My second sack! The Tree Sack. Ursula reminded me of the old riddle, Kits, Cats, Sacks and Wives, which now keeps going through my head (As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, each wife had seven sacks, each sack had seven cats, each cat had seven kits.....Kits, cats, sacks and wives, how many were going to St. Ives? One). My riddle is how many sacks would a weaver weave, if a weaver would weave sacks?
The pink silk rag and perle cotton weave was going to be a pair of skinny pink cats, when I wove it. That is, until I cut it into 3 strips, patched and pieced them together into one long strip, and finally sewed Doni's bag. The sewing was a snap, and I made mine deep, so that it would safely hold some produce (tomatoes?) from the farmers' market, and maybe even survive a bike ride home, with no spills, the bag over my shoulder. I'll have to put it to that test. I do believe this bag would hold a calm cat.
We went to Mesaba Park's 80th reunion & Juhannus (midsummer) celebration in northern Minnesota. Founded by Finnish progressive socialists in 1929, my mom used to go to summer camp here. She brought us out to Mesaba Park when we were kids, too. I remember swimming in our underpants in this lake, when we forgot our swimming suits. The buildings are mostly gone, or very dilapidated now. We rowed across to the place where the summer camp bunk house used to be, and where she remembered the best swimming beach. The swimming place was all reeds and water lilies, now, and the bunkhouse was torn down in the woods. I remember looking in the windows of it once, before they tore it down. My mother showed us her bunk, where she had drawn a perfect Mickey Mouse in pencil on the bed post. We found what used to be the cook shack, where her Aunt Lempi had stayed and cooked for the campers. We watched a swimming raft with four little kids diving and jumping off, as the sun was setting, while the anchored raft spun slowly in concentric rippling rings in the perfect little lake. I fell for a black and white dog with a crooked ear. Her name was Beatrice. We listened to talks about the political history of the park, and discovered why we are dyed in the wool progressive socialists. Communists? Probably. Oh, such a perfect day, and I'm glad I spent it with you. (Lou Reed)
This is a sauna towel. I've been weaving linen in these long days just before Midsummer. Linen has a gleam that makes it wonderful to look at. If there is anything mysterious about weaving to me, it is the strange compulsion I have to touch the cloth, and watch it grow, thread by thread in the loom, to watch it change when it is cut off, to knot the fringes, pulling against the weight of a book, to hold down the raw, new weave. Washed and dried the weave pulls in, almost 3 inches from side to side, and 4 inches from top to bottom. The fringes are trimmed, and the trims are almost too pretty to throw away. The touch of the cloth becomes soft, and full. The light shines though it, and across the folds, in a way that fascinates my eye. 
