By Ashley Lodato
The date for the Methow Valley Spinners and Weavers Guild’s annual sale is looming (Nov 21 – 22) and the members of the guild are tying up loose ends in preparation. There are about 30 members in the guild; among them are seven who live near Twin Lakes and Wolf Creek roads (Jackie Hovis, Christina Kyte, Cathie Lewis, Janet Lindsey, Susan Snover, Katie Swanson, and Lill Wagner). With nearly 200 years of weaving experience among them, these weavers will be offering beautiful hand-woven gifts such as towels, blankets, rugs and scarves at the sale, which takes place at 137 Old Twisp Hwy. Put a different spin on your Christmas giving with the gift of fiber arts.
Although many of the weavers have decades of experience, none can top the tenure of Christina Kyte, who has been wielding the warp and the weft for 55 years. Christina, who was raised in Sweden, started weaving when she was just a teen. She raised her own sheep, grew and processed her own flax, and spun the flax into linen. Another of the weavers, Lill Wagner, is also Scandinavian, hailing from Denmark. “The rest of us,” says weaver Susan Snover, “are just plain American.”
It was characters from fiction, not ghosts and ballerinas, who roamed the halls of Methow Valley Elementary on Halloween. Participation in the school’s “literary parade” required only imagination, a favorite book, and a costume. Each class selected a book to represent and then students dressed up as characters from those books, filling the halls with the twin joys of literature and impersonation.
Place the word “mob” at the end of any event name and you’re sure to draw a crowd, as evidenced by Saturday’s “seed mob,” organized by the Methow Conservancy and headed up by Methow Natives’ plant and seed guru Rob Crandall. More than 100 people — the largest volunteer turnout in the Conservancy’s 18-year history! — showed up to help disperse seed in the middle and lower Methow Valley to mitigate damage caused by the summer’s wildfires. Volunteers met at Mack Lloyd Park in Winthrop and split into five groups before traveling to areas like Texas Creek, Upper Beaver Creek, and Rising Eagle and Signal Hill roads to scatter and rake native grass seed on fire lines and power lines.
Although most burned areas will recover naturally due to seeds in the soil and deep-rooted plants, areas that were disturbed are the most susceptible to invasive plants; this pre-emptive strike will allow native grasses to establish themselves before the weeds have time to begin their assault.
