Grey: A Love Story in Three Parts

Ben and Jess on their wedding day

Part 1:

This month’s towels are grey. Very grey. I have a complicated relationship with grey. OK…I don’t like grey. I don’t understand grey. I never work with grey…it’s not intentional, it just doesn’t seem to happen. And then I opened a yarn store and wonderful weavers came along and started ordering yarn in gorgeous color combinations. Ones that included greys. Greys mixed with all sorts of things that I had just never considered. So I found myself packing up your orders and starting to feel a twinge of jealousy for all of you who find comfort in grey, who seem to know just the right thing to do with it.

Part 2:

My nephew got married last year. He went off with his girlfriend, now wife, to the JP, got married, and then made an announcement on facebook. I am so happy for them. When I found out, I sent a message of congratulations, and then at the end, “cash or gift?” They said they would think about it and a month later, the message:

“We thought of something! I just saw your new Instagram & was wondering if some beautiful woven napkins or kitchen cloths are a possibility for a wedding gift??”

As a weaver, my happy place is when my loved ones ask me for handwovens. Yes, yes, yes, I responded….and then they came and picked out colors. It was during that time when some people were able to get vaccinated and others weren’t and they were my first vaccinated visitors. I asked them to pick out some colors and they both came up with beautiful combinations, ones that were totally out of my comfort zone. Those same colors that keep showing up in my incoming orders. Grey.

Part 3:

If you have ever participated in color explorations with me, you know that my mantra is…work with what makes you uncomfortable. Choose the color that you think would be the ugliest thing imaginable through your warp and sample it to see what it does.

I do this a lot when I put a new warp on the loom. Sample, sample, sample. But it was a leap of faith to make a commitment to not just one warp, but project kits that I will send out to hundreds of weavers, featuring a color that makes me uncomfortable. I took that leap, because so many of you can’t be completely wrong. And guess what? (Maybe you knew this all along, but I had to get there on my own.) I LOVE IT!!

I sampled nine different weft colors and every one of them was lovely. I could have just kept going. Some colors worked better than others, and I chose ones for the kits that sang to me, and that felt cohesive together.

And now I can admit it. I have made friends with grey. In fact, I think that love is in the air!