Word of the Year: 2024

Apparently my most consistent use of this blog is to post my annual thoughts for the (Gregorian calendar) New Year. I’m okay with that. First, a look back on 2023.

I’m fortunate that I still have the option to work at home most of the time. I’m still at the company that I’ve been at through the entire pandemic (originally since May 2019), while under the second contracting company for placement (since June 2022). Our big water-damage adventure in our home happened in summer 2022, with everything returning to our home in mid/late September 2022. So by the time January 2023 hit, post Santa season, it was really time to get organized as we unpacked and set up the house again. We took advantage of this chore to change up the furniture, which means I’ve spent most of 2023 in my little “work and crafty cubicle” where the “dining room” used to be.

Highlights from Q1 in 2023

This gave me a big opportunity to buy some full-wall-length bookcases and organize all my crafty supplies. Each month there were new little milestones like “the boxes are no longer blocking the bookcase!” or “I’ve built two more small bookcases!” all interspaced with artistic pursuits or events. I’ve also started photographing every box as I put things away on shelves, so I don’t have to exactly remember “where did I put that thing?” instead I can check my Google Photos and either scan the pictures or search for a keyword. And to wrap up the quarter, my sister’s birthday falls in March and my nieces organized a big “all gals weekend” to celebrate, which was marvelous fun.

Highlights from Q2 in 2023

By April, you can see my “wall of textiles” on display and by May, you can see my work corner is just packed with screens and electronics, my “actual home” most days. We had the great fortune to be there for some friends’ wedding, and our annual camping trip over Memorial Day weekend. By June, the living room was clear of boxes enough to finally see out the patio windows, cause for HUGE celebration. Throughout the year, Sweetie continued to travel the country teaching. And I had several opportunities to help run some events and/or textiles demos.

Highlights from Q3 in 2023

Two of those demos were at the Getty Museum (in June and July), several events were part of the SCA, and one textiles day-event in September with Griffin Dyeworks. July was also Sweetie’s birthday celebration, and we were able to surprise him with a gathering of friends for dinner and then axe throwing. More organizing tasks done when I was able to finally move my storage unit from 30-minutes-drive-away (since 2014) to just 2 miles away (it only took 9 years). And after one summer Santa appearance, we started the Fall with the first of two Santa commercials.

Highlights from Q4 in 2023

The BIG accomplishment for the end of the year was completing The Illuminated Santa, affectionately known as the “Lumi Suit.” Definitely read the story about the team who built the suit, Team Shiny. Predictably a few people asked us, “WOW, where can I buy one of those?” to which I laugh maniacally, since I spent weeks hand-sewing every single point of light you see in the fur on this project. My sister even joined the ranks to help perform with the suit at a casting agents party. But besides a full Santa season, in Q4 I still got more spinning done and a chance to teach Andean Backstrap Weaving in-person at the annual Fiber Retreat with Griffin Dyeworks.


About that Word of the Year

Looking at the history of my Word Themes

One thing that happened since lockdown, I haven’t been dancing at all (with just a few exceptions in 2020). This is the first year I really started to miss it. And while I started swimming often before the big water-leak-house-interruption in 2022, I only managed a few swim sessions in 2023, back in April and May and then again in October. When projects keep me up late on weekdays, it’s nearly impossible to get up for swimming at 5 am before my work day. I definitely might need to rethink how to get out there in the pool again.

Did we manage to approach 2023 knowing “there is no off-season?” More than usual, yes. We were better at getting into the swing of things in October/November, but we were also finishing the Lumi Suit in those Fall wee hours. We also have a few major publishing efforts to wrap up and complete, which will take center stage for 2024. Sweetie’s teaching schedule has the possibility of up to nine travel weekends this year, a really heavy schedule.

At home in my crafty world, I’m thinking about those tools I own but rarely use, or the large costuming stash I have from a decade of dancing and teaching dance. It’s probably time to either “use it or rehome it or repurpose it” for those tools and costumes. Paired with our joint projects and my long-range desire to have more mobility again (recovering from knee issues), maybe that’s really my posture for 2024.

