Happy Valentine's Day from WholeCloth! May your love be as trusty, fine, and kindly as the thread from faithful hands.
Tag: spinning
Texts & Textiles: St. Distaff’s Day
Partly work and partly play You must on St. Distaffs Day: From the plough soon free your team; Then cane home and fother them: If the maids a-spinning go, Burn the flax and fire the tow. Bring in pails of water then, Let the maids bewash the men. Give St. Distaff' all the right: Then… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: St. Distaff’s Day
Art & Craft: Saint Catherine’s Wheel
I want to celebrate the legend of a skilled, courageous woman who trusted in her God more than in the power of man.
Texts & Textiles: Proverbs 31
Although the image of the "Proverbs 31 woman" has been tarnished by narrow exegesis and mediocre women's conferences, it remains a powerful and challenging picture of a productive, joyful, generous life.
Texts & Textiles: Traditional Proverb
Get the distaff ready, and the Lord will send the flax. This traditional proverb, which I first encountered as a teen reading Louisa May Alcott's Jo's Boys, is an example of a saying which once illustrated its wisdom with everyday experiences, but which is now more or less opaque. A distaff is a tool used… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: Traditional Proverb
Texts & Textiles: Edward Taylor
Make me, O Lord, thy Spining Wheele compleate. Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee. Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neate And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee. My Conversation make to be thy Reele And reele the yarn thereon spun of thy Wheele. Make me thy Loome then, knit therein… Continue reading Texts & Textiles: Edward Taylor
The second angel
"And if the serpent comes again / to tempt with secret truths, /hold fast your crafts, / in them you'll find a better mystery."
Book Review: Sandry’s Book
Pierce, Tamora. Sandry's Book (Circle of Magic, Book 1). New York: Scholastic, 1997. {Link} The stories we love as children shape us for the rest of our lives. Even as adults, storytelling carries the power to direct our loves in might ways. And from love, of course, comes everything else: our sense of purpose;… Continue reading Book Review: Sandry’s Book