1 Colour + 1 Colour = Beautiful

I thought there were just two options when it came to fibre colouration: dye it or leave it natural. It never even occured to me that just like I mix my paints, I could mix my fibres and BLEND to create new colours. Did you know this? Am I the only that missed this memo?

When Wendy Bateman, Grand Empress of All Things Textile, starting demonstrating blending fibres on hand carders in Haliburton, I was spellbound. Two or more colours went on the carders and with just a few swipes magic was created. A whole new tone, shade, hue or value emerged.

Of course I tried to hide my delight and play it cool.
Just kidding. I practically started vibrating in my seat with pure excitement.

I love the depth of colour that fibre blending creates. The space and shadow between the variety of fibres allows for a richness of colour different from single dyes. So. Glorious.

Here's the trick with blending. Here's a few tricks I learned when it comes to blending.

1. CARD IT GOOD. My first few attempts with blending resulted in some streaky, bloby yarn because I hadn't adequately carded the fibres together. It's worth it pull apart the rolags and change direction when loading the carders. And then take a few extra passes when you think you're done.

2. PULL OUT THE SHORT CUTS AND PILLS. I hate that stuff. All those little bits make for miscoloured slubs in your yarn. Pull it out while the fibre is still on the carders.

3. CLEAN OUT YOUR CARDERS. As someone who can be a tad over-enthusiastic to get started at a new project (I hate to admit it but it's true), I forgot to clean my carders before changing to a new set of colours. This made for some rather odd mixtures emerging. While I normally am excited for unexpected results, when completing your OHS homework or working towards a precise colour, it is a serious pain in the tush to pick out all the wrong colour.

4. RECORD. RECORD. RECORD. Once again, as someone that enjoys experimentation and chance, recording my process isn't generally in the forefront of my mind. This is a big loss when I happen to create a colour that is truly awe-inspiring. I am training myself to write that s*&! down. Record your percentages and combinations. Take photos. Keep a wee bit of fibre as a sample. Hold back a bit of yarn. As much as I hate to slow down the creative process with record keeping, it is (sigh) worth it.

5. PULL OUT THAT COLOUR WHEEL.  Remember studying the colour wheel in highschool art class? Reacquante yourself with it. Take a look at what is complementary and analogous. Remind yourself of what hues, shades, values and tones are and how they are assessed. Try to figure out what colours are mixed to create that tone of lime green sitting across from you on the subway.

6. TOSS OUT THAT COLOUR WHEEL.  After you've hung out with the colour wheel for awhile and have memorized primary, tertiary and all other terms, start playing. The rules are great place to start but they aren't the whole journey.  Explore the terrain beyond the wheel.



Do you have any fabulous tips or tricks on colour blending? Share the wealth and post below!

Becoming a Master(ful) Hand Spinner - OHS Year 1

Meet Darlene. She's a spinning wheel. A Double-Tredle Lendrum to be exact. Made in Odessa, Ontario by a fellow named Gord Lendrum. She and I crossed paths this past August on the first day of Year 1 (of 6!) in my journey to become a Master Spinner (as in wool and not as in bicycles bolted to the floor in a humid gym with a trainer yelling at you to really “feel the pain”) with the OHS– Ontario Hand Weavers and Spinners (1). 

Didn’t know Ontario had hand-spinners? Prepare to be amazed. The growth in popularity of fibre arts is astounding. Just look around and you'll see people knitting all over the place. I love bumping into a fellow knitter on the subway. We quickly fall into a discussion of patterns and projects and favourite yarns. Eventually the topic of hand spinning emerges: do you spin your own yarns? We lock eyes. I trip over the words, "yes, I do". My fellow knitter answers back with a touch of breathlessness, "I've been spinning for years".  There's a sudden glint in the eye. Likely I have it too. We've just realized that we're both in the club. We're both SPINNERS. We have bags of fleece under our beds and small balls of fluff follow us through the world. Believe me when I say OHS is a breath away from becoming mainstream. 

You know I love local fibres and fibre producers. Meeting Darlene and pursuing my OHS Spinning Certificate Program is one part of desire to be involved in the cultivation of local fibresheds supporting a robust local textile economy. After 8 days in Haliburton I realized that I needed to share this process of scaling the heights of Spinning Mastery. I'm also hoping that if I keep writing about the process all y'all will keep me focused and moving forward, not to mention on time with my homework submissions. So consider this Season 1, Episode 1 of "Sarah Jean Goes to Spinning School".

