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PODCAST

The Long Thread Podcast

Long Thread Media

The artists and artisans of the fiber world come to you in The Long Thread Podcast. Each episode features interviews with your favorite spinners, weavers, needleworkers, and fiber artists from across the globe. Get the inspiration, practical advice, and personal stories of experts as we follow the long thread.

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All Episodes

1:11:25

John Marshall, Katazome Artist

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2022/02/04

Working in the studio of a Japanese dollmaker, seventeen-year-old John Marshall learned skills for every step of the process from making glass eyes to shaping the body to creating intricately designed clothing. He developed a love for natural dyes on natural fibers, especially katazome (a paste-resist technique using stencils), as he studied dyeing and garment design for five years. Over five decades, his work in Japanese fiber techniques has followed two paths: creating traditionally inspired

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54:02

Karen Selk, Wild Silk Seeker

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2022/01/21

You may think of silk as just slick and shiny. (There's a reason we say "as smooth as silk.") But as she chased the thread of silk across Asia and through villages of Assam, Karen Selk discovered that it can be much more: It can be gold, copper, cream, and white. It can be slick or toothy, hardy or delicate. Most of all, it can be a delight for fiber artists and a way of life for men and women whose livelihood depends on worms, cocoons, and moths. Besides what most people imagine what they think of

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51:06

Eileen Lee: From Quilts to Jeans to Painted Warps

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/11/28

A career professional at Levi Strauss & Company, Eileen Lee learned about dyeing, weaving, and sewing on an international scale: giant factories full of loud looms weaving 2/2 twill, pattern pieces cut out of four-foot-high stacks of cloth, and no possibility of adding a tuck here or a dart there without retooling. During her years in the industry, Eileen saw major shifts in the market for the company's signature product, as their target customer began to look elsewhere and their manufacturing

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49:33

Dr. Susan Kay-Williams, Royal School of Needlework

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/11/12

Part of the Royal School of Needlework's collection is in tatters . . . by design. The collection includes some fine examples of stitching techniques, but what makes the archive more interesting are the pieces where fraying has revealed something about the stitching of a particular piece. All of the pieces support the school's mission: to preserve traditional needlework techniques and educate students around the world in stitching well. Whether to future needlework tutors, undergraduates, or

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38:14

Cassie Dickson, Coverlet Weaver & Sericulturist

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/10/30

Whether it's growing and processing fiber or embroidering with handspun, hand-dyed linen thread, Cassie has always looked at traditional textiles and said, "I have to learn to do that." She's learned to split cane and weave baskets in the Cherokee style, ret flax in dew, and weave an overshot coverlet in two weeks. Having learned the old skills, she gladly teaches anyone who wants to know, just as fiber "grandmothers" did for her. The preservation of old textile skills runs deep in the Southeast

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57:38

Laurann Gilbertson, Chief Curator, Vesterheim

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/10/16

The Vesterheim has 80 spinning wheels. Laurann Gilbertson says that they didn't really mean to have so many, but it seems that every woman who emigrated from Norway in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century came prepared to make the cloth she needed to run her household: the wool and linen krokbragd coverlets, linens for wearing and bedding, carefully embellished folk costume, and all the other textiles that a woman in a new country and generations after her would need to live comfortably

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53:38

Deborah Robson, Wool Promoter

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/10/01

Deborah Robson is known to, even revered by, a generation of handspinners as the author of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook (https://www.storey.com/books/the-fleece-fiber-sourcebook/#) with Carol Ekarius. She has a distinguished track record as an editor—Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot, Spin Off magazine, and books including the massive Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning. Deborah has devoted herself to learning and teaching about the heritage of rare-breed sheep and has worked with the Livestock

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1:03:04

Anita Luvera Mayer, Weaver of Creative Coverings

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/09/03

When she married her husband, "polyester kid" Anita Luvera Mayer received an extraordinary wedding gift from her mother-in-law: a loom and weaving lessons. A weaving store owner, Marcelle Mayer gave the same gift to each of her daughters-in-law. The others didn't take to it, but for Anita it was the beginning of a whole new life. Although she preferred making simple cloth to complex patterns, weaving opened the doors to meeting other fiber artists, teaching across North America, and learning to make

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31:26

Kenya Miles, Natural Dye Farmer & Artist

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/08/20

Kenya Miles balances farming, teaching, community-building, and her own artwork. Besides cultivating madder, indigo, and other botanical colors, she grows awareness of natural dyes, serving as an artist-in-residence at Maryland Institute College of Art and teaching workshops to aspiring dyers and farmers alike. Despite full days farming and teaching, she launched the ambitious Blue Light Junction in 2020 as a natural dye studio, alternative color lab, retail space, dye garden, and educational

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49:21

Nilda Callanaupa Alvarez, Andean Weaver

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/08/06

Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez first organized an informal project in the 1970s with weaver friends in Chinchero, an Andean village near Cusco, Peru. As the traditional skills and distinctive styles of indigenous weavers declined in her village and others like it, the project grew into the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco. CTTC organizes groups of elder, adult, and young weavers to develop and pass on their skills; the organization also has a marketplace of handmade products on their website and

