Heading South

After a very busy two weeks, I am about to head south once again to the Campbell Folk School. I have had the pleasure of Norman Kennedy's company this week as a house guest, and tomorrow we will start our drive to the Folk School where we will be teaching a weaving class on 18th Century Household Textiles. It will be a lot of work and a lot of fun - many old friends are enrolled and I will get to meet two of Norman's friends from California who I have heard so much about. I'm looking forward to it.

I should come home with some nice new woven samples and a whole lot of photos to share with you!



Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

My review

This is the current CraftLit book, and I realized once I started listening that I read this in high school, and that it was probably the first 19th c. English literature I read. I was trying to think what it would be like to read this book as contemporary literature, without already having the iconic theme of Jekyll & Hyde firmly placed. Think of all the cartoons you saw as a kid...those blackbirds?


View all my reviews.

Saying Goodbye

We had to say goodbye to our dear corgi dog, Rupert this week. He was 14 years old, and had been with us for almost exactly 13 of them.

In 1996, we had already had corgis for some years and bred a few litters, and one day the local animal shelter called to say that they had a grown female corgi and asked if we might know who it belonged to. I drove over to have a look at the dog and discovered a half-grown male corgi, bouncy and cute as a button, and I knew from the moment I laid eyes on him that he was My Dog.

I asked the shelter folks if they had had a look under this dog, because it was clearly male. I said that he was 6 to 9 months old and wouldn't bother lifting his leg to pee until he got a little older. Being so close to the ground, he didn't really see the point! I told them we wanted him if no one came to claim him as a lost dog, and then we had to wait 3 weeks before they would release him.

.I went off to teach & then take a class at the Folk School - it was a very long two weeks to be away from my young family and I worried that someone would come & take my new dog while I was gone. The family visited him and when I returned from North Carolina he came home to stay. The girls named him Rupert after the English cartoon bear that wears the yellow checked trousers - their English grandmother had given them several annuals of Rupert cartoons.

Rupert was the best dog in the whole world. He loved to ride in the car, and wanted to go with me everywhere. I brought him to work with me and he made friends with all the Bluemont staff over the years and with everyone who came in the door. We walked around the Clarke County park for exercise, we walked around Leesburg to run errands, he once climbed all the way to the top of Old Rag mountain with Peter & me. He was always by my side if I was upset or ill, wanting to offer comfort in his doggie way.

But he lost his companion Wiley about a year ago, and he was up in years for a corgi. He was in good form until about 6 months ago when he started climbing the stairs like a slalom instead of bounding straight up. He lost the spring in his back legs - I had to give him a power assist boost to get into the car. The vet said he had bone spurs and an NSAID helped, but he lost his appetite at the beginning of December and we had to tempt him with all manner of food and feed him by hand.

I knew he was getting ready to leave us, and when he refused food of any kind, we watched him carefully for several days. On Tuesday he wanted to come in the car with me but had to be lifted in, and when I got to work he didn't want to get out of the car. I realized that it hurt him to be moved, and that the time had come. I carried him into the office and worked until evening, and then I took him to our vet.

At the vet's office, I stayed with him and talked to him as we waited, and after they gave him a sedative I told him that we loved him and wanted him to have a good journey. I said this for every member of our family - Peter loves you and he says goodbye, Lily Rose, Hannah, Ruby, and then every other person I could think of who was dear to him - Tex, Nathan, Jill, Sue. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and surely one of the most important.

We love you, Rupert. We miss you. You were loved by many people. The cats are pretending that they don't care, but I know for a fact that they miss you, too.

Where everything is new again

or, le plus que ca change, le plus que c'est le meme chose...

Which is to say, the more things change, the more the stay the same.

Here we are at the turn of the year, and I wanted to take the time to write a post about the year behind me and the year I'm looking forward to.

My life has been really busy for the last several months, between increased responsibilities at work and an active teaching schedule. I haven't been able to find much time for blogging, although I know that if I didn't look through my friend's activity on ravelry every day, that would probably add up to a lot of blog posts! But it's such a great treat, every day - all that new knitting to look at!