2024: Repurposing

Word of the Year: 2023

large collage of images from 2022: Lots of my face, some spinning yarn, some weaving, and a few with friends
Photo collage of 2022 highlights

2022 in Retrospective: I often take the time at the end of the year to look at my crafty accomplishments or maybe my experiences from the year. It often is a time to see if my “word of the year” fit my pursuits or my actions. In 2022, I selected CONNECTIONS with the hope that I would be in the moment and be part of people’s lives.

When I assembled this photo collage, these are the highlight photos that jumped out at me.

  • January: Crafty pursuits included preparing for February online teaching.
  • February: Teaching more Andean Weaving as part of Franquemont University.
  • March: I actually did the homework as we studied “Spinning with Color” and had lots of fun.
  • April: Shenanigans! More crazy push-the-limits weaving with my weaving-bestie.
  • May: Some connections at Potrero (SCA camping) and more weaving.
  • June: Scan Fest textiles demo and Lyondemere Baronial Anniversary
  • June, July, August, September: Lots of swimming!
  • July, August, September: The great house interruption with the water leak and then asbestos abatement and 23-days kicked out. But bonus: Connection with my sister.
  • October: Demo in Irvine, some good things at Great Western War (more SCA), but BOO we ended up with Covid post-GWW. I lost pretty much the rest of the month.
  • November: Big Santa ramp up, Family gratefulness dinner with Boyo, and some string!
  • December: Yule with Lyondemere & Gyldenholt, then ALL SANTA ALL THE TIME.

I can barely believe that’s what happened this year, and “Connections” also was followed up by a surprise companion word this year: INTERRUPTIONS.

I know this: I’m so thankful that I have the partner and family and friends in my closest support groups that helped me get through this year.

Santa and me, in a car on the CA freeways
How I spent my New Year’s Eve: In seven-plus hours of torrential rain

So what did I select as my “Word of the Year” over the past decade?

Looks like I’m consistent–always working on something, always pursuing something, trying to be both in the moment and finding those incremental improvements. I often joke that my super power is “Incremental Improvement Girl.” What does that make me reflect on then? And what’s different now compared to previous years?

For one, we still have a Covid-world. I still work from home most days, I still take my mask out with me most places. It’s “not over” yet and will never be if most of the world just ignores it. If I just do a google news search for “covid” and my county, the top news all feature warnings for surges from Holidays and New Years. They might even reimpose an indoor mask mandate in my local county, again.

Cases of Covid in Los Angeles County, CA - from March 17 2020 through Dec 21 2022. Spike in Dec/Jan of 2021 into the 15k cases range and spike just after New Years 2022 into the 40k range
Cases in LA County from Mar 17, 2020 to Dec 31, 2021. Huge spikes occur at New Years for both 2021 and 2022.
Deaths from Covid in Los Angeles County, CA - from March 17 2020 through Dec 21 2022. Spike in Jan/Feb of 2021 into 200+ deaths per day range and spike in Jan/Feb 2022 into the 50+ deaths per day range
Deaths in LA County from Mar 17, 2020 to Dec 31, 2021. The biggest spikes are again in January/February each year.

I can only describe October 2022 as, “and then I lost a month from Covid.” Sweetie was infected, and it was impossible to isolate effectively in our small home. So I was sick on a two-day delay from him.

Every year, there is a risk that Santa “catches the crud” from the number of children he sees. We know it’s part of the job. But after we both were sick with and then recovered from Covid in October, the year-end crud has hit him so much harder than ever before.

What does all this have to do with my Word of the Year?

I no longer really know how to set plans the way I used to. On one hand, life is still life. I still want to do crafty things, I want to teach, I want to influence people for the better, and I want to be there for my partner, my family, and my friends.

But is there a “THEME” for me nowadays? I’m not sure.

Sweetie and I just spent the evening looking over the Santa season, making note of what went well, what could be improved, our plans and goals for the next year, and getting fully caught up with each other. One thing I noticed about the scramble we had to jump into the season in November, it was easiest if I just took charge of all the paperwork and records, and we communicated constantly about everything. And we have plans for his workshops, his mentorships, his own storytelling, his Santa season–which means technically, “There is no off-season.”

I’m not sure how we’re going to accomplish the things we are interested in doing together. But we’re committed to communicating, setting priorities, and pursuing our dreams together. Still, after all these years, he’s the most fun to be around.

