In 2010, Lynda Teller Pete was living in Denver with her husband Belvin, working full-time in a demanding government job in the Department of Labor, living the life on a modern urban Indian, doing a little weaving in her spare time. Then she pivoted. Quit the job and sat down at her loom and made the commitment to return to her roots.

With her older sister, Barbara Teller Ornelas, Lynda began teaching weaving classes and producing award-winning tapestries. In 2017, the two of them wrote Spider Woman’s Children: Navajo Weavers Today. They followed this with How to Weave a Navajo Rug and Other Lessons from Spider Woman, both published by Thrums Books/Schiffer Publications. And at the same time, Lynda collaborated on another book for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and she curated exhibits and lectured across the country. She and Barbara were featured in a segment of the PBS series Craft in America. She keeps a full teaching schedule, including classes for Navajos only as well as more culturally focused classes for non-indigenous students.

In 2022 she was elected to the board position for Equity and Inclusion by the prestigious Textile Society of America, and in the same year she was recipient of a Luce Foundation fellowship for Indigenous Knowledge, which will result in the translation of How to Weave a Navajo Rug into her native language. Her list of accomplishments and responsibilities goes on and on. And yet most any night, late into the night, you would find Lynda at her loom, rhythmically beating the pattern wefts into place in yet another tapestry. For after all, night is when the spider does its work.

Visit the Long Thread Podcast website.

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks—where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas's website

In Meg Swansen’s world, knitting is so much more than knit and purl. It links music, mathematics, deep history, and world-wide communities. It is a platform for creativity, invention, and technical mastery.

Music, you say? That’s how Meg proceeds merrily along a pattern round of several hundred stitches. She sings the repeat. Or at least chants it. And those long, long pattern rounds comprise her favorite kind of knitting: color-stranded Fair Isle designs. The interplay of color and motif and deep tradition are of endless interest to her.

Mathematics are integral to the craft, too, in Meg’s world. Her mother’s famous EPS, Elizabeth’s Percentage System, has empowered generations of knitters to devise their own patterns to suit their own gauges and their own body measurements. Now Meg’s son Cully has taken the concept to a new level, riffing off the famous Baby Surprise Jacket with new formulae to suit almost infinite sizes, shapes, and styles. It seems to be a family thing.

Impeccable technique matters to Meg, not just for its own sake but for the stories it tells of knitters in far-flung countries and cultures. She’s introduced the knitting world to the traditions of Latvia, Armenia, Estonia, Iceland, the Scandinavian countries, the list goes on and on. And it’s not just the motifs and styles of these cultures, but the ways of working, the ways of tending to details, that have been refined over many generations, even centuries. Meg has added her own tricks, too, and takes great pleasure in all the difference a simple slip of a needle-tip makes in her signature increase.

From her cozy, iconic Red Schoolhouse in the Wisconsin woods, Meg reflects on the hundreds of individual knitters who have come to the annual knitting camp that her mother started in 1974. So much sharing, learning, and teaching have come from these gatherings, and Meg is careful to credit the individuals that have made special contributions. While the camp happens only in the summer, it provides the spirit for a vast community that connects through her semi-annual newsletters, occasional book launches, teaching forays, and social media posts. So much more than knit and purl.

Treenway Silks is where weavers, spinners, knitters and stitchers find the silk they love. Select from the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn, and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. You'll discover a rainbow of colors, thoughtfully hand-dyed in Colorado. Love natural? Treenway's array of wild silks provide choices beyond white.

If you love silk, you'll love Treenway Silks where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

Schoolhouse Press

When you think about circular weaving, you may flashback to weaving on a paper plate or cardboard using simple materials and methods. But artist and weaver Emily Nicolaides has taken circular weaving by storm, opening up the technique to include a new world of richness, beauty, and complexity.

In 2016, Emily began exploring shaped tapestry weaving and the possibilities and limitations of weaving in the round. She started with a simple arch and then developed more complex shapes, such as ovals, eventually finding herself back to weaving circles. In the years that followed, she tested many weaving methods to see how they could apply to circular weaving. She often discovered what worked (and did not) through trial and error. Her years of research and teaching her techniques landed her a book deal. Her book, Amazing Circular Weaving, came out in September 2022.

In this episode, Emily shares how weaving grounded her; how warp and weft coming together to create fabric mirrors how she brings herself and her knowledge together to make unique pieces. Host Anne Merrow connected with her at her home on the island of Cyprus and talked about her love of books, research, and the lineage and history we all take part in while weaving.

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks—where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

More than spinning, weaving, stitching, or any of the other crafts she's written and published about, Linda Ligon is fascinated by the people who make traditional textiles. From Peruvian spinners to Miao embroiderers to Navajo weavers, the people who make cloth the way their ancestors did have a special interest for her.

Many of the people who know Linda Ligon's work don't know her by name (which is just fine with her). Linda founded Interweave in 1975, and it went on to become a craft juggernaut. After selling the company, she founded Thrums Books, which published highly illustrated, immersive books about traditional textiles around the world. She cofounded Long Thread Media in 2019, bringing three of her original publications (Spin Off, Handwoven, and PieceWork) home.