On the fiber, music & family scene, this is what 2008 held for me:

In January, I taught a weekend Beam Me Up Scotty warping class for the local Blue Ridge Spinners & Weavers Guild and then I was a student in a spinning class with Norman Kennedy & Martha Owen at the John C. Campbell Folk School

In February, I taught a District Checks & Tweeds class for Blue Ridge Guild, and was a student in a 1 day Spinning New Fibers with Patsy Zawistoski.

I returned to the Campbell Folk School in March to teach a Knit to Felt class and then in April Peter & I moved his Mum into the Health Center of her retirement community - and I did a lot of knitting on the 8 hour round trip, three weekends in a row.

This helped me prepare for the May Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.

I spent a very hot but productive weekend of weaving in June at Bill Leinbach's studio in Lebanon, PA.

We were very busy with the Bluemont summer season and then in the fall I had three brand new classes to prepare for - in September I taught Tartan Weaving - Lap Robes at JCCFS

and I also organized & attended a 2 day Spinning for Shetland Lace Knitting class with Elizabeth Johnston & Martha Owen here in VA.

October brought the annual Waterford Fair, in nearby Waterford VA where I have been selling & demonstrating with the Waterford Weavers Guild since 1982 and singing & playing music since 1985. It's the annual entrance into autumn for me and generally a great weekend.

I also taught a new Tartan Weaving class at The Mannings in East Berlin PA that focuses on the evolution of tartan design through a dozen traditional tartan setts.

In November I was the guest instructor at Carodan Farm's KnitXperience in Syria VA - I sang a program of old songs about weaving, spinning & sheep on Friday evening and taught an Aran knitting class and a Shetland Lace class on Saturday. There are some nice photos from the retreat here.

December brought a much anticipated event - our oldest daughter Lily Rose graduated from Virginia Commonweath University! We surprised Lily by flying her two sisters down from their college in Massachusetts for the weekend. We had a great time celebrating together. And then just last night on December 31st, I performed at First Night Leesburg.

Preparing for First Night this year was really challenging. Bluemont actually runs two events on 12/31 - First Night Leesburg & First Night Warrenton. The fundraising was very challenging this year, and we weren't sure the Leesburg event could take place until enough money had been raised. This meant that the contracting was done very late and we put in some very long days, working late on Christmas eve and then right back at it on Boxing Day. I usually have at least some time to relax at home and visit with friends & family over the holidays, but this year we could spare very little time.

We took Christmas day off and spent it with my Mom, my stepMom and her husband, and we made a nice holiday for them, but our immediate family celebration had to wait until Sunday evening when we took a few hours to light the candles on our tree, sing together and open some gifts. It was a very special time as always, but really shoehorned in between work. To top it off, Ruby & Hannah both had their wisdom teeth removed on 12/22 and were pretty much out of it for 3 days. It was crazy.

But our First Nights came together as a result of all our hard work - Peter, Lily & I and our small but dedicated staff and a host of volunteers & performers. It was a very cold night with high winds, so the crowds were light last night, but those who braved the weather got to hear some wonderful performances. And I was very pleased with my own part in the performances. I gotta tell you, it's very challenging to find time to get ready to perform in the context of so much work, but this is my favorite performance venue of the year.

I got to sing in the St. James Episcopal sanctuary again this year, two sets with Sine Nomine - an a capella trio performing early European music from the 11th - 16th century; and one set on my own - singing unaccompanied ballads & songs from Ireland, Scotland & England. Singing in this sanctuary is like playing a fine instrument as so little effort produces such a lovely and full sound. It was a delight, and I was pleased to be in better voice for my 11pm solo set that I have been in year's past. I sang some of my favorite songs, and a group of songs that I have learned most recently. I had a small but attentive audience and those lovely acoustics - it was great.

A wonderful way to close the year.

So - 2009 has these events coming up:

January

18th c. Household Textiles, co-taught with Norman Kennedy at the JCC Folk School, Brasstown NC

February

18th c. Household Textiles for the Blue Ridge Guild here in VA- there is still room for 1 or 2 more students in this class! You can find the workshop registration form here.