To give some context:  I learned to spin at Black Creek Pioneer Village back in 2007 and fell instantly in love with the whole process. I drop spindled all the way through my Masters in Environmental Studies at York University. Noting my infatuation with fibre arts, Pascal organized his family and mine and bought me an old beauty known as a Quebec Production Wheel, easily 150 years old, for my 31st birthday. Best partner ever? Yup.

Fast forward to 2014. A friend at my local Etobicoke Handweavers and Spinners Guild convinced me to sign up for Year 1 of the OHS Certificate. Looking at my old beauty I realized that she wasn't really up to the drive to and from the Haliburton School of the Arts. 

This is where Darlene comes in. She was a rental from Wendy Bateman, Spinning Certificate coordinator and Grand Empress of All Things Textile. Wendy is one helluva gal – she's been spinning longer than I've been alive. 3 days into my relationship with Darlene, Wendy quietly paused at my chair and mentioned that Darlene was for sale, less the rental fee. What a clever saleswomyn. By day 8 I couldn’t imagine my life without Darlene. She came home with me.

Darlene lives at the foot of my bed, in front of the low bench, perfectly positioned for a daily round of spinning whenever the mood strikes. Did I mention that Pascal is an awesome partner? He is. 

Now it's time for some confessions. After getting home from Year 1 in Haliburton, I have put off the scads of homework that I must complete this year. I am utterly overwhelmed by the level of expertise that will be grading my work and sadly underwhelmed by my own skill level. I have pumped out yards and yards of 2-ply in an attempt to improve my twist (I consistently underspin), regulate my grist (I still get some thick/thin), and successfully produce a balanced, 2-ply yarn (reaching for that perfect loop skein). 

Facebook is becoming the bane of my existence as I watch my sister spinners (the other gals at Year 1) produce beautiful, balanced products expertly displayed on black card stock. Sigh.

Deep down I want perfect grades on my perfect yarns, but reality says that is highly unlikely to occur. Accepting this reality is truly hampering my progress. I can’t get started because I want perfection but know I can’t achieve it, thus don’t want to start until I can get it perfect. What an exhausting loop of inaction. 

This is likely an excellent example perfection paralysis. I’m not moving forward simply because I can’t accept my imperfections. That’s a life lesson, eh? 

My new strategy is to talk to Darlene and remind her that she’s part of the team and thus part of the process. This takes the pressure of me as a solo creator and distributes the glory, and the blame. I know a craftsperson isn’t supposed to blame their tools, but it sure feels good to feel like Darlene and I are in this process of imperfect beginner-ness together. Regardless of the conventional wisdom that inanimate objects don't have a personality, talking to Darlene is helping me get over this perfection paralysis because she and I are in this together.

Alright. I'm off to spin.

1. Full disclosure: the program is technically the Spinning Certificate Program and not the Master Spinners Program. However, the program is 6 years in length, the same as a doctoral degree, so I'm going to give myself the prize of claiming Masters status if I make it through. I might even privately refer to myself as Dr. HandSpinner. We'll see how much ego boosting I need by the end.

From the Outside Looking In: From the Inside Looking Out

The nausea washed over me just before I clicked the "publish" button. I reminded myself that vomiting on the keyboard would be gross.

My recent post on compassion fatigue and martyrdom pulled the curtain back on a few of my less-than sparkly thoughts and feelings. It pushed me to drop my party face; that shiny, polished, put-together image that I like to trot out in public situations. Publishing that post was terrifying and had all my slimy green monsters of self-doubt yelling at a piercing decibel "STOP! Or you'll PUKE!".

I posted anyways. And my keyboard is fine.

My green monsters of self-doubt were silenced by the waves of positive and affirming feedback from friends and strangers. I soaked in the loving vibes and ego-booting compliments for three glorious weeks.

The other day Patricia, an insightful womyn and thoughtful nurse, mentioned to me a subtle theme she had noticed in her own thinking as she responded to my post. Now that it is week four and I have gently returned to earth after a stint amongst the clouds, I could heard it too. It was emerging in a number of comments like this one:

"I had no idea you felt that way! You are always so patient and together. I thought it was just me that felt frazzled and cranky."

Sound familiar? Have you ever looked at someone, their work, their accomplishments, their relationships, and thought with awe (and perhaps a little bit of spite), "They have it all together and I'm a hurricane of procrastination, exhaustion and inner turmoil"?

