ColorHue Dyes.  I wasn’t thrilled with the pale results.

The itajime technique was difficult for me with all the clamps and shapes, but fun nonetheless.

Last week in Lesson 2, Glennis introduced three different techniques using hand stitching–mokume (rows of running stitches, similar to woven shibori), makiage (pattern within a motif), and orinui (overcast stitching on a fold).  This was more my style. I love to sew, these techniques give me much more control, and an additional video gave me much more information on how to increase the intensity of the color.

The photos show the initial stitching, everything gathered and dyed, and the unveiling which I’m crazy about!

I’m very pleased that the color was so intense.  The blue sample was simply dyed, but the other two were immersed up to a point and the rest of was painted.  Fascinating how it all works.

This summer I’ll be attended an indigo dye workshop and I’m sure I’ll be bringing plenty of work from the techniques I learn over the next few weeks to place in the dye pot.

I will continue to post with each new technique learned.  Stay tuned.

I chose a Very Easy Vogue coat pattern to use and I had to think long and hard about whether to use the view with the hood.  But in the end, it was my walk to and from the parking lot of my job that sealed the deal.  The hood was a go.

Then I had to consider the buttonhole treatment.  I experimented with a variation on a bound buttonhole.

But after I purchased some terrific and rather large buttons, it was suggested that instead of buttonholes, I use large snaps.  It was a good decision.

I got the coat finished just in time for some pretty wicked winter weather.  My husband took this photo of me in the coat as the winds whipped around us one Saturday after shopping at Cleveland’s West Side Market.  The hood offers great protection against the cold winds.

When I add a knitted scarf, I’m nice and warm during a winter that’s been filled with ice, snow, rough winds and, as I write this post, temperatures that started off this morning in the single digits.

My story isn’t nearly so dramatic, but when I made a Chestnut Pear Soup from the Dorie Greenspan book last night, I poured in a little heavy cream for a lovely garnish.  Then my husband made a few sweeps with his spoon and had a delighted look on his face.

He turned it around to show the rest of the family and voila- there was the most amazing image of a mushroom (which is not part of the ingredients I might add).  He quickly whipped out his camera, took a shot for the record and then joined us for dinner.

My co-worker, who loves food, bought Dorie’s book for her mother for Christmas and received one for herself after my effusive comments about my adventures.

Here’s the latest effort- Chicken B’Stilla (I think pronounced ba-stee-yah) which is a savory pie encased in phyllo dough. Now it’s not the prettiest version because I’m a complete newbie in working with phyllo dough, but it tasted pretty wonderful.

My husband and kids were suitably impressed and especially enjoyed the crunchy exterior.

I’ve never cooked through an entire cookbook before, but this online group is helping me get the most from this extraordinary treasure.