It’s been a long time since I posted much, but I’ve decided to restart my blog. It’s been my creative journal over the years, and I only stopped because for a long time, my creative energies were sucked completely into other things.
However, as the Handweaving Academy’s matured, I’m finding that I now have a bit more creative energy for my own projects. So I’m rebooting my blog.
The blog isn’t the only thing that’s rebooting, however. My life goes through periodic Phoenix cycles, where the old life burns away and a new one begins. The last one started when I pivoted away from high-tech to start my own business teaching weaving. I had to change a lot of things about my identity, and rethink what was important to me.
This last month has started another phoenix cycle. This time, it’s because my wife and I are separating. This isn’t a bad thing. We still love each other, but we’ve reached the point where we need to grow in different directions. Sometimes love means knowing when to let go, and this is one of those times. Neither of us is sure where we’re going to move yet. She is thinking Seattle. I have no idea where I’m going to settle yet. My current plan is to move to Mexico, San Miguel de Allende, for three to six months and then decide whether I want to settle in Mexico, or go back to the U.S.
Both of us are looking eagerly forward to our new lives. We are also committed to supporting each other through the transition and staying good friends afterwards. We don’t see this as an end to the relationship, just a transmutation. I know that sounds odd, considering that most divorces are at least somewhat acrimonious, but we still love each other a great deal. We just feel that this is the right time to stop living together, merging finances, and so forth.
(For the last five years, we’ve asked each other every few months whether we’re still right for each other. I think that’s a good question for all couples to ask – it helps keep the relationship healthy. This time, it became clear that we needed to evolve in different directions, and that we couldn’t do that within the bounds of our current relationship.)
As supportive as we are of each other, though, this is a huge change. We have been together for nearly 20 years, and will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary together on June 12 before we go our separate ways. So I need to reinvent myself as a single person.
When this kind of big change happens, I like to go somewhere else for a while – someplace unfamiliar, that shakes me loose from my old moorings and assumptions. In this case, it’s Mexico. I visited Mexico City recently, and loved it, but decided not to move there because (don’t laugh) there are only two powerlifting gyms in the city and both are prohibitively far away from the places I’d prefer to live. San Miguel de Allende is less expensive and has a large English-speaking population (which will make the transition easier). It may have a powerlifting-appropriate gym, but if it doesn’t, it’s inexpensive enough that I can rent a house and set up a home gym in the back yard.
During the bottom of a phoenix cycle, I also like to do a contemplative, slow project. The last two times, I spun and knit a “ring shawl” – one fine enough to be drawn through a wedding ring – using a drop spindle and spinning while walking, waiting in train stations, and in all the other “in between” times.
Here’s the “Spiral of Life” shawl that came out of my last metamorphosis:

It has eight arms, and eight motifs in each arm, reflecting the themes of earth, air, fire, water, light, darkness, right action, and love. These reflect the important things in life: balance between the Four Elements, between joy and sorrow, taking action/doing the right thing, and love of life/compassion for all things.
This time round, I’m a weaver, not a knitter. So I’m working on a handspun, jacquard-woven scarf, instead.
Here’s the design (so far). This image shows the scarf as it will be woven:

And this image shows the scarf as it will be worn (draped around the neck):

I’m handspinning the yarn for it on a top-whorl spindle, on my morning walks and anywhere else I have time. I’ve even been doing some spinning in the gym between powerlifting sets!
Here are pictures of the silk fiber that I’ll be spinning. The first one shows the phoenix yarn, which I hand-dyed myself from silk brick. Each little braid is about one ounce of fiber, and I’ll need two of them to weave the scarf. (The other two are backup. I’m a belt-and-suspenders kinda gal.)

And here is the blue silk I’ll be spinning. I did not dye this myself; it’s from Fiberartemis on Etsy. I have been admiring her wonderful dye work for ages, and now I get to spin some of it myself!

So far the yarn is coming out at 7600 yards per pound (it might be a little less considering shrinkage after washing). That’s a bit under half the size of a fine laceweight knitting yarn, or about 1.5x the weight of sewing thread. So it is quite fine, especially for yarn spun on a drop spindle.
Here are pictures of some skeins I spun earlier, about 450 yards. They’re from a different color gradient, but the yarn size should be good for sampling.

I’m pleased with it – it is pretty darn consistent, especially considering that I haven’t spun anything at all for over 20 years.
I’ll be weaving it as singles using a double twill structure – the blue and gold sample at the top of this photo. (The bottom sample, in purple and yellow, is taquete – I really didn’t like that much.)

So far the plan is to weave it on a dark blue warp in 10/2 cotton, sett at 24 ends per inch. 10/2 cotton is on the larger side for that weft – normally you would choose a warp about half the weight – but it’s what I have on the loom, and as you can see, it works. There is a small chance I’ll put a finer warp on instead, but given that I’m moving in a few months and the project HAS to be done by then, I think it’s probably better to go with what I have.
I’ll need to spin about 1800 yards of yarn for the scarf, and I spin about 50 yards a day on my morning walks, so this will take at least a month to spin. Spindle spinning is not nearly as fast as spinning on a wheel, but since part of the point is to be meditative and slow, with plenty of time for reflection, that’s perfectly fine with me.
That’s it for today! Look for more posts as the project – and the move – progress.