I sure have.

Gazing at people I admire I believe in their party face. From the outside looking in, I accept that their public self is their true, complete, pulled-together, daily self. I watch with amazement as they seemingly float through life and I tell myself that their reality, unlike mine, must be soaked in enlightenment.

In contrast, I know my own internal world in gritty detail, with all of its petty thoughts and shaky self doubt. I see my own faults with exacting clarity and from the inside looking out, I assume that everyone else can also see my wobbly self confidence and crabby attitudes.

I call this thinking outside in - inside out. The whole process only takes a moment, but in its wake I am often left paralyzed, believing that I'll never measure up in comparison to everyone else. 

It's this outside in - inside out comparison that Patricia and I were hearing underneath the compliments. Over the last three weeks I've seen too many people offer me lovely words and then sigh, look into the distance and visibly deflate under the pressure of this comparison.
 
This comparison is a nasty mind trick we're playing on ourselves. We can only ever know someone else from the outside, where we enjoy a panoramic view of a person, based solely upon what they choose to share with us. The sticky details of their lives are blurry and some parts, the ones many of us carefully tuck out of sight, are lost to the haze of distance.

In contrast, we always know ourselves from the inside, including all the up-close details of each crusty bad mood and surly thought. These two perspectives are created by vastly different sets of information, yet we mistakenly equate our long distance view of someone else with our zoomed in perspective of ourselves. It's like comparing a rose bush with a single flower: only at close proximity can we see the thorns.

If we're all crumbling beneath the weight of outside in - inside out thinking, who's going to get on with work of making peace a verb? Believing that our distanced view of someone is accurate and comparing ourselves to this glossy perspective is dangerous. We smooth over each others' struggles, while harshly judging ourselves. It fools us into believing that we are hopelessly lacking. We loose faith in our capacities. Sighing deeply, we step back and leave the work to someone else.  

Let's make a deal. I will keep sharing posts like this, despite the nausea and risk to my keyboard, that pull back my party face and gives you a glimpse of my icky green monsters of self doubt.
In return, we all have to practice naming outside in - inside out thinking when it starts to crush us and we have to practice remembering that behind every shiny, admirable person there is a real humyn struggling through moments of frustration, irritation and exhaustion just like we are.

I don't think the world needs more glossed-over heroes.
We need more real people that wrestle with all the sticky, humyn details of living.

We need us.

  

Dreaming on Fridays

We just returned from a brief visit to Grey County. These memories will help me dream my way through the last legs of urban winter.

Looking towards Beaver Valley.

Frozen Eugenia Falls.

Sunset from the shore.

Space to breath.

Pascal and Relish.

The One Where I Drop the F-Bomb

Quietly Inside, 2013, Sarah Jean

February is the Wednesday of Winter. We're stuck in seemingly unending snowbanks, struggling to remember what the colour green looks like and waiting for the next weather alert to be issued.

The snow is certainly getting to me but the worst part of the past week has been my overall sense of not giving a fuck about anything.

I know. I just threw down an F-bomb (and it wasn't F for feminist).

KC  listened quietly as I cried over our coffees at Crema on Sunday. Oh yes, I cried publicly. Mostly about an endless feeling of falling behind, my stalled energy for community engagement and a sense of teeth-grating frustration over-riding my once abundant empathy and compassion. I felt tired, fatigued and hopeless.

The folks at the table next to us retreated across the room.

KC is an incredible listener and deeply insightful friend. She had many thoughtful questions, but two words in particular stood out: Compassion Fatigue.

According to Compassion Fatigue Solutions, Compassion Fatigue "refers to the profound emotional and physical erosion that takes place when helpers are unable to refuel and regenerate". The empathy and compassion required of people in supporting roles can become the emotional "cost of caring" when time and space are not sufficiently available to regain a sense of inner balance and energy.

From The Declassified Adoptee

That sounded familiar.

As an educator, particularly a social justice educator, people often honour me with their stories, trusting me as a safe space for disclosure. As an activist, even an activist focused on creating positive social change, I read, watch and analyze material on social injustices, trauma and oppression daily. In time, I start to loose my ability to see the balance of positive and negative in the world around me.

My skewed perspective seems to translate into a pattern of self-sacrifice. I start to work late, goading myself to get just one more thing done. I get up early, immediately thinking "Go! Go! Go!". I reject making time for fun, feeling guilty if I take a break from "caring". I put off doing the things that rejuvenate me. I keep saying Yes. I keep listening and supporting even when I feel overwhelmed. I keep going, unable to admit I need a break because I want to be a "good" person.