Bringing together textiles, stories, words, and images is Linda's life work—but she never loses her fascination for one person in particular: the reader.

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks—where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

Thrums Books

Most stores don't invite passersby to walk up to their shop, open a door, and help themselves—no obligation, no purchase required. But not long after opening new new yarn store in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, Liz Sytsma hung a box on the side of the store labeled "Little Free Fiber Library." Inspired by the give a book, take a book model of the Little Free Library, Wild Hand wanted to create a place where anyone who wanted or needed yarn could obtain it freely. Instead of viewing the fiber library as competing with the shop's sales, the Wild Hand team views it as an opportunity to bring new crafters into the fold, make yarn accessible to all, and participate in their community.

Liz left the nonprofit world to open Wild Hand in 2019, wanting to build a a yarn store that would promote the kind of community she wanted to see: inclusive, diverse, thoughtful, kind. She gathered a team to work together as managers, teaching artists, and colleagues who share a dedication to building the kind of yarn shop where everyone who comes through the door can feel welcome and valued. One of the first projects of Wild Hand was the Community Commitment, a list of 11 principles that guide everything from purchasing decisions to customer service.

One of Liz's first collaborators was Theresa Hill, a spinner, teacher, independent dyer, and nurse. Theresa serves as one of the managers of Wild Hand, where she enjoys feeding the creativity and skills of the shop's customers. She appreciates the way Wild Hand encourages customers and staff members alike to be fully themselves in the space, free to be silly, make mistakes, and feel welcome.

In addition to a storefront in Philadelphia, Wild Hand has included an online store since early days, too. When COVID-19 closed the shop's physical doors and the operation shifted entirely online for a time, the Community Commitment kept right up: Liz prioritized accessibility on the website, too, and even the Little Free Fiber Library is available to online customers (who cover the cost of shipping). Although neighborhood roots are important, Wild Hand invites everyone to be part of their fiber community.

Handweaving.net is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today!

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white.

Wild Hand website

Marcia Young started her craft publishing journey by accident, with a newsletter and website for her local quilt guild. With small children at home, she fit in writing around the edges, until almost overnight she saw an opportunity for a new magazine devoted to fiber arts. Fiber Art Now and the Fiber Art Network began at Marcia’s kitchen table, and she published it quarterly for nearly a decade.

Eventually Marcia was ready for a new challenge, and she realized that Fiber Art Now was ready for a new direction, too. The publication joined with Quiltfolk, a quarterly magazine devoted to the rich community of American quilting. With her first publishing love in a good new home, Marcia found herself exploring a new medium of her own: book publishing.

Schiffer Publishing is an independent publishing company whose craft list includes weaving and fiber arts titles (including Thrums Books, a group of titles about international textile traditions founded by Linda Ligon). As the Imprint Lead for Schiffer Craft, Marcia’s charges include a range of traditional arts such as leather, clay, and paper. Schiffer’s goal, Marcia says, is to be a valued partner in the lives of makers.

Handweaving.net is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today!

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks—where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

Schiffer Craft

More than 100 years have passed since Shaniko, Oregon, went from "Wool Capital of the World" to forgotten spur of the Union Pacific Railway. A dozen miles from Shaniko, R.R. Hinton was the area's largest producer of sheep and wool at his Imperial Stock Ranch, raising Columbia sheep for meat and wool.

When Dan and Jeanne Carver bought the Imperial Stock Ranch in the 1980's, they established a conservation plan—not something many working farms did at the time, but something that Dan saw as vitally important. To preserve the water and soil of their thousands of acres, the Carvers turned to unexpected partners: the cattle and sheep who grazed their high desert land. Sheep have a reputation for damaging the ecosystem by overgrazing, but Dan and Jeanne believed that careful stewardship through intensive rotational grazing, humane predator management, and water conservation could bring grazing animals back in balance with the landscape.

In 2017, the Carvers accepted a challenge to become the first ranch certified under the Responsible Wool Standard, which establishes criteria for the welfare of sheep, ecosystem, and working conditions used to produce the wool. As consumer demand for sustainably produced wool grew, the Carvers founded Shaniko Wool Company to join with other family ranches in obtaining RWS certification and delivering ethically and ecologically sound wool. Shaniko Wool comprises ten ranches whose practices are independently audited.

Based on the environmental benefits she witnessed, Jeanne was certain that the sheep and their agricultural practices were a net benefit to the natural world, but over the past several years, she has taken steps to prove it. Through measurements of the soil and audits of their emissions, Shaniko Wool Company has documented that their ranching operations offset tons of greenhouse gas emissions by capturing tons of carbon in the soil.

Listening to Jeanne Carver talk about her family's goals and results for their ranch offers an inspiring message for those of us who love wool and ecosystem conservation: with careful management, sheep can be an undeniable force for good.

Handweaving.net is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today!

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks—where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

Shaniko Wool Company

Catharine Ellis loved planning weaving projects, but once the warp was on the loom and the design decisions made, much of the discovery was over: with decades of experience, she knew pretty well what the finished project would be. She wasn't bored, exactly, but ready for a new direction in her weaving.