Beyond our joint ventures, I’m still interested in spinning, weaving, and studying textiles (and textiles history). I am still pursuing language lessons (mostly Spanish daily, but also Mandarin Chinese about weekly, and learning to read Korean Hangul on occasion). I still have lots of house organization to do, boxes to unpack, and de-cluttering to do. I’m still on a variety of social media sites and we have some goals for increased video content.

I’m not sure if there’s a theme word for me yet. Maybe I’ll have something eventually.

But right now, “There is no off-season.”

Word of the Year: 2022

I never was much for Resolutions. Didn’t like the nature of them, or the tendency for them to push the social agenda on us to continue having unrealistic goals to pursue someone else’s “ideal” for our bodies, our lives, our energy, our pursuits. Nope. Not a “resolution” kind of gal.

However, there was a time when having a “Word of the Year” or a “theme” made a LOT OF SENSE in my life. I’d stumbled into a passionate, heart-consuming pursuit of dancing and made DANCE the word of 2012. The third time I picked a word, 2014, I selected CREATE which also really resonated all the time, and one might say has become a permanent part of my life’s posture.

The rest of the words selected along the way? Maybe they made sense, maybe they were already part of my make-up, maybe they’ve just been superficial sign posts in life that didn’t always work the way I’d hoped they would. The other theme words along the way included Focus (2013), Mastery / Color (2015), Habits (2016), Goals (2017), Practice (2018), Strengths (2019), Intentional (2020), and Present (2021). I look at those words and none of them really made a huge impact the way DANCE or CREATE did in all those years.

But then again, the world around me has intruded in ways I never could have seen coming.

Today marks 661 days since I was sent home from work at the first start of the quarantine, March 11, 2020. There was a brief stint in July 2021 when we were mandated back into the office, but then Delta surged and we were sent home again by the end of the month. I’d already gone home after only two weeks and told my boss I wasn’t returning yet.

And in these past 661 days, my world has almost exclusively consisted of “one bedroom, one studio, one dining room, one living room, one kitchen, two bathrooms, and two adults.” My Sweetie has been the primary leave-the-house human: Getting groceries, running errands, exercising by taking walks in the evening. I spent the first 17 of 21 months doing almost no movement at all: Sleep, sit at the computer, sit on the couch, sit at my crafts, rinse, repeat.

After 17 months, I finally noticed the not-so-healthy trend (can you blame me? survival in quarantine also meant zero understanding of time!) and so I got a fitness tracker and started “taking walks” in the house, working towards improved health at a nice, incremental pace.

Then Santa season came upon us and my walk-through-the-house routine was paused as I did administrative support for our home-business. I can proudly tell you that I’m pleased with how “the Santa months” went. The paperwork was all caught up on 31-Dec, the candy canes are sorted and put away, the dry cleaning has been sent out, and the house is not a disaster. In fact, we managed to keep up with the house demands regularly. It was never a complete disaster.

But overall, what’s been going on in the decade since my first theme word? While Dance was a huge part of 2010-2020, when I went on hiatus it seems that I set down dance for longer than I meant to. I’m still not sure if/when I might bring it back. But that was a great decade, so I have no regrets. I came away from it with an amazing set of experiences, memories, and some stellar close friends. It might not be part of my current life, but it fed me well for a full decade.

I went from 42-years-old when I found that dance passion to facing 2022 New Year’s at age 53. Coming into my 50s has been a time to clarify what matters to me. Less expanding to add things to my world, more contracting and concentrating and focusing on the pursuits that matter most.

It also meant shaking up my understanding of the world. I cannot just ignore the injustices in the world. I cannot “just leave politics out of things,” because honestly how we treat other humans is embedded in all of our history and all of our present (and by extension, all of our future). There’s a lot I still need to learn about what’s embedded in the assumptions in society and how I can push back against injustice, how to advocate for the under-served around me.

I’m not sure if that helps me find my “word of the year” or my “theme” but I know that I’m looking at the connections I make with individuals. So I suppose I’m looking at how I interact, what assumptions I can dismantle and fix in my own world views, how I can actively try to improve the world.

And as I do so, I’ll be spinning yarn, weaving, memorizing weaving knowledge that’s been entrusted to me from my indigenous friends in Peru, and trying my best to make human connections that improve the world.

Last year I stared down the barrel of 2021 and thought all I could do is be PRESENT.

I suppose this year I know what I want to do is make CONNECTIONS with people, to let them know that they matter to me.