This is very embarrassing to write. I hear my honest emotional and physical erosion behind those words, but I also hear threads of self-importance. I can see my desire to offer support slipping into a form martyrdom, where I sacrifice myself on the alter of social change and community engagement, telling myself that I must do this work or it won't get done. It's like an internal version of Smokey the Bear pointing his paw at me, saying "Only YOU can stop homophobia, oppression, racism, sexism, gender violence, etc., etc., etc.".

The worst part is that I know Compassion Fatigue exists and I know listening to another person's pain can take a toll. I know that I will get tired and that I will need a break. I know this yet I don't put in place ways of supporting myself and I ignore self-care. It's here that martyrdom rears its slobbery head.

Martyrdom is an incredibly seductive mind trap. I feel so important when I'm running around "helping" and "caring". That quiet little assumption that everything rests upon ME makes it so easy to spin tales about how I MUST keep giving because SO MANY people depend upon me. It lets me believe that if I took a break the world would surely fall into a (worse) pit of despair. Despite the pressure these assumptions place on me, that feeling of self-importance is addictive.

Since coffee with KC I've taken some time to rest, paint and knit. The dishes have piled up a bit, there are dust bunnies in the corners and some phone calls have gone unanswered. A few days of breathing room have given me enough perspective to see that for me Compassion Fatigue quickly leads to martyrdom and martyrs aren't particularly useful. Deep, dark circles under my eyes and a cranky, tired Sarah Jean does not bring positive change to our world.

In fact, the many ages of successful humyn existence that have unfolded without my direct involvement suggests my assumption of self-importance may not be, ahem, accurate. This little reality check indicates that I could indeed safely take a break from changing the world without cataclysmic disaster. In fact, it appears that we all could take some time out to rest and rejuvenate.

I'm hoping this post can help me, and maybe us, keep this perspective in mind as I trudge through the remainder of the winter.

From Radical Self Care

 

Security is Cultivated, Not Enforced

Frank Meyers. (Photograph by Cole Garside)

This is Frank Meyers.  He has refused to give up his land for Joint Task Force 2 (JTF 2), the Canadian military's counter-terrorism force.  JTF 2 is receiving a $240 million training facility at CFB Trenton that will sit on 990 acres of Quinte West farm land.  Meyers is 85 years old and his family had been on the farm since King George III granted the land to his Loyalist forefather, Captain John Walden Meyers, over 2 centuries ago.  For 6 years he said no to selling his land and now he's being expropriated by the federal government.

What is this story about?

Let's set aside for the moment the crassness of expropriating a senior citizen, the disregard for productive agricultural land and the dismissal of history from a government that couldn't stop glorifying the 100th anniversary of the War of 1812.  As well as the 11 other land owners that have already (reluctantly) signed over their land, providing JTF 2 with approximately 900 acres to work with, begging the question: why strong-arm an elderly gentleman over 90-odd acres?

Now what is this story about?

Meyers' struggle to save his family's farm pulls into view a fear circulating in Canada that easily outweighs both logic and decency.  

JTF 2's website names our collective fear very clearly: "As the events of 11 September 2001 have shown, the threat of terrorism comes from an elusive, sophisticated and determined enemy. In order to maintain an edge in this operational environment, JTF 2 is continuously developing new capabilities, technologies, and tactics". 

We fear a vague enemy, loosely defined as "terrorists".  They are said to be gaining tactical and technical advantage, targeting our undefined common interests and directly threatening our individual safety.  The only solution acknowledged by the Canadian Government is to respond in kind: we must also become a greater militarized threat, remaining at "the forefront of tactics and technology to give us the advantage over our enemies".  In the effort to become our enemies' enemy we will calmly invest half a billion dollars in military development, put 990 acres of agricultural land out of food production and take away an elderly man's home. 

This may be the only solution discussed, but it is not the only solution available.

Imagine for a moment what Canada would look like if we confronted terrorism outside of the limitations of an "eye for an eye" ideology.

Rather than security certificates, Canada would address the unrelenting poverty and income polarization that make the Golden Dawn and Al Shabaab options for the desperate.

Rather than social assistant rates that force recipients to choose between rent and food, Canada would invest in food security for everyone.