March

Modular Knitting at JCC Folk School

Acadian Weaving at WEBS in Northampton, MA - I'm very excited to be teaching a class at WEBS for the first time!

April will be spent preparing for the May Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival - my booth is Peace Weavers, 3rd booth on the right hand wall in the big building, since 1990!

Also in May will be our daughter Hannah's college graduation.

In June I will be teaching 2 workshops for the Albemarle Weavers Guild in Charlottesville VA.

Once the Bluemont summer season is over, I will go to Colorado in September to teach a workshop for the Pikes Peak Weavers Guild in Colorado Springs. This will be my first time teaching west of Ohio, and was set up through one of the students in the last tartan class I taught at the JC Campbell Folk School. They haven't chosen the workshop topic yet.

That's a lot to look forward to, not to mention a new President and hopefully the slow beginning of turning this nation and the economy in a better direction. I enter into this new year with hope, and the anticipation of hard work and good times in a better balance.

I wish you all good health, stable finances and a strong creative flow - and good luck working on maintaining the balance!

Anniversaries, New Beginnings

I have long associated Autumn with new beginnings. Many of us do, from our years of school starting around Labor Day: new shoes, new clothes, new classmates, a new teacher. And the natural world does go through one of her wardrobe changes as well, making visible our sense of change. Today as I drove east and headed up the mountain, the first bright flaming maple trees were peeking out from behind their neighbors. We've had lots of gold and russet coming on slowly, but these were the first really bright trees I've seen here in Virginia.

I changed jobs at the end of the summer, or to be more accurate, I changed positions at my longtime job at the Bluemont Concert Series. I kind of married Bluemont 26 years ago, when I met & married my husband, Peter. I was living in Vermont in 1982 when I came south on tour with Gentle Robber, an a cappella trio. We were hired by Bluemont to sing a concert on May 1st that year, and I met Peter Dunning at his home, the Bear's Den where we were to stay over the few days we worked for Bluemont.


Peter says that he knew I was the woman he wanted to marry when he saw me in the photo we sent ahead for publicity. There is proof of this - he bet his friend Mary H. a milkshake that she couldn't tell which of the women in the photograph was his future wife. We still have the postcard she sent in reply - it says, "The one with the boots. I'll take chocolate."

The way I tell it, when we met we took one look at each other and said something like - "Where the hell have you been? I've been looking all over for you!" We recognized one another, as if we had known one another before.

Our families weren't so easily persuaded. The prospective in-laws on both sides came to each of us and asked if we were sure we knew what we were getting into. They gave us a year, didn't think either one of us would stick to the relationship any longer than that.

Well, I am here to tell you that there have sure been some rough spots, but we celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary last week. So there. By now, our families know that we are both very fortunate in our choice of mates and very determined to make our marriage work.

Here is my anniversary present - a mobius bracelet I have long admired with 2 stanzas of Shakespeare's Sonnet CXVI inscribed around the surface:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments, Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds;
or bends with the remover to remove
Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark,
that looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

I love it. I've been wearing it every day.

Back to the job - I started as a bookkeeper, eventually moved up to being the (ahem) Business Manager, and a few years ago moved over to running Bluemont's Artist in Education Program. Our new Business Manager was pregnant when we hired her and I covered her maternity leave last summer but then returned to the AIE program in the fall. This summer she took leave to be home with her two children and I stepped back in to cover the summer, but I was determined that she would be back in the fall. But she called in August to say that she would not return.

Once I got over the idea of Going Back to my old job, I realized that this is really the best place for me to be right now. Bluemont is a very small business with a swell in activity and staff in the summer months. Although it is a non-profit organization, it really runs much like a family business. With the economy going south, it makes more sense for me to be at the financial helm again, and I can still oversee and support the AIE program from here.

I moved upstairs to a real office with a door, and in September I decided to make this space my own. So I've decorated with yarn! I set up some shelves and moved all the goods that I have listed on my eBay store, Peace Weavers into my office, where I can see them everyday and enjoy the colorful fiber array.