Taking a class with shibori master Yoshiko Wada, she was intrigued by the way carefully placed stitches could be drawn up into pleats that became a dye resist. The traditional method does require a lot of stitching, though. Was there a way to combine the techniques and tools of handweaving with the concepts of shibori?

That question became the basis for decades of sampling, exploration, and collaboration. Exactly what a woven shibori project will look like is only revealed when the gathering threads are removed, so there is an element of suspense until the entire process of weaving, crimping, and dyeing are complete.

With a retirement from her longtime teaching position pending, Catharine began to consider her dye practice. The school's dye facilities—and waste water infrastructure—would be inaccessible, so her dye process would need to take a rural water supply and septic tank system into account. In classes with natural dye master Michel Garcia and collaborations with Joy Boutrup, she honed her skills in creating a range of natural colors on cellulose fabrics, especially cotton, which are considered especially difficult to dye. Her second book, The Art and Sciece of Natural Dyes with Joy Boutrup, has become the essential resource for predictable, safe, colorfast natural dyeing.

Catharine Ellis's artistic practice and teaching link traditional textile practices with contemporary innovation.

Handweaving.net is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today!

[TreenwaySilks logo](//www.datocms-assets.com/75073/1656653452-treenwaysilks_logo.png)

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks—where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

[The Art and Sciece of Natural Dyes](https://schifferbooks.com/products/art-science-of-natural-dyes)

The charkha is so important in the traditions of India that Mohandas K. Gandhi proposed placing it at the center of the national flag. The wheel can signify economic independence, mindful practice, and national identity, yet the number of practicing handspinners and even people who know how to spin has dwindled.

Born into a family of traditional potters, Avani Varia's work has always involved the preservation of traditional crafts in India. Yet she carried around a box charkha for years before learning to spin on it. She was surprised to learn that her mother had learned charkha spinning as an essential part of her school curriculum. Wanting to make charkha spinning a joyful, approachable pursuit, she began organizing events under the name "Chalo Charkha Ramiye," which translates roughly to "Let's have fun with charkha spinning." She wrote a book by the same name that teaches techniques of charkha spinning, box charkha maintenance, and the historical importance of the tool.

Avani has found a receptive audience for her easygoiong charkha lessons, even making a splash at birthday parties. Behind the fun, though, are serious pursuits. To keep handspinning growing, handspinning teachers need to be trained—and find paying work. On the production side, the handful of traditional spinners throughout the country might be able to find an eager market for their handcrafted, sustainable yarns if they had the business infrastructure (or even mobile phones) to connect them with buyers. With Yarn Spinners Guild India, Avani is working to establish connections between handspinners and buyers in India and abroad.

Handweaving.net is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today!

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white. Treenway Silks—where superior quality and customer service are guaranteed.

Avani Varia

Planning to spend a few months traveling around South Asia, Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo unexpectedly found herself in search of a teacher and workshop where she could learn the process of making stitched thangka. On a tour of Tibetan businesses as part of her work for the Tibetan Central Authority (also called the Tibetan Government-in-exile), she saw artisans using silk fabric, horsehair, and silk thread to stich images of divine or inspiring figures. In Tibetan tradition, fabric artworks often depict the embodiment of Buddhist ideals in a form linked with meditation and reverence.

Painted silk thangka are easier to find, both as finished pieces and in workshops, but the stitched form known as göchen thangka is rare even in the city where the Dalai Lama lives. Thangka are both textile tradition and spiritual objects, with roots stretching back a thousand years.

Leslie's apprenticeship was a deep immersion into Tibetan culture. With serious commitment to learning the art as well as participating in the Tibetan community, she found a place in a working atelier, first making small pieces and later collaborating on larger elements of the large silk pieces. As they worked, she could sometimes hear the bells or traffic that marked the Dalai Lama's travels from and returns to his home temple.

Often called appliqué, göchen thangka are not composed of pieces of fabric laid over a ground cloth. Instead, the elements of the design are cut individually and pieced together, with silk-wrapped horsehair forming outlines between pieces. The result is a supple, subtlely textured image.

Leslie writes about her journey and her artwork in her new book, Threads of Awakening, which was published in 2022. An excerpt from the book will appear in PieceWork Spring 2023.

Handweaving.net is the comprehensive weaving website with more than 75,000 historic and modern weaving drafts, documents, and powerful digital tools that put creativity in your hands. Now it's simple to design, color, update, and save your drafts. Our mission is to preserve the rich heritage of hand weaving and pass it down to you. Visit Handweaving.net and sign up for a subscription today!

You’ll find the largest variety of silk spinning fibers, silk yarn and silk threads & ribbons at TreenwaySilks.com. Choose from a rainbow of hand-dyed colors. Love natural? Their array of wild silk and silk-blends provide choices beyond white.

Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo's website

_Editor’s note: _In an earlier version of this episode, I made a statement that ignored the complexity, richness, and variety of spiritual practice through handcraft. Several readers were kind enough to point out the oversights, and we have edited the episode to remove the comment. Long Thread Media strives to represent and celebrate cultural diversity, now and in the past. I am grateful for the opportunity to account for and attempt repair for my error.