Rather than overcrowded emergency shelters and crumbling social housing, Canada would invest in affordable housing.

Rather than student's graduating with debilitating debt, Canada would invest in free post-secondary education.

National security is only tenuously maintained by ever-larger weaponry.  By stepping outside of the militarization framework Canada could work towards long-term safety and security by investing in people, both at home and abroad. 

We learned this process after WWII.  The slaughter and terror of the early 20th century had given us insight.  We looked down the road of continued violence and turned back, choosing instead to invest in one another.  We participated in developing the United Nations, The Universal Declaration of Humyn Rights and our national social security programs.  For a brief historical moment we learned that responding to threats with military violence only created a cycle of escalating destruction.

Sadly we forgot, somewhere between then and now, that security is cultivated, not enforced.

Frank Meyers' story is about fear and force.
But it certainly doesn't have to be.

Once Upon a Time There Were Trees

Aboriginal issues have been in the news consistently for the last number of months. Chief Theresa Spence's decision to declare an emergency (again) in Attawaspiskat brought much needed attention to the deplorable conditions Aboriginal peoples are expected to endure on reserve. Wab Kinew is hosting 8th Fire on CBC, a program that works towards educating a wider Canadian audience about the significance and history of Aboriginal issues.

And still I hear from many, including the PMO's office, that Aboriginal people should "get over it" and stop whining. This makes my head spin and my gut crawl with rage.

My grandmother worked hard to educate me on Aboriginal issues because of her grandmother's story. Annie Thompson, my grandmother's grandmother, was a Cree womyn who married a fellow from Scotland. She had three boys. Her husband was killed in an accident and Annie became a single mother at a time when the discrimination against Aboriginal womyn was very overt. Her husband's family isolated and ostracized Annie, they pushed her to 'go back to her people', and they tried to take the three boys from her and adopt them out to (white) friends of the family. Annie fought hard to keep her children and she succeeded but it cost her all ties to her family and culture.

My grandmother's father told her these stories. My grandmother told me these stories. These stories are important. Annie, my great-great-grandmother, is one tiny story in a sea of stories about cultural assimilation, colonialism, genocide, abuse and trauma. Ignoring, forgetting or refusing to acknowledge a trauma lets it fester under the surface and continue to poison lives. The history of relations between Aboriginal peoples and the settlers has to be openly acknowledged and honestly discussed as equals. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a start.

I've spent a lot of time processing my connection to the terrible history of colonialism in Canada. It's hard to acknowledge that my ancestors, settlers from Scotland and Ireland fleeing their own traumas and oppression, were a part of a colonial project that set out to kill, assimilate and dismantle the Nations of Turtle Island. But acknowledgement is powerful and facing truth is healing.

The children's story below is part of my process in facing this truth.

Once upon a time there were Trees.

Once upon a time there were Trees.

Pine trees, spruce trees, elm trees, oak trees, cedar trees, maple trees.

There were many, many Trees and they lived here.

Of course the Trees didn’t live alone. 

They had many neighbours and friends and family.

They were never lonely.

Some of the Tree’s neighbours were people.

The Anishinaabeg people.

They got along quite well.

Then one year called 1836, the lives of the Trees changed forever.

Different people, people called the Settlers, came to where the Trees lived.

Now Tree etiquette demands that strangers be treated with courtesy.

So the Trees greeted the newcomers pleasantly and helped them willingly.

 

Apparently the Settler’s etiquette did not follow the same guidelines 

because they did not reciprocate.

Instead the Settlers asked the Trees to leave the land and go North.

The Settlers said that they needed the land completely free of Trees to create patches where only one plant, their favourite plant, was allowed to grow at a time.

The Trees were rather flabbergasted by this request.
It was common knowledge, amongst the Trees, that all their neighbours and friends and families had to share space; no one could claim large patches of earth just for themselves and their favourite plant.
Obviously the Trees needed to stay and help the Settlers learn to share.

The Settlers did not take the Tree’s decision well. 
No one had shared in the lands they came from and so they were afraid to share now.
They wanted to take and they wanted to keep.

The Trees were forced North along with their neighbours and friends and families, leaving the Settlers to learn how to share by
themselves.

For 500 years the Trees were confined into smaller and smaller spaces, continually being pushed out so the Settler’s could have bigger and bigger patches of their favourite plants, until their story became buried underneath the fencerows and ploughed fields.

Until one day the Settlers started telling this story.