Carousel

I love riding carousels. There's a wonderful scene in the movie Parenthood, where Mary Steenburgen talks about life as either a roller coaster ride or a carousel--she prefers the excitement of the roller coaster, though her nervous husband Steve Martin doesn't. I always thought, despite it being a great film and dialogue, that carousels got a bum rap. They're beautiful, historic, and, if you ride the one at Central Park which goes a wopping 8 mph, even fast and fun.

My kids love them now too (and not just because they haven't been on a roller coaster). They've ridden them at Beardsley Zoo, the Bronx Zoo, and Day out with Thomas--they love choosing their animals and they, as DS says, going "up and down and round and round." They talk about those rides--on the bugs, on the tiger, on the little carousel--quite a bit. And every morning when they see a picture of me in the hallway, they say, "Mommy likes to ride on carousels."

Because I love carousels (and am hoping to catch the exhibit at the Folk Art museum when we go into town to see the Rockefeller Tree), I am calling my first weaving project my "carousel scarf." That's right, I have just completed a weaving course. I can cross stitch, quilt, crochet, and knit, as a beginner. When I finished that Ph.D., I gave up reading and writing for handicrafts and the needle and fabric arts. Not that I get much time for those either now (especially quilting and cross stitching which are nearly impossible with babes around or in short batches of time). I do crochet quite a bit--I am on baby blanket number 5 of 11 (yes, most people I know are pregnant. It's a quick blanket in Red Heart Baby Cloud of the appropriate color--pink or blue with a white border if I know, white if I don't with an added border of color. Chain about 2 1/2 feet, single crochet with size M hook until blanket reaches a good size, then do a border of 3-4 rounds).

But being a living history museum aficionado, I have always been curious about spinning and weaving. And so, I signed up for a weaving class this fall. And it was miraculous. Literally. With no knowledge and little skill, I have made fabric using, essentially, two strings. We used a 4 shaft table loom to make a standard twill. I choose pink and green, or cassis and sage Jaegerspun yarn. We wrapped our own warp--and now I know the difference between the warp and the weft (the former is dressed on the loom, the latter is what you pass back and forth with your shuttle). We dressed our looms, threaded the heddles, and began to weave. First a sampler--oh, history buff cup runneth over--and then worked on our scarves. I had some starts and stops--lots of my warp broke on the warp board and later I broke a warp thread on the loom, plus had trouble with edges. I messed up some of the picks, or passes, in my patterns and was obsessed with these flaws. I was discouraged. I also missed a few classes due to illness--we're all better with those colds--well, not all, DP finally got it. Again. But I knew I wanted to finish (I've always been a better starter, which I realized this week, this self-revelation I'll write about some other time) and so I worked on it all week, weaving stockinette, herringbone, old rib, all these wonderful old patterns in 2-2 and 1-3 twill. I finally got into a rhythm with changing the heddles, beating, and picking, not worrying if I made an error with my edges or misread the pattern. And as I sat on the couch, talking to DP, sometimes sipping tea between picks (passes of the shuttle), I felt this continuum of women and men making cloth--colonial dames, Navajo women, men in sweatshops during the indurstrial revolution, Egyptians making cotton and linen that mummies were wrapped in, Chinese silks, Ikat fabrics of the middle east.

And so as I was weaving the idea of the carousel came to me--the up and down of the heddles, the back and forth of the shuttle, the circular nature of twill (which my teacher noted, and which I'm just beginning to understand), the up and down of my experience with the class and the project, the shimmering fantasy-like quality of the pink and green.

I finished the actual weaving of the scarf last week and took it to class during the weekend, where I hemstitched it and finally had it cut (I watched my teacher do this) off the loom, the birth of my scarf. It really was miraculous. I hadn't seen it all together--you can only see a few inches at a time--had no idea of its length. And it's just amazing. I couldn't help wearing it for the rest of the evening, stroking the cloth, even though I have to finish the tassles and then wash it, so that right now it's not quite finished. But I love it.

And I can't wait to start the next one, on the rigid heddle loom I got for Christmas last year (thanks, Mom). And thanks, DP, for encouraging me to take the class and making it possible for me to go each week and then work on the scarf at home. Yours is next!