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I like the idea one cloth bearing opposite characteristics simultaneously. Especially appealing is when this duality extends the versatility of an item. With this theme in mind, I began to look for more cases of textile double-dealing.

I’m continually fascinated by handmade textile’s ability to link cultures and tell a story about our human history. In studying textile history, I often find surprising links and commonalities that are seemingly worlds apart. Such is the case with the iconic American bandana and the ancient Indian craft of bandhani tie-dye.

“Desert Time” was a concept I heard often before finally moving to the desert. I understand it means things just take longer here. The plants and trees grow slower. People’s lives move slower. I heard it is hard to get things happening here because…well, “desert time”.

After a rainy winter, California was in bloom this spring. A “super bloom” some called it. There were showy fields of poppies a day’s drive from LA, but it didn’t take a road trip to experience the spectacle.

It is funny how I need to re-evaluate from time to time what I consider to be a tool and why I might be taking too good a care of it. Sometimes it is downright silly. My brand new chainsaw looked pretty good all shiny and polished off the showroom floor. It looks quite a bit nicer now after a weeks worth of work, laying in next winters firewood. But cutting into the first tree I honestly had the thought, “but isn’t it going to get dirty?”

The natural dyes used for acorn and black walnut bandannas are “wildcrafted”, meaning the dyestuff is foraged from the land where it grows wild and processed from that raw source into dye. My parents have been helping me collect these offerings from the woods around our farm in West Virginia.