Isn't it pretty?

EBay has been pretty quiet all summer, but I'm trying to put some more energy into my store, ordering new items, listing new products. It's mostly hand-dyed yarns from Fleece Artist & Hand Maiden and some Folkmanis puppets, but I've got Peace Fleece yarns to list, patterns, Shetland Supreme lace weight yarn from Jamieson & smith and new items from Nancy's Knit Knacks to list shortly.

I'm teaching a tartan weaving class at The Mannings weaving school in Pennsylvania this weekend - I will report back on that adventure next week!

Spinning for Shetland Lace Knitting class!

Spinning for Shetland Lace Knitting
with Elizabeth Johnson of Lerwick, Shetland
& Martha Owen of Campbell Folk School fame!
September 20 & 21, 2008
Studios East West - Berryville, Virginia

This is a rare opportunity to study with Elizabeth Johnson of Lerwick in the Shetland Isles. Elizabeth has made her living spinning and knitting in her native Shetland and comes occasionally to the US to share her knowledge and skill. Accompanying Elizabeth will be Martha Owen, resident spinner at the John C Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Martha is a skilled spinner and knitter, a delightful teacher and co-owner of The Yarn Circle in Murphy, NC.

This two day class will include demonstration and instruction in spinning and knitting: The Spinning portion of the class will include fleece selection, carding techniques and methods of spinning yarn specifically designed for the traditional lace styles of Shetland knitting.

The Knitting portion of the class will be focused on the traditional style of Shetland lace knitting. Elizabeth will also demonstrate & teach the use of a knitting belt with long knitting pins.

Participants at any level are welcome to attend. Knitters who don’t spin are welcome to observe the spinning and even try their hand on a wheel. Spinners who do not knit are also welcome to sit in on the knitting. Rudimentary instruction will be available in both spinning and knitting.

The fee for the class is $125. There will be a small supply fee and fleece from Shetland will also be available for purchase. To register, email me to get my mailing address and then send a $50 deposit to hold your place.

Melissa Weaver Dunning – weaverdun@aol.com

Housewifery Skills

I was thinking the other day about the way my husband refers to me as his bride -after 25 years of marriage. It occurred to me that I do not reciprocate this by calling him my groom - which made me laugh, but then led me down a new path, thinking about how the male terms for spouse - husband, groom - have or share their source with farming and livestock terms. Animal husbandry, a groom being a man who works with horses.

We don't find bride or wife in the same sources. There isn't much wifery of any kind in the modern world outside of midwifery. We had our three daughters at home with a midwife but I very well know that this is not a typical scenario in the U.S. today.

The only language I insisted on at our wedding was that the ministers declaration be of Husband & Wife rather than Man & Wife - I always found the latter rather demeaning. The wonderful man who presided over our wedding was so nervous about being outside his home church that he said various things that were not in the book at all - afflication for affection was the one we all remember! He got lost and had to start over and it was still one of the shortest wedding ceremonies ever.

All this serves as an intro to this rather interesting quiz that I found on Jennifer's blog today:

44 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

Oh, my. Only average...

It's a funny test - have a look!

Happy Birthday, William B.!

I subscribe to The Writer's Almanac program. I don't especially like Garrison Keilor, but I do enjoy having a poem read to me every morning. When I miss the radio broadcast, it's nice to read the poem myself when I get to work and log in to my email there.

So today when I logged in at work, I discovered that it is the anniversary of William Butler Yeats' birthday. I am very fond of Yeats' poetry, and these are three of my favorites, so I wanted to share them with you. I found a volume of Yeats' poetry in my Dad's books when I went through his library after his death 10 years ago, and though I'm sorry we never discussed these poems it pleases me to think that we may have shared some of the same enjoyment in these words.

A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Never give all the heart

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

"A Drinking Song" by William Butler Yeats, Public Domain.
"He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by W.B. Yeats, Public Domain.
"Never give all the heart" by W.B. Yeats, Public Domain.

If you would like to read more about the life of WBY, you can visit the Writer's Almanac site for today by clicking this link. This program is also available as a podcast!