Something Else I Do In My Spare Time

Many years ago I used to go to the Candy Dance in Genoa, Nevada.
http://www.genoanevada.org/thecandydancestory.htm.
That was before I became a vendor. One of the first years my daughter and I went I stopped by a booth and could not believe my eyes. There were row after row of "corn dollies" hanging on hooks. They were all made from wheat. As I walked through the booth I was fascinated by the wheat dolls, wall hangings, and baskets. I found one wall hanging, a house blessing, that I could not live without. I asked my dear daughter if she would like one for her room. After looking around she told me "no." So I bought my wheat weaving and brought it home and hung it on the wall. After a week or so it disappeared and I found it hanging in my daughter's room, "to bless it" she said. It hung there for years. The next year while at the Candy Dance I spent a whole day looking for the vendor, they never came back. Was I the only one that loved this ancient art form of honoring Mother Earth and all the goodness she brings?

Fast forward a few years to my pottery days. While in the library reading pottery books I stumbled on a........yup you guessed it, a Wheat Weaving book. I brought the book home, followed some of the links to online sites and enjoyed my journey into the wheat world. I ordered a kit from one of the sites, made my house blessing and being the craft addicted personality type, I ordered 50 pounds of wheat from North Dakota.

I still have a little wheat. I have made many weavings, large and small. There is something about working with your hands that I just love. The repetition of the stitches, the cat batting the wheat pod as I work. I love it.

This is my latest creation. I have her for sale at Three Rooms Gallery-Felix Pottery. I am going to list her on Etsy and Artfire, too.



She is Earth Mother. Many ancient wheat woven designs were born from a belief in an Earth Mother and in this design the elements of primitive African and Indo-European Earth Mother figures are combined.

For more information on Wheat Weaving see these sites.

http://www.nawwstraw.org/
http://www.illinoiswheatweavers.org/membership.html
http://www.best-spinning-weaving.com/1/wheat-weaving.html

and of course the book I found.
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Wheat-Weaving-Straw-Craft/dp/157990078X