You matter. My life is better because you are in it. 💖

You. Yes you. You matter to me. Thank you.

Personal Year in Review 2021

2021 was not much of a year to describe. We started with political insurrection during quarantine, here in the US. We ended still in quarantine. The first day of the year was Day #296 for me in quarantine, the last day of the year is now Day #660. There was a short break in the middle, two weeks of July when I was required to be “back in the office” in person. And there were a few small trips here and there, along with the relief that was two vaccinations and one booster.

But it’s still not over.

So what do I have to look back on?

One thing I do regularly is sort my photos at the end of each month so that I can watch my artistic progress. It’s hard to remember sometimes what happened or what I accomplished, without that tangible record to enjoy.

I posted some individual highlight photos over on Facebook in Cayswann Crafts.

highlights posted on Cayswann Crafts (Facebook)

I made seven albums of just concentrated homework photos, shared with my weaving and spinning mentor.

Then a few albums focused on the classes or events over at Franquemont University (online courses and international textiles community).

There were other crafty albums from virtual events or personal pursuits or artistic distractions or ongoing homework or stash building or class preparations or skill development.

And then there were just a few special times with friends and family.

I took the time to highlight ALL MY PHOTOS in 2021, minus photos from other people for events and some obvious memes and administrative images, just to get an automated count for how many photos I took. There were 2100 images or videos to document my year. Two thousand, one hundred images. At one point I actually declared out loud, “That was THIS YEAR!??! How was THAT from THIS YEAR?!?!” (A shipment that left Peru in December 2018 arrived in April 2021. I did NOT realize that was THIS year.)

Although I often say that I “no longer know how to TIME,” when I look through my photo albums, apparently I do know how to capture memories.

While the past 660 days have been pretty horrible, my year has had a few bright spots. I am so thankful for my closest family and friends, my employment, my home, my crafty pursuits, my online friends, and my ability to feel so thankful in such a time.

Ways to Study and Learn

On twitter a friend asked, “how have you been learning your Quechua weaving methods? Regular online lessons? Traveling to workshops? It’s something I want to do in the future.

The photo that prompted the question

Start with a Master Teacher

What’s the best way to learn from a Master Teacher? Take every course offered, regardless the topic. No seriously. It didn’t matter if Abby Franquemont was teaching weaving, spinning, or fiber prep, or just giving lectures about textiles and culture–it all fed into my interests for more information.

Let’s start with the three-day weaving intensives offered by Abby Franquemont for the past several years. First, I went to Ply Away in 2017 *because* she was offering an intensive on Andean Backstrap Weaving. She was already my “spinning hero” for her book, Respect the Spindle. Any weaving she wanted to teach? I was in for the ride and I had no idea what I was really signing up for.

After the regular intensive in 2017, she offered two more titles in 2018: A one-day version and a two-day intermediate course. Unfortunately there were some folx who didn’t respect the pre-requisites and so some of the students didn’t have as good an experience as I had. And I think that’s just a shame–the arrogance of closed-minded “I already know what I’m doing” could have soured several people, but I didn’t let it sour me.

Then when Abby wasn’t teaching at Ply Away in 2019, I wrote her to ask about her 2019 travelling and teaching schedule. That’s how I found out that I could head to Prince George, BC, Canada in June 2019. Then an opening for a slot came available for the same intensive in the Boston, MA area in August 2019, so I squeezed that one into my budget and calendar. Didn’t matter if I had to sleep on a floor and eat bizarre groceries, I was going to this event! (Fortunately I ended up cementing my weaving-best-friend out of the adventure, so that was a plus.)

Abby also launched her Patreon somewhere in those years, and as my interest in weaving increased, I invested in taking private lessons online. With Abby in Peru and me in the US, having a monthly check in and status report gave me some deadlines and structure for my self-study pursuits.

Support the Teachers Your Teacher Respects

When I showed up for the Intermediate level intensive, Abby handed us each a copy of Textile Traditions of Chinchero: A Living Heritage by Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez. It’s one thing to take an introductory intensive course more than once. But where do you go next in your studies if you’re not embedded in the community and don’t have access to the primary sources? You find every book that has photos of the primary sources as well as rich narratives about all the textiles and cultural context. Not only have I been weaving my way through the examples in Textile Traditions of Chinchero: A Living Heritage (sometimes I label a specific band as from a specific page in that book), but I’m constantly reading and studying any book by Nilda.

