The Birth Collection was begun in 2018, and the final piece finally came off of the loom in 2021.
The Birth Story series of mini tapestries debuted this month (January 2023) at my First Friday show and will be in the Imbolc shop update, so I thought that now is the perfect time to share about this collection
Birth is a threshold. Giving birth, the body becomes a portal, inviting life from one side of the veil into the other. Baby moves from darkness of womb like a seed in soil into the light of this world. We become the doorway for spirit. There is a special energy that emerges when we stand between two worlds. It is an energy that we share with sprouting plants, with hatching eggs, with algae blooms and flower buds, with animal mamas everywhere.
We can prepare. We can dream. We can plan. And yet when the birth field opens around us, we can only surrender to the process. Sometimes it exactly as we imagined, and sometimes it is very very different. Whether a surgical birth or a vaginal one, a natural birth or a medically assisted one; we cannot control the energy of birth. We can harness ourselves to it, we can be the vessel for it, we can fight it, we can ride it, but we cannot control it. The body opens and baby crosses the threshold. It is a sacred thing this opening, a thing of blood and bone and flesh and pain and breath and sometimes excrement too, that brings a sweet new unfolding into the world.
I did much of the prep work for this warp -including spinning the supplemental yarn for Unfolding - in my last trimester of pregnancy, at the same time as I was doing my own personal spiritual preparations for birth, calling in my guides and allies and working with my ancestral spirits to provide a safe and protected birth space for my daughter and an easy labor for myself. The talisman shown in some of the photos below features the goddess Frigg and was a focal point for much of my personal work.
The warp is of longstaple cotton/hemp from Saltwater Rose Threads and is dyed in soft earth tones and florals.
Birth: Unfolding
This piece is named Unfolding and is a meditation on the journey of labor. There are 10 supplementary warp threads of the handspun rose viscose. One tail (and its fringe) starts with three supplements and the other seven are added in staggered along the length of the wrap so that the opposite tail (and its fringe) have 10 supplements. This is meant to represent dilation. 3 cm dilation is (very broadly speaking) a benchmark for when you may admitted to hospital or when a midwife will tell you to head to the birth center. It (again very broadly speaking) marks the entrance into the active phase of labor. 10 cm, of course, is full dilation.
The weft is rose viscose from Saltwater Rose Threads and I dyed it in shades of soft pinks and taupes. The dilation symbology is also embedded in the weft. I dyed ten concentric circles into the blank canvas of the weft, along with three runes: laguz for the waves of labor, flowing birth, and amniotic fluid; berkana for birth and new life and the goddess tree, and jera for fruitful harvest and the childbearing year. I use the symbology of runes in my fiber practice as a way of (re)connecting to the spiritual paths of my ancestors.
The handspun supplementary yarn is made of rose viscose which I dyed in the same floral tones as appear in the warp. I spun it and then chain plied it which allows for a color grad along its length (in this instance it is multiple smaller color grads throughout the skein). This means that the supplementary warp threads change color along the length of the warp and the weft inlays do likewise, fading through colors in a single inlay.
There are handspun weft inlays throughout the piece. For the most part, they are worked in themes of three and ten. Three for the three phases of labor, the three aspects of the goddess, the three visible phases of the moon, the triad of baby-mother-grandmother (for the baby is present in the uterus of the fetal mother in the womb of the grandmother). Ten again for the 10 cm dilation and for the way that ten signifies completion and change in our decimal number system.
Others are meandering inlays that trace different paths with single or multiple inlays going at once that felt very much like storytelling as I did them.
Near one tail, there is a twined inlay of the Berkana rune (the same as is dyed into the weft.) Berkana is an ancient word for the birch tree, and the runes symbolically represents growth and rebirth. It is a rune of new beginnings. It indicates good news, birth, fertility and times of family rejoicing.
Birth: Surrender
Birth Surrender was woven as a semi custom, so its design was in collaboration with the customer to whom the wrap went home. These collaborations are deeply personal to the person for whom I am working and involves intimate and often private visual symbology.
This piece features a hand dyed weft of silk/nettle and a double heart inlay on one tail that I spun from hand dyed superwash targhee.
Birth Healing
Birth Healing was woven as a semi custom, so its design was in collaboration with the customer to whom the wrap went home. These collaborations are deeply personal to the person for whom I am working and involves intimate and often private visual symbology.
This piece was an incredible honor to work on. It involves inlays and weft yarn changes with color blocking patterned intuitively and based on numerical symbology. It includes inlays of mohair locks and a variety of handspun and commercial yarns, hemstitching and faux lace inlays, and a large ogham inlay. I’m utterly in love with this piece and deeply grateful for the chance to create it.
Birth Story
This mixed media wall art piece has a blog post all of its own: check it out!
Birth Stories Series
The Birth Stories mini tapestry series that debuted at Just the Tips during my January 2022 First Friday exhibition grew directly out of this collection. This is an ongoing series that you are sure to hear more about in future! Stay tuned.