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59:59

Amy D. McKnight, Creative Weaver, Simple Looms

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/07/23

Amy D. McKnight weaves not only doubleweave but point twill on a rigid-heddle loom, prefers a hybrid method of direct and indirect warping for long but efficient warps, and uses weaving software (usually a tool for 4+ shaft weaving) to plan her projects. It's not just pushing a simple loom to do more complex weaving, it's also bringing a love of weaving to completely new audiences. She created a plan for the Common Threads Loom, a versatile pin loom/potholder loom/diagonal-weaving loom that anyone

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1:02:06

Mathew Gnagy, Costumer, Designer, Needleworker

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/07/09

Mathew Gnagy has started to bring 16th-century to the streets. Wearing a hand-stitched, exquisitely tailored suit, whether inspired or patterned directly from historical sources, brings him not only the pride of a skilled maker and the comfort of perfectly fitting clothes but also a feeling of being "ten feet tall"—the satisfaction of looking terrific. Learning to knit, sew, spin, and practice a variety of crafts as a child, and growing up in a family of artists and artisans, he is enthusiastic

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53:25

Susan Druding, Teacher, Shop Owner, Activist

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/06/04

Susan Druding was a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley when she first learned to spin and weave. In the Bay Area of the 1960s, fiber interest and social tensions both ran high. Without a business plan but with a lease on a small storefront, Susan and a business partner opened Straw Into Gold, a store devoted mostly to spinning and dyeing. Spinning legend Bette Hochberg, author of Handspinner's Handbook and Spin Span Spun, was a regular, and legendary spinning wheel maker

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35:08

Penelope Hemingway, Needlework Historian

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/05/21

In addition to Viking and Anglo-Saxon reenactment, which drew Penelope Hemingway to learn handspinning and other textile crafts, she enjoys uncovering what household items, clothing, and other items of daily life can reveal about the people who used them. Exploring these items, known as "material culture," has led her in the footsteps of needleworkers from centuries ago, from the knitting needles used by the Brontë sisters to some of the last commercially handknitted gloves from the Yorkshire

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38:38

Heavenly Bresser, Spinning Wheel Magnet

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/05/07

People used to ask Heavenly Bresser why she had 11 spinning wheels. Not any more. (For one thing, she now has 29—and counting—wheels.) Each one has earned its place based on historical significance, adaptation for a particular technique, or scarcity. But don't imagine that she has an expensive hoard gathering dust. Heavenly turns down as many wheels as she acquires, finds them at excellent prices, and restores them to working order. Along the way she's learned her way around textile history, wheel

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37:21

Deb Menz, Color Girl

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/04/23

Teacher and artist Deb Menz made herself comfortable in a subject that many fiber artists shy away from. Students arrive in her classes with dispiriting stories of choosing colors that are ugly or blah, and classes on color theory may not have made them any more comfortable. But by balancing basic understanding of color concepts with permission to play, she helps her students learn that just looking and appreciating can unlock their creativity.

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36:15

Rebecca Mezoff, Tapestry Weaver

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/04/09

Rebecca Mezoff became a tapestry weaver as an adult after a career in occupational therapy, finding that it suited her artistically and let her use other skills she loved, such as teaching, dyeing, and spinning. She weaves very large pieces in her studio and very small pieces in outdoor spaces that she explores with a small handheld loom. Her popular online classes teach skills from beginning tapestry to design.

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53:51

Linda Cortright, Wild Fibers

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/03/26

In 2004, Linda Cortright began publishing Wild Fibers, a magazine that tells the stories of natural fibers from seemingly ordinary (mohair) to jaw-droppingly astonishing (seal wool). Linda’s magazine reports stories from remote, sometimes difficult locations (Antarctica and Afghanistan, just to name a few). Grounded by the pandemic, Linda found time for a bigger project: The Eye of Fiber, a new photo book that explores animal fibers on 6 continents.

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50:36

Franklin Habit: Author, Illustrator, Teacher

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/03/12

Franklin Habit is often mobbed at fiber events, by fans of his own work or of his scandalous Romney, Dolores Van Hoofen. For this episode, we were lucky to find him in a quieter spot: his home studio, surrounded by his treasured collection of books and antique dollhouse. In this episode, he explains his love of sewing, weaving, spinning, and other forms of needlework, some learned at his grandmother’s knee in Pennsylvania coal country. He has a particular love for vintage needle arts, preserving

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1:03:34

Maggie Casey & Judy Steinkoenig, Yarn Store Owners

The Long Thread Podcast ·

2021/02/26

Maggie Casey and Judy Steinkoenig are well known as teachers and writers. Almost every day for 28 years, you would have found one or both of them behind the counter or helping customers at their store, Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins in Boulder, Colorado. The retail store closed in early 2020, and as they plan their next projects, they sat down to tell us about the behind-the-scenes truths of owning a yarn store. Is it as delightful or as difficult as people might imagine? What’s the strangest request

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131 results

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