Life is like a tapestry. I’ve often used this analogy to describe the ‘people, places and everyday things we experience’ as the ‘colorful threads’ … the warp and the weft … that make up the fabric of our individual lives. Today I’m thinking about this once again, because an amazing thing just happened to me, which confirms my belief that it’s not only WE who do the ‘weaving’ … but that there is something much grander at work ‘behind the scenes’, an unseen hand orchestrating the richness of the overall tapestry of which we’re a part. If I’m being a bit “wooly-brained” here, thinking too much in terms of ‘fibers’ right now, its because today I bought a little weaving loom, a 20” antique LeClerc 8-harness table model, which only 2 days ago I didn’t even know existed!
Not that buying a loom was a whim … I rarely do things like that. I’ve been thinking about weaving all winter actually, and had my eyes on a much larger floor loom that’s been collecting dust in a nearby barn. I’ve known about it for 6 years now; it was in the attic of a local cider mill we had considered purchasing as a family business before we bought the Lodge. We eventually decided not to buy the mill, but I’ve never forgotten about the loom. For months now I’ve had a hankering to weave rag rugs. It started when we finally began unpacking our moving boxes (after being 5 years in storage) and discovered tons of old clothes we will never again wear. How to put them to good use, give them new life, and not be wasteful? The answer I came to was: Rag rugs!! This urge has been haunting me so regularly that I decided to be proactive about it, and few months ago I approached the loom’s new owner at the mill about possibly buying it. She had no intention of using it herself, she said, and was willing to sell it, so I made an offer which she promised to think about and get back to me. She never did, despite a few gentle email reminders. Finally on Monday, after what I had decided would be my final request, she told me that she was going to hold on to it for awhile: ‘Not interested in selling right now’ was all she said. I was really crushed, because I’d been visualizing exactly where I was going to put it, and was getting all my fabric together to start my rug-weaving projects. I was really bummed!
But here’s the good part! How often do we hear the old adage, “One door never closes but another one opens”? Well, it’s so true. That same day, out of the total blue, I got an email from someone I didn’t really know, introducing herself as the owner of a well-made Canadian loom! She had heard from someone else that I had been looking for one, and she just happened to have TWO of them. “$50 and it’s yours”, she said. Coincidentally, she lived just up the road from my log cabin, and when I went to visit her today, I felt like we were very much on the same wavelength in a number of ways. When I arrived, she was out in her lovely flower and vegetable garden, the one I’ve always admired from the road with the espaliered apple trees, (but never knew who lived there!). After talking ‘gardens’ for awhile until the black flies got too ‘buggy’for us, we went inside her house, where it was apparent that she was definitely a ‘fellow artist’! Her home had an intangibly wonderful artsy ‘feel’ to it. I felt very much at home. Then I saw the loom. YES!!!!!! At first glance I knew it would be perfect; even MORE perfect, in fact, that the one for which I was prepared to spend 10 times more! (And it wouldn’t take up so much space in my tiny living room). She took me to her weaving room, where lo and behold, she used her loom to weave RAG RUGS!!! They were everywhere; dozens of them!!! “It becomes an obsession,” Susan told me. “Once you get started, it’s just plain hard to stop!”. And so this morning I went back home, even happier than if I had bought the bigger one I’d been dreaming about for months. I finally had my loom; it didn’t set me back financially; I met someone who might possibly become a friend, and now I knew someone to whom I could ask weaving advice should I get stuck! Ahhhh … isn’t life wonderful?!
Not that buying a loom was a whim … I rarely do things like that. I’ve been thinking about weaving all winter actually, and had my eyes on a much larger floor loom that’s been collecting dust in a nearby barn. I’ve known about it for 6 years now; it was in the attic of a local cider mill we had considered purchasing as a family business before we bought the Lodge. We eventually decided not to buy the mill, but I’ve never forgotten about the loom. For months now I’ve had a hankering to weave rag rugs. It started when we finally began unpacking our moving boxes (after being 5 years in storage) and discovered tons of old clothes we will never again wear. How to put them to good use, give them new life, and not be wasteful? The answer I came to was: Rag rugs!! This urge has been haunting me so regularly that I decided to be proactive about it, and few months ago I approached the loom’s new owner at the mill about possibly buying it. She had no intention of using it herself, she said, and was willing to sell it, so I made an offer which she promised to think about and get back to me. She never did, despite a few gentle email reminders. Finally on Monday, after what I had decided would be my final request, she told me that she was going to hold on to it for awhile: ‘Not interested in selling right now’ was all she said. I was really crushed, because I’d been visualizing exactly where I was going to put it, and was getting all my fabric together to start my rug-weaving projects. I was really bummed!
But here’s the good part! How often do we hear the old adage, “One door never closes but another one opens”? Well, it’s so true. That same day, out of the total blue, I got an email from someone I didn’t really know, introducing herself as the owner of a well-made Canadian loom! She had heard from someone else that I had been looking for one, and she just happened to have TWO of them. “$50 and it’s yours”, she said. Coincidentally, she lived just up the road from my log cabin, and when I went to visit her today, I felt like we were very much on the same wavelength in a number of ways. When I arrived, she was out in her lovely flower and vegetable garden, the one I’ve always admired from the road with the espaliered apple trees, (but never knew who lived there!). After talking ‘gardens’ for awhile until the black flies got too ‘buggy’for us, we went inside her house, where it was apparent that she was definitely a ‘fellow artist’! Her home had an intangibly wonderful artsy ‘feel’ to it. I felt very much at home. Then I saw the loom. YES!!!!!! At first glance I knew it would be perfect; even MORE perfect, in fact, that the one for which I was prepared to spend 10 times more! (And it wouldn’t take up so much space in my tiny living room). She took me to her weaving room, where lo and behold, she used her loom to weave RAG RUGS!!! They were everywhere; dozens of them!!! “It becomes an obsession,” Susan told me. “Once you get started, it’s just plain hard to stop!”. And so this morning I went back home, even happier than if I had bought the bigger one I’d been dreaming about for months. I finally had my loom; it didn’t set me back financially; I met someone who might possibly become a friend, and now I knew someone to whom I could ask weaving advice should I get stuck! Ahhhh … isn’t life wonderful?!
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