These are not your typical “how-to” books with every single step spelled out for you, intending that you can learn just from the book. This weaving tradition comes from an experience of community and so you’re supposed to learn from your elders and weave in the courtyard with everyone else, developing your learning skills and your ability to do trial-and-error, hands-on with strings in your fingers.

Oh, and I hadn’t yet mentioned: You would typically be taught to spin first, as a very young child, before weaving. Because where else are you going to get a stash of yarn ready to weave if you haven’t been spinning it and contributing to the supplies of the community? Hmmm?

So in that vein, I also follow any and all information put out by CTTC in Peru: https://textilescusco.org – The Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco. If I’m not studying the communities and looking to the owners of this cultural wealth of knowledge, then I’m not honoring the cultural heritage that they are representing.

Memorizing the Content

This is a step that can be a stumbling block for quite a number of people. If you come from a literate society that no longer memorizes things, it’s hard to see the value in doing anything by rote anymore. That’s what we have Google for, right? IMDB? Calculators? YouTube?

Except that there’s something amazing about what happens in your learning process when you commit something to memory. You could perform a recitation of a story or a poem, paper in hand. But what if you memorized the whole thing and then got up on stage? You could read sheet music. But what happens when a Drum Corps takes the field with all their music memorized?

You could weave complicated material from a chart and stay glued to that chart. No one would know the difference looking at the finished work. But what if you started to learn to read the patterns in the strings, in the color, and then you wove? From memory?

This weaving style that I’m embedded in comes from thousands of years of community weaving and oral tradition. They could look at existing textiles or they could talk to one another, passing down the patterns. There is *not* a history of drawing up charts. So what if I tried to get to the point of weaving patterns from memory?

Do the Actual Work

The funniest thing was that I used to be slightly frustrated when Abby would ask me, “What happened when you tried weaving it?” for any of my weaving questions. Now I see how AWESOME that question is: Because tons of this learning HAS to be done in the hands, the body, and yarn.

In the stories Abby has told us, typically weaving instruction started with children as young as 5 years old. The first weaving is always the same pattern: They hand a properly warped band to the new weaving student, and everyone learns the same pattern when they start. They have many fundamentals to grasp first before they are taught to measure out a warp for a new band. And by the time you can measure warps and tie the various types of heddles, you have a responsibility to measure and prepare warps for new beginners. You have *chores* to do, to support your community.

That means part of my learning has to also come from creating and supporting new weavers. It’s part of my “teenager chores” to keep making warps for first-time weavers. It’s part of my weaving development to be there for encouraging weavers to go beyond the first lesson and try the second and third lesson. And when you’re lucky enough to have a blossoming advanced weaver trying to keep up with you personally, it means your own goals and boundaries get a great push from the camaraderie. Technically, I should have a weaving partner that I can warp with in person. And while geography and a pandemic have been keeping me apart from any student or any weaving partner, we still have found ways to connect online and spur one another on to better and more ambitious projects.

That means I just have to weave. Oh, and spin more yarn for my stash. Oh, and add twist to “student yarn” and measure warps and send them out to beginners. Oh, and address the issue of tools acquisition. I found some woodworkers who were able to recreate some of the shed sticks (kaulla) I needed, which then I made available to other weavers. I always have a tapestry needle (yauri) at the ready, and buying them in bulk means I can give one to every new weaver, too. I still need to acquire a few more tools for the more advanced work—there’s a llama bone beater (ruki) I really lust for, as well as my need for a serviceable pickup stick (tukuna). And since I cannot stake things in the ground and weave outside in the courtyard, I’ve had to create reasonable equivalents for sitting indoors on a couch and not completely blocking my Sweetie’s view of the TV. (Amazing what you can do with a luggage cart handle and a heavy Sparkletts bottle filled with over 50 lbs of loose coins.)

The TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) summary answer to the original question “how do you study?” boils down to, “In-person, online, with books for resources, and with online connections with a large community as well as a specific teacher.”

So What’s Next?

Who wants a starter warp and some time learning about Tanka Ch’oro, the pattern every weaver memorizes first? Drop me a note.

Where is all starts: Tanka Ch’oro – the foundational pattern