Preamble to Textiles and Tea

The presenter always asks what's the guest's favorite tea. Mine's English breakfast, sometimes Scottish breakfast.

Handsome Son announced this morning he's visiting tomorrow afternoon, so I needed to make a little something to offer him.

So, between that and this afternoon's T and T requirements, here's the little something. 

It had to be a butter-free recipe, since the butter and a couple of other groceries are coming with Handsome Son tomorrow.

So it's chocolate/ginger/raisin/walnut cake. Very tender, you need a fork to eat this one, very posh.

So I tuned in faithfully to Textiles and Tea

And struggled to hear what the presenter, a charming and very experienced textile artist, was saying. 

Her face was in shadow, her computer sound was muffled, and after conferring in the chat with other people with the same problems, I finally left. 

I did leave a request that presenters be briefed about lighting their faces, and using a mike, not just the built-in sound on the computer

I went to her website instead, and recommend her blog, which I'm now following. 

She's very interested in natural dyeing, from growing the plants to processing the dyes for the yarn she weaves, and in community art projects.

Both close to my heart, having conducted community weaving and mixed media projects myself, and as you know, dyeing from materials I've grown or foraged. 

She did a community art project after 9.11, and incorporated spun and woven paper. She taught people how to spin paper for the purpose. 

 These are four woven panels.

You'll remember my spun paper adventures, learned from Sarah Swett. 

Sarah Haskell's a very spiritual worker, interested in the universal connections via threads and natural materials. And I loved her attitude to art, that you don't start by shopping! 

She points out that almost anything can serve as a loom. Remember in here when I was weaving on branches a while back, and several blogistas tried their hands, too?

Kindred spirits!

Here are images I did get from the presentation, but i don't know what she said about them! 

She's done a lot of residencies, and gave information about finding them, paid and otherwise. They're not as closely guarded a secret as people think. At this moment just a future plan, in view of the pandemic shutting events down. But one day. 

I've done them at local libraries, and they're great. You can learn a lot from the questions as well as get work done as a demo. If they're enlightened enough they can write a grant to pay you.

So, terrific artist, not one of the better episodes, but just go to her blog, it's lovely. You can see the address on her intro pic and the blog for which I did a screenshot.