March lions

So, what have I been up to.
My nephew got married in Omaha last Friday. While in the Omaha area, I took the time to drive on down to Lincoln, Ne, to speak with the folks at the Nebraska Historical Society. They had a doll from the Red Cloud reservation with an interesting belt, and a curved piece of fingerweaving, a leg tie or headband. In their gallery they have a lovely bias weave beaded pouch.
Tina Koeppe invited me to participate in the American Textile Society conference this Fall. I am definitely considering this.
Back in Omaha I stopped in at the Jocelyn and spoke with Sharon Shald. She tipped me off to Pilcher’s Indian Store and Rebecca’s Trading post.
I learned a couple of new words: old school yarn belts worn by straight dancers.
Googling ‘yarn belts’ I came up with some lovely images of fingerwoven sashes.
I had the pleasure of meeting poet Marilyn Dumont, exploring fingerweaving with her. She reminded me of the many metaphors that weaving provides, protecting the shed, creating a false weave, safety belts.
I’ve also been working on several requests for sprang sashes. A friend of mine offered to help with the re-spinning of the yarn. She was amazed at the amount of work I put into these things before I ever start weaving. At her urging I did a bit of experimenting. The upshot of all this testing revealed that it is best to soak the wool before re-spinning it. I also found that the oven, at 160 degrees, is sufficient to re-set the twist, but I have to leave the wool on my niddy-noddy. I’m thinking I’ll have my wood-worker son make me a heavy-duty niddy-noddy for this purpose, so as to save my nice ones from drying out in the oven with the yarn.