Category: Western North Carolina

  • It’s time for my annual ritual of summarizing the previous year and writing about my hopes and plans for the next year. In 2025, I let go of more of my blogging and turned my blog into more of a web site. In late January I headed to Tucson, Arizona to visit my dear friend…

  • Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. I am 3/4 of the way through! I may even finish this in time for Christmas! Although we had to vacate our rooms by 9:30 a.m., my classmates cleaned up the studio and we trickled out until it was just Edwina and I, working on my tapestry and her on a…

  • Edwina Bringle, one of the leading fiber artists in our region, invited several fiber artists to play with her at Wildacres Retreat near Little Switzerland, NC in mid-September. Spending almost a week with Edwina to observe her weaving tips and tricks, listen to her counsel, and getting to know her better was one of the…

  • Hello friends! I am back from a rejuvenating six days (including travel) at John C. Campbell Folk School, where I finally snagged a spot in a class I’ve wanted to take for a long, long time – “Wrapping Wild: Making Animals Out of Recycled Materials,” taught by the amazing Bryant Holsenbeck. First, the photos of…

  • It is such a relief to be at the end of spring semester. I still have a few things to do at work, but all of the time-sensitive stuff has been done. Last weekend we went to the St. Francis book sale, where I blew my “no more buying books” pledge out of the water.…

  • Continuing the tale of the past weekend: Of course, we spent too much money, even though we spent two nights in the Super 8 motel in Black Mountain. It isn’t bad for the price. Our first stop was at Nice Threads Fiber Gallery on Cherry St. in Black Mountain, where I showed Leslie several of…

  • Dede ponders the answer to a question. I couldn’t wait for the India Flint workshop so I signed up for a workshop with Dede Styles at Cloth Fiber Workshop on Saturday. I’m so glad that I did. She gave us a great lesson in identifying local wild dye plants, with information about when to harvest…

  • Two corkscrew willows, one living, one dying. If I had been completely alone, you can bet that I would have been scrambling over these rocks to play in the river and collect pebbles.

  • You can usually find beauty if you look for it. In this case, it was a walk beside a ditch behind the Super 8 Motel in Black Mountain, North Carolina. These asters were much bluer in person. I think that this is wild lettuce. I wish that I knew my plants better. Ditto. Ooh! Ooh!…

  • Our trip was nice but cut a bit short. It poured rain yesterday and we had had enough of shopping. I would have liked to do a bit of hiking but Sandy suddenly developed a painful knee. I got out into nature a little bit on Sunday morning and yesterday there was a short break…